Judgment expected in Rwanda: from Hollywood hero to terror suspect

Hollywood filmed the story of Paul Rusesabagina in “Hotel Rwanda”, who saved more than 1000 people from genocide. Now he is being tried in his own country.

A story that is hard to believe: Paul Rusesabagina actually wanted to fly from Dubai to Burundi in August last year, but he never got there. Instead, the plane landed in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. “The circumstances were very dubious,” says Gerd Hankel, international lawyer and linguist from the Hamburg Institute for Social Research. “He was brought to Rwanda against his will. That means, one can say without exaggeration: He was kidnapped. He thought he was in the Burundian capital Bujumbura, but was de facto in Kigali and was arrested there immediately.”

Rusesabagina attended a press conference in handcuffs. He was charged with supporting and promoting terrorist organizations. It is about “militias that attacked Rwanda from abroad, from the Congo and Burundi and killed people in Rwanda themselves,” explains Gerd Hankel, who has written a book about Rwanda. “Rusesabagina is said to have deliberately supported and promoted all of this.” He is supposed to have been a hero whose story Hollywood filmed.

Famous all of a sudden

In 1994 Paul Rusesabagina managed the “Hôtel des Mille Collines” in Kigali. In the spring of the same year, the then Rwandan president died when his plane was shot down with a missile. A wave of violence ensued, with around a million Tutsi and moderate Hutu dying within a few weeks.

Rusesabagina saved more than 1200 people in the hotel. Hollywood discovered its history and ten years later produced the successful movie “Hotel Rwanda”. Paul Rusesabagina suddenly became famous. He received the President’s Medal of Freedom from then US President George W. Bush in 2005.

Criticism of the regime in Rwanda

The genocide in Rwanda ended after the current President Paul Kagame and the Tutsi rebel group Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) marched in from neighboring Uganda and ousted the then extremist Hutu government. Rusesabagina left Rwanda and lived for a long time as a taxi driver in Belgium. Then he became famous through the film and started speaking out politically, criticizing the regime in Rwanda. At the same time, the story of him as a hero got cracks.

Some voices were raised saying he had asked the refugees for money. A former employee of the hotel, Pasa Mwenganucye, speaks of it: “His heroism and what he did was shown wrongly in the film,” he says in an interview with the ARD-Studio Nairobi this August. “The film doesn’t show what really happened. It wanted to make money.” Rusesabagina and other rescued people have repeatedly rejected this in the past.

He wears the uniform of a pink prison inmate: Paul Rusesabagina on the way to the court in Kigali.

Image: AFP

All of these allegations can hardly be verified. You could also be part of a campaign against regime critics, as the Rwandan opposition members experience again and again. Some disappear or mysteriously die. What is certain is that Rusesabagina has increasingly become a critic of the Rwandan president. He accused him of an authoritarian leadership style. Then he himself founded an opposition party whose military arm is the so-called National Liberation Army (FLN).

Armed group supported?

This armed group also went to court. Rusesabagina is accused of supporting them. He denies this. But: “The accusation of terrorism is not made out of thin air,” says Hankel. “Some time ago Rusesabagina went public in a video clip. In this clip, he calls on the Rwandans to unconditionally support a National Liberation Army. He says this army deserves the support by all means. And this army won in 2018/19 Rwanda itself committed raids, killing nine people, injuring several and causing great damage. ”

The statement in the video is only a political opinion, says Rusesabagina about the allegations. However, this is doubtful, explains the Rwanda expert, even in the case of a constitutional process, he could possibly be convicted of aiding and abetting terrorist activities.

“He had no free defense”

But such a process is not to be expected. “The kidnapping is the first point that makes it clear that it has nothing to do with the rule of law,” criticized Hankel. “He did not have a free defense, which was restricted and monitored. The Rwandan state did everything possible to bring the proceedings to the desired result.”

The verdict should actually be announced in August. But it was postponed. Paul Rusesabagina is 67 years old. Observers believe that he will likely spend the rest of his life in prison.