Hotel Rwanda hero sparks outrage

TO MUCH of the outside world Paul Rusesabagina is a hero who saved 1,200 people from genocide in events depicted in the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda.

But as the genocide’s 13th anniversary approaches in Rwanda, a bitter row has erupted between Mr Rusesabagina and his critics, including President Paul Kagame, who say he is profiting from the victims’ misery and rewriting Rwanda’s history for his own gain.

Some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days from April 6, 1994.

Soldiers of the then Hutu- led government and ethnic militia allies orchestrated the genocide in which victims were hacked to death, burned alive or shot.

The 2004 film depicts Mr Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who used his connections with the Hutu elite to protect Tutsis fleeing militiamen. He received the United States’ highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, for heroism during this time.

But back home, he has sparked outrage with warnings of another genocide, this time by Tutsis against Hutus, claiming that war crimes by Tutsis during the conflict were overlooked by biased courts.

“Rusesabagina is no Schindler,” Job Jabiro wrote in Rwanda’s New Times daily in February. “Publicity hound, genocide revisionist, promoter of ethnic hate speech... shamelessly banking on the genocide and endangering the survivors.”

Rusesabagina, who lives in Belgium with his family and tours Western countries lecturing, says critics are waging a campaign against him for airing what he calls uncomfortable truths.