While protecting 1,268 Rwandans from the 1994 genocide that killed over 800,000, hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina promised himself he would tell the world what had happened in Rwanda. He made good on that promise Thursday night, delivering a speech to an overflowing crowd in Alumni Hall.
Rusesabagina's gallant story is portrayed in the film "Hotel Rwanda," starring Don Cheadle as the heroic hotelier. The movie, screened in front of an estimated 1,800 people at the Hopkins Center Wednesday night, has garnered three Oscar nominations, including a best actor nomination for Cheadle.
Rusesabagina assessed the accuracy of the film in an interview with The Dartmouth, calling it "about 90 percent the truth." He noted that the film excluded some of the more grotesque aspects of genocide, a reality he called "much tougher than what you see in the movie."
Rusesabagina described to the audience how the Hutu militia told him to kill 26 people he was transporting to safety at his hotel. Instead of complying, he bartered.
"After two hours of negotiating," Rusesabagina said, "they took us to the hotel and they taught me one of the best lessons I have ever learned in my life: how to deal with the devil."
Members of the audience, some visibly moved, listened to Rusesabagina recall finding his wife, who accompanied him to Dartmouth, lying in a pool of blood. In another portion of his speech, he described Hutu soldiers drinking beers and sitting on piles of human bodies they were using as roadblocks.
"I learned that a human being can be wild -- and much more wild than animals in the jungles," he said.
Rusesabagina began his speech by briefing the audience on Rwandan history. The distinction between Hutus and Tutsis was a creation of Belgian colonialism, he said. In April 1994, the tension between the two groups, who share a common culture and language, came to a tipping point. Hutu extremists blamed the assassination of the Rwandan president, a Hutu, on Tutsis.
Hutu militia took to the streets and, before the day was over, began using machetes to mass-murder Tutsis. Egged on by radio stations spewing propaganda, the Hutu militia continued their massacre for 100 days, killing more than 800,000 Rwandans.
After the genocide, international leaders expressed regret at not intervening in the crisis. In 1998, President Clinton visited Rwanda and apologized for not acting.
The humble hotel manager minced no words in drawing a parallel between the 1994 genocide and the current crisis in Sudan, a country he visited recently.
"It is exactly what was going on in Rwanda," he said, interjecting his otherwise polite tone with vehement calls for action. "To be brief, ladies and gentlemen, what happened in Rwanda is still happening elsewhere in the world."
In his interview, Rusesabagina revealed that he had met with President Bush and discussed the current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan, where an estimated 200,000 people have died and nearly 2 million have been displaced. The president, Rusesabagina said, is "very much concerned and committed to the Sudanese people."
But Rusesabagina stopped short of predicting U.S. intervention in the region, urging the public to "wake up their policymakers."
After the lecture, Dartmouth's Amnesty International chapter and the Dartmouth College Greens handed out letters addressed to President Bush, which participants could sign and mail to urge him to act in Sudan.
Rusesabagina has since left Rwanda and now lives in Belgium where he owns a trucking business based in Zambia. He and his wife, Tatiana, will be attending the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The hour-long speech was sponsored by the Dickey Center, Dartmouth Hillel, the Jewish studies department, the Ethics Institute and the Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity.
