by Eva Dameron
Daily Lobo
A man who inspired the Oscar-winning film, "Hotel Rwanda" came to UNM on Saturday.
Paul Rusesabagina, who was depicted in the film, came to campus to speak about the Rwandan genocide in the '90s.
In 1994, a radical group of Hutus took control of the Rwandan government and began a genocidal campaign against the Tutsis - the minority ethnic group in Rwanda.
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The genocide spanned more than three months, and 500,000 to 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis, were killed.
Rusesabagina was able to save 1,200 Tutsis by sheltering them in his hotel.
He's on a book tour for his autobiography, An Ordinary Man.
Rusesabagina spoke to a crowd of about 500 in Woodward Hall where he addressed three questions people often ask him. He said they ask him if he's ever been scared, if he's ever been sad, and what was the toughest decision he's ever had to make.
The day he was scared, the Hutu militia pulled 26 neighbors and his family from their homes in April 1994, he said. He gave refugees shelter in the Michelin Hotel, and the newly formed Hutu government threatened to take over the hotel.
Rusesabagina said he tried to reason with the Hutu militia soldiers.
"I do understand you. You are just hungry, thirsty, tired, stressed by the world, but we can solve those problems otherwise," he told the soldiers. "We can find other solutions."
He said after two hours - not two minutes, as shown in the film - they came to an agreement. He paid the militia off in exchange for keeping the Tutsis in his hotel.
On May 2, U.N. executives worked out a plan to evacuate the refugees from the hotel. Rusesabagina and his family were first on the list to leave Rwanda.
"We hear that you're going to be evacuated tomorrow," Rusesabagina said one of the refugees told him. "Please, if you are going to leave this place, tell us so that we can at least go to the roof of the hotel and jump because there is no way we can afford to be tortured, killed by machetes, tortured for days."
Because Rusesabagina was the only one who could keep a level of peace at the hotel, he sent his wife and kids away and stayed behind. It was the toughest decision he ever made, he said, but he couldn't live with the deaths of 1,200 people on his hands.
"You cannot imagine how heartbreaking such an experience can be," he said.
Rusesabagina recalled watching a TV broadcast of world leaders gathering in Auschwitz to remember the 60-year anniversary of the Jewish Holocaust.
"The two most repeated words were 'never' and 'again,'" he said. "To me those two words are abused words. When will we start turning words into actions?"
There was a question-and-answer session after the talk as well as a book signing.
UNM graduate student Mark Ralkowski said he came to the lecture because he had a friend in Rwanda during the genocide, and the story is an obsession of his.
"When I was a little younger, I felt that all Americans had a sort of duty to be more informed about the failure of our government to intervene in Rwanda," he said.
He said the speech was moving.
"It reminded me of Socrates when he (Rusesabagina) was explaining his reasons for staying," Ralkowski said. "He said that if he were to leave knowing that he was the only person to keep 1,200 people alive, and they died after he left, that he would never be a free man. If anyone wants to know what a real man looks like, this is what a real man looks like."
