Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today
304
Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today
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Overview
In the wake of Hotel Rwanda's international success, Rusesabagina is one of the most well-known Rwandans and now the smiling face of the very Hutu Power groups who drove the genocide. He is accused by the Rwandan prosecutor general of being a genocide negationist and funding the terrorist group Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
In Inside the Hotel Rwanda, survivor Edouard Kayihura tells his own personal story of what life was really like during those harrowing 100 days within the walls of that infamous hotel and offers the testimonies of others who survived there, from Hutu and Tutsi to UN peacekeepers. Kayihura tells of his life in a divided society and his journey to the place he believed would be safe from slaughter.
Inside the Hotel Rwanda exposes Paul Rusesabagina as a profiteering, politically ambitious Hutu Power sympathizer who extorted money from those who sought refuge, threatening to send those who did not pay to the genocidaires, despite pleas from the hotel's corporate ownership to stop.
Inside the Hotel Rwanda is at once a memoir, a critical deconstruction of a heralded Hollywood movie alleged to be factual, and a political analysis aimed at exposing a falsely created hero using his fame to be a political force, spouting the same ethnic apartheid that caused the genocide two decades ago.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781637741160 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | BenBella Books, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 09/07/2021 |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 956,624 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.56(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.75(d) |
About the Author
Kerry Zukus's debut novel, The Fourth House, was a Featured Selection of the Book of the Month Club®, the Doubleday Book Club©, and the Literary Guild©, divisions of Random House/Doubleday Entertainment, where it sold out its first two printings. The Fourth House had previously been named a finalist for the prestigious James Jones Award, annually given to the best first novel by an American author.
Zukus has worked invisibly behind the scenes for years, ghostwriting numerous books in a wide variety of genres. Zukus' short stories, essays and articles have graced a variety of magazines and periodicals. His plays have appeared at theatres across the country.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
DIVIDE AND RULE
I WAS BORN IN 1965 and raised in Gitesi Commune, Kibuye Prefecture, which is today referred to as the district of Karongi in the Western Province of Rwanda. Gitesi is an attractive city on the eastern shore of Lake Kivu, well known because of the beauty of its landscape, the sparkles of its waves, and the lushness of its islands. I grew up in a family of seven children — three sisters, three brothers, and me. I was baby number six. My family lived much the same as the average Rwandan family of the day. We were subsistence farmers. Corn, beans, peas, and potatoes or sweet potatoes were our daily main meal.
There was never a time in my life when ethnicity was not a dominant part of my existence, or the existence of any Rwandan of my generation. All Rwandans were mandated to carry a national ID card with them at all times. The most important piece of data on the card consisted of three words: Hutu, Tutsi, or Twa — the three native ethnic groups of our land. Two of the three words were crossed out. The one word remaining defined your total experience in Rwanda, much like a caste system, though, during my lifetime, far more evil. This, I had no choice but to accept. The sorts of tactics Hitler had used, with his various colored cloth badges sewn onto the clothing of citizens his Third Reich viewed unfavorably, had always been a part of my daily living. I knew no other way.
The Twa were the first indigenous people of Rwanda. Better known to the world as "pygmies," they are the least numerous in terms of population, and politically, they have been dealt with indifferently on the whole.
It has been said that the Hutu and the Tutsi of Rwanda are different ethnic groups, yet even something as simple and basic as this is open to debate. The physical differences between the two are often negligible due to generations of intermarriage. They also share a common language. There are no significant or relevant religious differences. Gerald DeGroot, a professor of history at the University of St. Andrews, wrote in the April 28, 2008, Christian Science Monitor, "those labels, 'Tutsi' and 'Hutu,' were meant to define the number of cows a family owned" — nothing more, despite anthropological theories that they were, indeed, different tribes. "During [Rwanda's] colonial period [particularly after World War I], the Belgians turned those otherwise fluid divisions into rigid ethnic identities as part of a strategy of divide and rule." Unfortunately, the "divide and rule" attitude continued even after the Europeans were gone, but DeGroot's basic premise, repeated by many other Western academics, is questioned by us Rwandans. I asked people older than me about it and none confirmed this theory about cows. During much of Rwanda's history, Tutsi lived by their cows, while Hutu tended to farm. But no one ever said those who had cows were Tutsi and those without cows became Hutu. To be Tutsi or Hutu was a designation given at birth based on your father's ethnicity.
According to a 1991 census, Rwanda was 90 percent Hutu, 9 percent Tutsi, and 1 percent Twa. I am Tutsi. Thus, I spent my entire life as a minority; and worse yet, because of when I lived during my formative years in Rwanda, I was part of an oppressed minority.
During my lifetime, a culture of strategic disenfranchisement and dehumanization was entrenched among our nation's leaders, even down to our schoolteachers. As children in school, we Tutsi were asked to stand up separately, while the Hutu were sitting down. Or Hutu were asked to stand up while the Tutsi were told to stay down. While this did not cause anyone physical harm, it followed the classic pattern of how genocide breeds. Step one is classification: "us" versus "them." In my native Rwanda, I was "them."
In 1962, a few years prior to my birth, Rwanda became an independent nation, no longer a colony of Belgium. Just like in America, the 1960s were a time of social revolution in my country, though I was far too young to comprehend it. Beginning in 1959 and continuing throughout my lifetime, unrest between Hutu and Tutsi was a major part of our rebirth as a nation ruled solely by Rwandans. That year, 1959, marked the real beginning of upheaval, the throwing off of the shackles of Belgian colonialism, which finally culminated in full Rwandan independence in 1962. But a large portion of the rallying cry among the Hutu in our nation was that, in their opinion, the Tutsi were seen as an extension of the Belgians, and in freeing themselves of Belgium, Hutu had to take out their frustrations on all Tutsi. This was the wreckage of the Belgian-sponsored ethnic divisionism and its Indialike caste system imposed upon us. Belgians could return to their own nation unscathed, but we Tutsi unfairly bore the full brunt of Hutu fury.
We Tutsi suffered greatly during those days. Some Tutsi were killed, while others were driven out of the land of their birth. Still others left voluntarily, hoping to keep one step ahead of those who would mean them harm. Because I was so young, whatever I came to discover about this time I learned from schools or from what I was told by my parents. Some of my father's family was killed during those days, while others fled to Congo — later known as Zaire, and later still known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo — but I never got to know them.
I witnessed true violence against my family for the first time at the age of eight. It was in 1973 and I was in the third grade. We had early release from school, and our teachers didn't tell us why we had to leave early.
When we arrived home, all the Tutsi men had gathered together to protect their homes. Women and children were asked to go hide in the bushes. Some men gathered on the nearby hill of Gitwa to watch assailants coming from far away toward our neighborhood. That is one of the things that stuck in my childhood memory — that the really bad people who meant us the most harm were strangers to us, rather than the people we saw every day. Our closest neighbors, the Hutu who lived in the same village with us, were less violent toward us. Perhaps that is what happens once people actually get to know one another.
A group of Hutu armed with machetes and spears overran our village. The Tutsi men soon went into the bushes when they saw the attack was so overwhelming and cruel that they could not put up adequate resistance. All night we could only see the smoke and flames of burning houses. It was a time of great harvest, but the assailants focused on burning our homes and spoiling our properties. We spent a week in the forest — frightened and scared. When we came out, we could only see the ashes. Our homes had been burned. Cows, goats, and everything we owned had been taken away. We spent many days in a shelter before a new, modest house was built to replace our old one.
My oldest brother, Alphonse Butera, the second oldest child in our family, was in his third year of high school. The violence of 1973 became intense in high schools and universities, and my brother was lucky to survive the roving bands of young thugs who spent much of their days beating those they labeled as their enemy, sometimes to death. Eventually he was expelled from school and wasn't given a chance to go back again.
It was in this same year that Army Chief of Staff Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu from the north, carried out a bloodless coup d'état and declared himself president of Rwanda. People thought he might bring positive change. Although he claimed to be a uniter who would put an end to ethnic discrimination, in the months leading up to his coup thousands of Tutsi were driven into exile, and Habyarimana's extremist supporters called for our destruction, just as had happened during the Tutsi Massacres of 1959, 1963, and 1967.
In 1975, he created his own political party, MRND (National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development), which every Rwandan was nominally obliged to join, much like the communist parties of China and North Korea. No one was allowed to do politics outside it. The MRND and the Habyarimana government were one. Local administrations simultaneously represented the official party as well as the local authority. Governmental and party policies were communicated and enforced from the head of state down through these local administrative units.
A strict policy of ethnic and regional quotas was enforced in public service and education. Tutsi were restricted to only 9 percent of jobs in the public sector and public education. Hutu leaders pushed Tutsi out of their jobs, as well as out of schools and universities.
Seeing what happened to my older brother, I tried mightily to do whatever was necessary to stay in school and receive an education. It was not easy. An entire generation of Hutu had been programmed by the government to hate the Tutsi, hate them deep within their souls. As I look back, it is a credit to the goodness of humanity and the power of God that many Hutu resisted this genocidal ideology. Poison was being poured into their systems, yet some people remained immune.
Raised and schooled together, young Hutu and Tutsi occasionally embarked on a romance, but it was done relative to our native culture. A boy might be friends with a girl, but you would not see them together in public unless they became engaged, regardless of their ethnic difference or similarity.
Although the heart wants what the heart wants, other considerations were usually taken into account when a boy and girl from different ethnicities desired each other. Your identity was based on the race of your father. If your father was Tutsi and your mother Hutu, you were Tutsi. If your father was Hutu and your mother Tutsi, you were Hutu. Both my parents were Tutsi.
It was unusual to see a Tutsi boy marry a Hutu girl. Far more common were Hutu boys interested in Tutsi girls, and I would see far more intermarriage of that sort. Still, the families would often become upset; the government, too. If a Hutu who held public office married a Tutsi woman, he would rarely get promoted. In the military, intermarriage was actually prohibited. There were even regional biases. For example, if a Hutu from the north — Habyarimana's region — married a lady from the south, even if she was Hutu, she was labeled as Tutsi, or else somehow less desirable for marriage than a Hutu girl from the north. Some Tutsi women also felt pressured politically or in the workplace to marry any Hutu who wanted them.
As for religion, I was raised as a Christian in the Catholic Church. This gave me a chance to take the national high school state exam as well as the Catholic exam required to enter seminary school. I cannot say it was always my ultimate dream to be a priest, but Catholicism offered me an opportunity for higher education that might otherwise be off limits to me as a Tutsi.
As part of the political indoctrination of President Habyarimana's one-party system, all public institutions were required to participate for half a day each Saturday in community service called Umuganda to learn party ideology, and for another half-day during the week, to engage in nationalistic cultural and athletic enterprises. Government and private institutions competed in different activities like basketball, soccer, or dance to enforce MRND ideology. These competitions opened doors of employment to people who could perform well in certain sports and the arts. The minister of justice was building a basketball team, and I was recruited to play. I was good at the sport and the fact I was Tutsi seemed secondary to creating a winning team. I went there, I played with the employees from the Ministry of Justice, and weeks later I was asked if I was interested in officially joining their team. In order to legally be a team member, I had to be one of their employees. Thus, my first real job was in the prosecutor's office in Parquet Kigali, solely so they could retain my athletic talents. As an ambitious young man living in a society where I was discriminated against, I regarded this as a win-win.
In time, I grew to love the law. It was a strange relationship, though. In loving the law, I learned what it could do in the abstract, but also how it was not being fairly applied in my country. I could never imagine being given the opportunity to exercise my full abilities and knowledge, no matter how hard I worked. As a Tutsi, there was a glass ceiling above me, which I doubted I'd ever break through.
On October 1, 1990, the RPA — the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the military arm of the RPF — an army of mainly Tutsi expatriates who had been living in diaspora, began invading primarily from neighboring Uganda. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi had been the victims of this expulsion, driven out of their homeland and made to settle as exiles elsewhere. Their exile lasted three decades. All successive Hutu governments barred them from returning, repeatedly stating that Rwanda is a small country that could not accommodate its own native-born refugees if they were to come back. Habyarimana stated that Rwanda was like a full glass of water: If you added any more, it would spill over; there was simply no place for those who had been driven out. The cause of the RPF was the right of return, just like Jews who wish to settle in Israel.
On the night of October 4, 1990, we heard the sounds of heavy artillery all night long. I felt so scared and found it impossible to sleep during the din of the nearby shelling. Despite not being part of the invasion, many Tutsi living in Rwanda were arrested in retaliation. As logical as it might have been for Hutu rulers of our land to feel just as scared of the hostilities as I was, I got the impression some within the government were almost enraptured, seeing this as an opportunity to crack down on all Tutsi. We were no longer a potential threat — now we were a real one. Early the next morning, the military and the government intelligence services went to Tutsi houses throughout the country to arrest intellectuals and businessmen.
One week earlier, I had come back to Rwanda from Burundi, where I had been visiting a family friend. I was accused of going there to plot with Tutsi refugees who were living in Burundi. I denied the allegations.
Ananie Dusabumuremyi and a man named Sibongo from the Rwandan Central Intelligence Service, along with military and the local authorities, came to my house to arrest me. Ananie was an old friend of mine. He was my classmate in high school and, like me, he was from Kibuye Prefecture. Seeing him gave me slight comfort, for I knew he would at least see that I was treated fairly.
I was renting a house with three bedrooms. Two of the bedrooms were open. They entered these rooms and searched everywhere for weapons. They found nothing. Their theory was that a Tutsi like me had been firing weapons the night before, adding to the ruckus caused by the heavy artillery fire. I was accused of having hidden the weapons they heard blasting that night.
The third bedroom was locked. A friend and coworker of mine, Aloys Havugiyaremye, a Hutu, was attending a training session in Murambi. Before he left, he asked me to watch over his belongings. During the weekend he sometimes came to Kigali to pass the night in that room, and he kept the keys to the room; I did not have a second set. Because his room was locked, they had to force it open. They went outside to get tools. Because of all the noise the authorities were making, my neighbors milled around and became convinced there were weapons hidden in that room. After forcing their way in, the authorities searched the room and saw a picture of my friend and roommate. Miraculously, they knew him personally.
Sibongo called one of the local militiamen, Hesron Ndenga, and asked, "Is this really who you call 'Inyenzi' [meaning "cockroach"]?"
Ananie Dusabumuremyi added, "I know him personally. He is not a troublemaker. Let's go; we are wasting our time." Seeing the pictures and the belongings of a Hutu in my house convinced them I was innocent. They already knew they were arresting innocent people, but this crossed too far over the line for them. They let me go free.
Hesron Ndenga was working with me in the prosecutor's office as a typist. He was also a member of the local authority. He was from the north and had joined the CDR Party — the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic, a hard-line division of President Habyarimana's MRND Party. He had convinced my neighbors I was a bad guy and someone they would be wise to watch all the time. Having to work alongside this man who hated me so made my work environment tenuous and uncomfortable, to say the least.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Inside the Hotel Rwanda"
by .
Copyright © 2014 Edouard Kayihura and Kerry Zukus.
Excerpted by permission of BenBella Books, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword xvii
Glossary of Organizations and Terms xxii
Introduction xxviii
1 Divide and Rule 1
2 The Night the Fuse Was Lit 12
3 Shelter Inside a Wall 16
4 Dodging Machetes 21
5 Thank God I Will Die with Other People 28
6 Sanctuary 35
7 Why?? 43
8 Brother Versus Brother 52
9 Protectors in Baby-Blue Helmets 57
10 And Then Everything Changed 62
11 Cut Off 68
12 Beer and Killers 75
13 Like Nixon to China 81
14 To Profit from the Walking Dead 88
15 Names, Numbers, Collaborators, and Betrayers 102
16 Hostages 110
17 The Barter of Bodies 116
18 Kabuga 122
19 Return to the Moonscape 128
20 Justice and Rebuilding 135
21 Hollywood 144
22 The Freedom to Become His Real Self 179
23 President Rusesabagina? 200
24 Rwanda Today 232
Acknowledgments 249
About the Authors 251
Index 252
What People are Saying About This
“This book offers a window into the real life experience of those who hid in the Hotel des Mille Collines during the 100 days of the genocide. 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 Roméo Dallaire (Retired) Force Commander of the United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994, founder of The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative, Senior Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, and Co-Director of the Will to Intervene Project
“I would like to thank the authors of the book Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story...and Why It Matters Today for providing an honest account of the daily challenges experienced inside the Hotel Mille Collines during the Genocide Against the Tutsi. It stands apart from the tales of those who have abused, manipulated, and diverted public attention and opinion from what has been endured.”
—Bernard Makuza, Vice-President of the Rwandan Senate, former Rwandan Prime Minister, and Rwanda’s former ambassador to Germany and Burundi
“Historical truth is a slippery thing—even more so when the mass media is involved. The story of ‘Hotel Rwanda’ is complex and fascinating. This book adds new depth to our understanding of the Rwandan genocide and the episode that has become its best known symbol.”
—Stephen Kinzer, award-winning foreign correspondent, author: A Thousand Hills: Rwanda’s Rebirth and the Man Who Dreamed It, teacher of journalism, Brown University
“Everyone who saw the movie Hotel Rwanda MUST read this book in which true survivors tell their story. While the movie indisputably raised awareness of genocide against Rwandan Tutsi, its distortion of facts created one of the most virulent platforms championing trivialization of that tragedy through theories of double genocide and related tactics.”
—Egide Karuranga, PhD, professor at the Laval University School of Business in Quebec; President of Rwandan Diaspora of Canada, and genocide survivor from the Hotel des Mille Collines
“I will never forget the eight days my family and I spent in hiding at Hotel des Milles Collines. I was only 13 at the time, but I remember like it was yesterday. Twenty years later, it’s important that we continue to acknowledge and commemorate the events that took place during those 100 days through stories such as those captured in Inside the Hotel Rwanda."
—Ashish J. Thakkar, Africa’s youngest billionaire, Founder of Mara Group and Mara Foundation, a nonprofit social enterprise that focuses on emerging African entrepreneurs
“Inside the Hotel Rwanda reveals the real story of the events at the Hotel Mille Collines during the genocide in Rwanda. It exposes the untruths and inaccuracies of the Hollywood depiction of the exploits of Paul Rusesabagina. It lays bare how Rusesabagina has been able to fuel his own dangerous political ambitions as a result of the twisted facts of the film. Inside the Hotel Rwanda is important for finally setting the record straight, and doing so authoritatively from the perspective of a survivor of the events.”
—David Russell, former Director of Survivors Fund (SURF), and Founder of The Social Enterprise
“Inside the Hotel Rwanda: What Really Happened and Why It Matters Today is a gripping first-person testimony of life inside the famous hotel that served as a sanctuary for over 1,000 souls during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The author artfully blends his personal memoir with a cri de Coeur for the future of his nation. It provides a beacon of light for those seeking to eradicate genocide around the world.”
–Melanie Tomsons, Executive Director and CCO of Never Again International-Canada
“For more than a decade, the film Hotel Rwanda has come to define a particular story and understanding of Rwanda. In this heartfelt work, Kayihura provides a moving tale from within that hotel, and seeks to set the record straight on the events there and since. For all craving authenticity about that horrific time, this is essential reading.”
–Josh Ruxin, PhD, Truman Scholar, Fulbright Scholar, Marshall Scholar, and author of A Thousand Hills to Heaven: Love, Hope and a Restaurant in Rwanda
“I thank the author for this genuine and true recount of the daily fears and threats, hopes and despair, joys and sufferings experienced by refugees in the Hotel des Milles Collines. Edouard is presenting with humility and a heart-breaking accuracy the reality of what happened in the hotel, unlike those who abused, misused, manipulated, and diverted the world opinion with a far-fetched story for their own interests, fame, and self-aggrandizing agenda.”
—Gasamagera Wellars, Director General of Rwanda Management Institute and former Rwandan Senator
“Edouard Kayihura's memoir about the actual events inside the famed ‘Hotel Rwanda’ serves as multifaceted rejoinder to the mythology that emerged from Hollywood's fictionalized version of the 1994 genocide. If you want to become a better-informed global citizen and go beyond glossy feel-good images, read Kayihura's account of how twisting a story can spiral into a maelstrom of deception and divisiveness.”
—Gerise Herndon, PhD, Director of Gender Studies and English professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University
“This is a serious and well-written reappraisal of the events at ‘Hotel Rwanda’ in 1994. Kayihura's survivor account demonstrates the gulf between media portrayals and reality, and shows how myth-making has done nothing to resolve the polarity of perceptions of the genocide.”
—David Whitehouse, author of In Search of Rwanda's Génocidaires: French Justice and the Lost Decades
“A chilling account by a Rwandan who was targeted by name and narrowly escaped death during Rwanda’s time of genocide, his desperate flight seeking safety into the real ‘Hotel Rwanda,’ and his first-hand report on who really kept him and the other refugees in the hotel from being slaughtered.”
—John Quigley, LL.B. Harvard University, President's Club Professor Emeritus of Law at Moritz College of Law, Ohio State University
“Like The Diary of Anne Frank, this book provides a glimpse into the day-to-day life of people combating the insanity of genocide. The book is above all a story of humanity in the midst of an insane genocide. In the end, there are no heroes; there are only people willing to take a risk for the sake of humanity.”
—Amy Shuman, PhD, professor at Ohio State University