COMMENTARY: Last April 6, Paul Rusesabagina unleashed on the web another of his writings he pompously titled: "Exposing the Pact Between President Paul Kagame, Some Genocide Suspects, Some Genocide Survivors, and Two Supposed Humanitarian Groups against Paul Rusesabagina, An Ordinary Man: A Response to Hotel Rwanda or the Tutsi Genocide as Seen by Hollywood".

The thirteen page-long article, however, did not have anything new under the self-aggrandized Rusesabagina pen/keyboard. He just recycled old diatribes against the President of Rwanda and RPF party and spewed out abusive words to his detractors or anyone else who has been exposing his hidden agendas, including the author of these lines, and he cannot help but let transpire his negationism and ethnic ideology all through the text.

Thanks to his narcissistic character Rusesabagina can’t help boasting of having inspired the movie Hotel Rwanda… "Inspired by my personal genocide experience…Terry George painted me as a hero in the movie Hotel Rwanda...prompting several high profile personalities and humanitarian organizations to express their profound admiration and cheer me on in my humanitarian line of work. That is how I started, in 2005, Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, with a view to assist victims of genocide, both Hutu and Tutsi, without discrimination".

If Rusesabagina’s "personal genocide experience" is something to go by, one wonders what relevance it has compared to that of the hunted survivors whom he threatened to throw out to the killers if they could not pay the hotel bills. As for his "humanitarian line of work" he is cheered for we have proven without doubt that actually he not only reaped where he sowed nothing except greed and betrayal of some of the Tusti refugees at the hotel as exposed in the past, but he also lately confessed he has helped no orphan or widow in Rwanda or anywhere else. He called those who came out clearly about his real behaviour in Mille Collines Hotel such as Senator Odette Nyiramirimo, Tatien Miheto Ndorimana, Egide Karuranga, Bertin Makuza, Christophe Shamukiga, Yolande Mukagasana, etc. "cowards who have succumbed to (this) terrible tactic of institutionalized defamation". Our readers recall however that sometime back he was the very coward who shied away from a live broadcast hosted by CFM radio in which he was given the opportunity to prove his so-called ‘detractors’ wrong as they had volunteered to speak about their genocide experience at the Hotel de Mille Colline. And for "Yolander (to have) described how a high ranking military officer was sent by me (Rusesabagina) to escort her to the Hotel", this is an involuntary proof of his close relations with the genocide organizers; otherwise how could a mere civilian hotel manager have the authority to send a "high ranking military officer" to rescue some endangered people at such or such a place? It is one thing to dine and wine with the genocidaires and bribe them with money as Rusesabagina has pretended more than once, but it is certainly something else to give them such orders in such dangerous times. And certainly here is where our "Ordinary man" gets more entangled by Valerie Bemeriki’s testimony about his close relations with these genocidaires. As he failed to bribe the former RTLM journalist in 1930 prison where she is serving her sentence to change her testimony against him, the only lousy argument he has manufactured is that "…genocide suspects held hostage in prisons struck an alliance with President Kagame to sully (my) image". One should also take note of his "…genocide suspects held hostage in prisons!" Hostage for what bargain! You know, the man has a fraudulent life, financially benefited out of it and has graduated into a lie himself ready to always invent propaganda against the Rwandan leaders to account for his crimes.

The most despicable passage of Rusesabagina’s utterances is that "President Kagame has unabashedly used the 1994 genocide as a political instrument, manipulatively playing to the deeply hurt feelings and emotions of genocide survivors, with the only goal of winning their sympathy to his smear campaign..." And the man has the guts to pretend that this is a result of … "jealousy and frustration for seeing an ordinary civilian man collecting honorary distinctions from many organizations and world leaders for his action during the genocide…", a genocide that he for his own personal ambitions and financial interests, has now turned round and claimed never took place the way he portrays it in the Hotel Rwanda movie. It is indeed not surprising that he confesses to earn his living through among other things; earnings from his speeches as well as the Rusesabagina Foundation. The Foundation is used to mobilize financial resources supposedly for humanitarian reasons but he instead, as he confessed himself (when he was on April 3, 2008 appearing as defense witness in the case of genocide suspect Vincent Bajinya in London), that it’s one of resources for his livelihood.

About the speeches, he believes people attend his speeches because of his characteristic smear campaign against the Rwandan leaders and government and will thus keep the momentum for his personal financial gains and against the general good of the country. The question is whether this is humanitarian or rather greed and his now sworn love for negationism.

If it was not for his negationism activism around the world, one would just pity Rusesabagina and leave him to his illusions. How cynical and insensitive is the man who alleges to be seeking the truth and reconciliation to echo his characteristic smear propaganda built mainly around negationism! These are the very views President Kagame castigated while speaking at the 14th Genocide commemoration. He was irritated by the sheer arrogance displayed by some Westerners when they go around saying that the Rwandan leadership was using the 1994 Tutsi genocide as a political instrument to get some profit. It is really disheartening to hear the same negationist views spread by a Rwandan and most of all one who pretends to have had a role in saving a few of the survivors.

Let us also mention that the release on 6 April of his supposed to be rebuttal of a book about his real behaviour in Hotel Mille Collines, is not a mere coincidence. It certainly came at a time when all the negationists of the world had just received a serious blow to their agenda as the Belgian authorities banned their so-called remembrance day of "all genocide victims" on April 6, an endeavour they have been trying to establish as a de facto expression of double genocide recognition. And indeed, every year, since 1995, small groupings bearing various names (COSAR, ANICA, CRF…) endeavour to commemorate not the "7 April but 6 April", hence alluding to their claim that the death of Habyarimana Juvénal was the origin of the "Rwandan tragedy", overtly nourishing the "double genocide" theory. As a by-the-way however, it is important to note that genocide started long before 1994, was as reported by among others Senator Romeo Dallaire, planned in advance (militias trained-Interahamwe, machetes imported, lists of Tutsis prepared, hence the speed at which it was executed.

We, as Rwandans mourning our innocent beloved ones butchered by hordes of merciless killers fourteen years ago, are somehow consoled and firmly commend the Belgian authorities’ intervention. It was reported Sunday April 6 that "the local police of the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles zone has arrested about sixty Rwandans who demonstrated without authorization, Sunday afternoon, in front of the palace of justice of the capital, to sustain the idea of a "double genocide" in their country of origin. Qualified as negationists, they sustained the idea of a "double genocide" in their country of origin, estimating that Tutsi militias are responsible, for the same reason as Hutu extremists, of the Rwandan genocide in 1994".

Let this be a good example for others who continue to be trapped into giving support to Tutsi genocide negationists and instead advocate for their prosecution in courts for this impunity that only aims at carrying on with the genocide or at least the tormenting of the survivors.

All peace lovers continue to say - Never Again.

Ends