Article

2006-06-01 Africa Subsaharan

Rwandan president scoffs at "Hotel Rwanda"

Rwandan president Paul Kagame on Wednesday dismissed the Oscar-nominated drama "Hotel Rwanda" as an attempt to rewrite the history of the central African country's 1994 genocide.

The 2004 film refueled world interest in the massacres, in which some 800,000 minority Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered in 100 days of killings. "Hotel Rwanda" stars Don Cheadle as Paul Rusesabagina, the manager of a luxury hotel in the Rwandan capital Kigali who uses his position to help save more than 1,200 Tutsi refugees.

Kagame said the movie's portrayal of Rusesabagina as a hero during the genocide was false. "It has nothing to do with Rusesabagina," Kagame told reporters during a visit to Washington. "He just happened to be there accidentally, and he happened to be surviving because he was not in the category of those being hunted."

The movie portrays that accurately. Mr. Rusesabagina is a Hutu and initially wasn't hunted. He was the hotel manager and just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Kagame said people in the hotel were saved in part because U.N. forces occupied the hotel and because the killers wanted to keep it as a place where they could drink beer after a long day of killing and discuss whom to kill the following day.

Also noted in the movie. The hotel was protected by some big-shot generals. That allowed Mr. Rusesabagina to save people.

Kagame, a Tutsi, said another reason lives were spared is that talks had been underway between his rebel group and the then-interim government to exchange Tutsis in the hotel for Hutu soldiers captured by his group. "Someone is trying to rewrite the history of Rwanda and we cannot accept it," he said.

The talks didn't seem to go very well, did they? And why did the rebels focus on the Tutsis in the hotel when there was a whole country of Tutsis being slaughtered? Mr. Kagame is telling porky-pies.

Some survivors of the genocide also have been critical of movies about the slaughter, saying Hollywood got their story wrong.

It's one story. You got another story to tell? Make a movie.

Amid international inaction, the genocide was finally ended by Kagame, who led a rebel army from Uganda to seize power.

Rusesabagina, awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom last year, has recently been critical of the Kigali government, accusing it of continued human rights violations and oppression of political opponents.

And I'll bet he's right. Neither tribe is on the side of the angels.

Posted by ryuge 2006-06-01 11:42|| || Front Page|| [11134 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Sheesh. Who to believe: Hollywood or the Rwandan gubmint.

Can we get a third opinion?

Posted by SLO Jim 2006-06-01 14:12|| 2006-06-01 14:12|| Front Page Top

#2 Rwandan president scoffs at "Hotel Rwanda" ..... as he skillfully hones the edge of his ivory handled Chinese machette.

Posted by Besoeker 2006-06-01 16:01|| 2006-06-01 16:01|| Front Page Top

#3 He didn't carry a machete; he's a Tutsi and was the rebel commander.

Posted by Steve White">Steve White 2006-06-01 18:13|| 2006-06-01 18:13|| Front Page Top

#4 Paul Kagame received training in tactics from the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College(Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).

"U.S. officials were deeply relieved that the rebels had halted the massacres, thus ending pressure for a U.S.-led intervention. They also said they were greatly impressed by Kagame's leadership. By the end of the war, some U.S. officials had concluded that Kagame was "a brilliant commander, able to think outside the box," as one put it. "He was a fairly impressive guy," added the official, who met Kagame in the early 1990s. "He was more than a military man. He was politically attuned and knew what compromise was.""

"As he watched from his camps along the Biumba road, this was the chessboard upon which Kagame had to focus all his strategic faculties: French armor in Hutu hands, French heavy weapons, a Hutu military for which France and Belgium had successfully bought time for a huge buildup-Hutu airborne troops and 30,000 regulars, all trained by the French. Against this, he had no armor and no heavy weapons, just mortars and rocket-propelled grenades that Uganda had to pretend it didn't supply."

Posted by john 2006-06-01 18:54|| 2006-06-01 18:54|| Front Page Top

#5 Just prior to or in the early days of the massacre, France "forgot" to cancel an arms shipment to Rwanda. Also, in the early days, French troops were guarding the then-Rwandan leadership.

Some how that made it to U.S. National Public Radio. It also just as promptly disappeared.

Posted by Fordesque 2006-06-01 19:01|| 2006-06-01 19:01|| Front Page Top

08:52 Matt
08:38 Gleng Whaick2262
08:35 Gleng Whaick2262
08:35 Gleng Whaick2262
08:33 Gleng Whaick2262
08:32 Gleng Whaick2262
08:31 Gleng Whaick2262
08:28 Gleng Whaick2262
08:24 Matt
08:20 SteveS
07:43 Procopius2k
07:42 BrerRabbit
07:42 Procopius2k
07:39 Procopius2k
07:36 Procopius2k
07:35 Procopius2k
07:34 trailing wife
07:31 Procopius2k
07:30 NN2N1
07:22 NN2N1
07:18 trailing wife
07:14 Richard Aubrey
07:10 NN2N1
07:09 Besoeker