Hollywood Debunked: What Really Happened Inside the Hotel Rwanda
By Georgianne Nienaber
opednews.com
Life Arts 3/28/2014 at 17:08:28
"For those who have learned of this story only through the famous
movie Hotel Rwanda, the story of Edouard Kayihura is a privileged
opportunity to put reality to the Hollywood dramatization."
-- Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire (Retired) Force Commander of the
United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994
Book Cover
(image by BenBella Books)
April 7 will mark the 20th anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda. If
Americans recall this event at all, it will be visualized through the
opaque glass of Hotel Rwanda -- a movie that created a star out of
whole cloth in the person of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina, played
by Don Cheadle. But was Rusesabagina the "hero" filmmaker Terry George
immortalized on film in the aftermath of the slaughter of over one
million Tutsis and moderate Hutus? Or was Rusesabagina collaborating
with the enemy?
Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story... and Why It Matters Today
revisits the terrible days of April 1994 through the testimonies of
those who took refuge in the once up-scale hotel that was reduced to a
refugee camp where the only water came from the chlorinated swimming
pool. Author Edouard Kayihura, with co-writer Kerry Zukus, capably
expose the lies offered by Hollywood.
Hollywood has done this before. Generation X believes that Oliver
Stone's conspiracy film JFK is fact rather than creative speculation,
and Gorillas in the Mist did tremendous damage to the reputation of
Dian Fossey, inventing events that never occurred. Hollywood
myth-making sells tickets, but does irreparable damage to the
historical record.
Kayihura's book about the events inside the real Hotel Rwanda is a
critical contribution to history. The memoir is riveting, especially
his detailed account of how he managed to avoid gendarmes and lie his
way through roadblocks by saying he lost the identity card that would
identify him as Tutsi. Had he been identified, he would have been
marked for death and his body added to those stacked like cordwood
alongside roads and in ditches.
I would be shot where I stood, for no one, no organized entity, was
standing in the way of public killings. This was now an urban combat
zone with a government in total chaos, being led only by an ideology
of mass murder.
But it is Kayihura's account of the testimonies of hotel survivors and
his own recollections that serve as a forensic blueprint for truth.
The hero hotel manager is exposed as a Hutu extremist and bully who
stooped to stealing money from the refugees, charging them for free
food offered by humanitarian organizations, cutting phone lines and
threatening to turn over anyone who defied him to the genocidaires.
The movie needed a hero, but why choose the duplicitous, cowardly
Rusesabagina? General Romeo Dallaire (played by Nick Nolte) was
reduced to a composite figure named "General Oliver." Audiences have
been completely duped, say the real survivors.
According to the narrative, screenwriter and Harvard alum Keir Pearson
told Harvard Magazine in 2005 that a friend told him about
Rusesabagina, whom he had heard about while living in Tanzania in
1999. At that time, Philip Gourevitch's book, We Wish to Inform You
That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families, hit the bestseller
lists. It included an interview with Rusesabagina, and screenwriter
Pearson was fortuitously handed a "story" on a silver platter. But
screenwriters are not journalists. By the time Pearson found
Rusesabagina, the former hotel manager was working as a taxi driver in
Brussels.
Since then Rusesabagina has been compared to Oskar Schindler and
Gandhi, commands high fees as a speaker, and has established a
foundation. He also owns homes in several countries, including one in
the United States in Texas.
Inside the Hotel Rwanda exposes Rusesabagina as a carnival barker
shouting his own delusional accomplishments, and reveals a sinister
genocide denier who is paid substantially for saying the genocide
never took place. He is now the president of a Rwandan opposition
party, PDR-Ihumure. According to the testimony in this book,
Rusesabagina has established a non-profit, American-based foundation,
but not one dime has made it to orphans in Rwanda.
Press reports corroborate the author's claims that foundation
donations are possibly redirected to arming the FDLR anti-Tutsi rebel
group operating in eastern Congo and that Rusesabagina was arrested
and questioned on these charges in Brussels in 2011.
Inside the Hotel Rwanda is a riveting account of the tenacity of
survivors in the face of evil. If you want an account of how love can
truly conquer all, read this book.
Learn how the refugees shared last scraps of food and hid cookies
found in the hotel storerooms. Rusesabagina charged them exorbitant
prices for scraps even after hotel management in Brussels sent a fax
demanding that all food was free to the over 1,000 trapped in the
no-man's land between life and death.
Get angry over the beer and wine that Rusesabagina shared openly with
murderous genocidaires who visited with him regularly in full view of
the refugees who were drinking poisonous swimming pool water out of
garbage pails.
Georgianne Nienaber is an investigative environmental and political
writer. She lives in rural northern Minnesota, New Orleans and South
Florida. Her articles have appeared in The Society of Professional
Journalists' Online
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