Tweet
NPR - National Public Radio
April 5 2014
'Hotel Rwanda' Manager: We've Failed To Learn From History
by NPR Staff
Paul Rusesabagina is a figure from history -- a terrible history.
He was the manager of the Diplomat Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, 20 years
ago, when the genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi people began. More than
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus would be killed in just three
months.
While most of the world took no action to stop the killing,
Rusesabagina sheltered more than 1,000 people inside his hotel. He
gave them water from the pool so they wouldn't die from dehydration,
smuggled in food so they wouldn't starve, and held off the militia who
came to the hotel by bribing them with alcohol and cigars.
His story was turned into an award-winning movie in 2004, Hotel
Rwanda, starring Don Cheadle as Rusesabagina.
Today, Rusesabagina lives in San Antonio, Texas. He's the founder of
the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, which advocates for human
rights internationally.
Rusesabagina tells NPR's Scott Simon that he no longer lives in Rwanda
because after speaking out against people doing evil, he became a
target of that evil. "Having no other choice, I just fled the
country," he says.
Interview Highlights
On what drives people to commit genocide
There are many reasons why people kill each other. One of those
reasons is, of course, bad leadership. When leaders teach the people
they lead to kill others, then people go ahead and do what their
leaders tell them. A second reason is because people are poor and are
not educated well enough. They always, as I said, tend to trust their
leaders.
The worst reason, this is impunity. In Rwanda, for instance ... since
I was a young kid, late '50s, early '60s, we saw people killing their
neighbors and getting their cars, getting their properties -- houses,
plantations and so on. Until just recently, in the late '90s,
immediately after the genocide, those people were still living in
houses they never built, they were still living in plantations which
were never theirs, with the cattle which never belonged to them.
On his anger at the Western world for not doing more to stop the genocide
History always keeps repeating itself. We saw this happening with the
Armenians, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust. I remember in 1994, I
was very angry with ... everybody in the international community,
because when people were being butchered, they were there, and they
never did anything.
On recent violence in Syria, Darfur and the Central African Republic
This recalls exactly what we were going through in 1994. This recalls
what also has been going on in the Congo, on our own watch. That
recalls me that history repeats itself, and does not teach human
beings any lessons.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/05/299338156/hotel-rwanda-manager-weve-failed-to-learn-from-history
April 5 2014
'Hotel Rwanda' Manager: We've Failed To Learn From History
by NPR Staff
Paul Rusesabagina is a figure from history -- a terrible history.
He was the manager of the Diplomat Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda, 20 years
ago, when the genocide of Rwanda's Tutsi people began. More than
800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus would be killed in just three
months.
While most of the world took no action to stop the killing,
Rusesabagina sheltered more than 1,000 people inside his hotel. He
gave them water from the pool so they wouldn't die from dehydration,
smuggled in food so they wouldn't starve, and held off the militia who
came to the hotel by bribing them with alcohol and cigars.
His story was turned into an award-winning movie in 2004, Hotel
Rwanda, starring Don Cheadle as Rusesabagina.
Today, Rusesabagina lives in San Antonio, Texas. He's the founder of
the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, which advocates for human
rights internationally.
Rusesabagina tells NPR's Scott Simon that he no longer lives in Rwanda
because after speaking out against people doing evil, he became a
target of that evil. "Having no other choice, I just fled the
country," he says.
Interview Highlights
On what drives people to commit genocide
There are many reasons why people kill each other. One of those
reasons is, of course, bad leadership. When leaders teach the people
they lead to kill others, then people go ahead and do what their
leaders tell them. A second reason is because people are poor and are
not educated well enough. They always, as I said, tend to trust their
leaders.
The worst reason, this is impunity. In Rwanda, for instance ... since
I was a young kid, late '50s, early '60s, we saw people killing their
neighbors and getting their cars, getting their properties -- houses,
plantations and so on. Until just recently, in the late '90s,
immediately after the genocide, those people were still living in
houses they never built, they were still living in plantations which
were never theirs, with the cattle which never belonged to them.
On his anger at the Western world for not doing more to stop the genocide
History always keeps repeating itself. We saw this happening with the
Armenians, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust. I remember in 1994, I
was very angry with ... everybody in the international community,
because when people were being butchered, they were there, and they
never did anything.
On recent violence in Syria, Darfur and the Central African Republic
This recalls exactly what we were going through in 1994. This recalls
what also has been going on in the Congo, on our own watch. That
recalls me that history repeats itself, and does not teach human
beings any lessons.
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/05/299338156/hotel-rwanda-manager-weve-failed-to-learn-from-history