URGENT. PLEASE PRAY & HELP IF YOU CAN. Hotel Rwanda hero Paul Rusesabagina has been kidnapped & imprisoned by the brutal dictatorship in Rwanda.
He was speaking in Dubai when we believe his flight back to Europe or the USA was diverted to Kigali where he was arrested & is assuredly being tortured. Information is sketchy right now as to how he was apprehended & transported.
His children called me this morning. We are urgently working to spread the news and shine a light on the Rwandan government to let them know THE WORLD IS WATCHING.
Both the Washington Post & CNN have just picked up the story.
Thank you Kitty Kurth in Chicago for the press release and your hard work contacting the media.
Our dear friend Ambassador Scott DeLisi is communicating with the state department.
*** (Update from Scott: I have been in touch with the Bureau of African Affairs in the Sate Department. I highlighted the CNN story as well as our call. The Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary will brief the Assistant Secretary and her colleague responsible for Rwanda and the region.)
I, myself, am seeking to contact President Bush. Am expecting a call from a former member of his cabinet.
***(Update: I just spoke with the cabinet member. She is contacting President Bush’s Chief of Staff in our behalf. I kindly requested a public statement from the former President demanding the humane treatment of Paul Rusesabagina while in Rwandan custody.)
**Does anyone have contacts within Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International?
***(Update: Kitty Kurth has connected with Human Rights Watch.
Additionally, with the help of a former US Ambassador in Illinois, she is organizing an official letter to the Rwandan government signed by former U.S. Ambassadors & other officials.)
Paul Rusesabagina is the real-life hero of the Oscar-winning film Hotel Rwanda. He saved over 1200 lives during the worst genocide since the Holocaust. President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his courage.
Paul’s wife Taciana is my Goddaughter. They have homes in both San Antonio and Belgium.
Dearest God in Heaven, please protect this precious man from harm.
As his son Tresor said to me this morning, “there is no more dangerous place in the world for Paul than in a prison in Rwanda”…where torture & killings are the norm.
Paul spoke often over these past years of the danger he was in. There were many attempts on his life in Belgium. They bought a house in San Antonio to be nearer to us. We all felt he was much safer in America.
He is a warrior for peace & justice, selflessly exposing atrocities around the world and in his own home country Rwanda.
“President” Kagame of Rwanda repeatedly assassinates his opponents & has sought for years to intimidate & kill Paul.
God, please don’t let him succeed this time.