Last night, I stayed at the Hotel Des Mille Collines, more popularly known as Hotel Rwanda, upon which the 2004 film starring Don Cheadle is based. Mille Collines is the nickname for Rwanda, French for “Land of a Thousand HIlls”. Rwanda certainly lives up to its nickname, resplendent in its geographical magnificence.
The hotel became a refuge for over 1,200 people during the Rwandan ethnic cleansing campaign in 1994. Hotel guests, Tutsis and moderate Hutus all huddled I n the hotel as a place where they could escape the madness and hopefully be evacuated by UN security forces.
The film portrays Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who was left to handle the situation after the hotel’s owners (Sabina) evacuated all non- Rwandan personnel from the property.
Rusesabagina with Cheadle at the premiere of Hotel Rwanda.
In the telling of the movie’s story, Rusesabagina is a hero who saved hundreds upon hundreds of people from certain execution, a modern day Oskar Schindler. However, witnesses describe a very different account.
Rusesabagina worked with a screenwriter to share his story. The screenwriter ended up writing a great story for the film, which received many accolades in the award community. Problem is, a screen writer is hired to tell a great story. He is not a journalist who will be held to the strict tenets of accuracy. As a result, Hotel Rwanda is a fictionalized story about events during the genocide.
Based on a number of accounts that have recently emerged from the ordeal, it appears that Rusesabagina was in tight with the murderous Hutu militias, and was even witnessed drinking and laughing with them in the hotel lobby bar.
Rusesabagina charged anyone who wanted refuge in the hotel an exorbitant sum to enter. The hotel ran out of food, but was recejving a steady supply of humanitarian meals from the UN, for which Rusesabagina charged any guest who wanted to eat, even though Sabina had been very clear to Rusesabagina that the meals should not be charged to the refugees.
With the water turned off, refugees only had access to the chlorinated pool water, again at a fee from Rusesabagina.
It is hypothesized that Rusesabagina actually ran the refugee center as a way for the Hutus to have access to a ready pool of hostages which could be used as barter with opposition forces.
Rusesabagina now lives in exile in Brussels, where he has worked in a number of jobs, including a taxi driver. Whatever happened to the money he extorted from those desperate hotel “guests” is not known.
its been interesting staying in a hotel with such a past. If only the walls could talk……