Inside the white gates of Hôtel des Mille Collines is a line of taxicabs. Sitting politely in a row, the drivers wait to shuttle their next client from hill to hill, from the museums to the mass graves that pocket the landscape.
Inside, the hotel hosts groups of expatriates, families and journalists. Those morbidly enchanted with the stories of Hotel Rwanda, and those who are oblivious to the slaughtering of one million people in 100 days that occurred outside its iron door.
As the taxis drive between mountain and valley, and vacationers lay out to sunbath in the African sun or to indulge on sweet bananas and crepes, there is something strangely eerie about the Hotel Rwanda. Despite its beautiful veneer, its constantly clean carpets, beautifully manicured lawns, there is something intangible and ever-present within its walls.
It is the dichotomy that represents Rwanda – that of the picturesque facade of the country, the Hotel. But also that which secretly shrouds itself in more mysteries than one can imagine.
I visited Rwanda, a country largely known the mico-oasis of Central Africa, last year as part of a mini-vacation from my home in Kenya. Despite the recent genocide, Westerners seemed to set aside the nation of Rwanda from the suffering that Central Africa has experienced since colonialism. Now it was a country for gorilla trekking and coffee connoisseurs. Or at least that’s what most visitors believed.
I have always been strangely fascinated with Rwandan history, especially the genocide of 1994, and was peculiarly eager to stay in the hotel in which the film, Hotel Rwanda, was based off of. That is where my longtime hero, Paul Rusesbagina, had nearly sacrificed his own life for the 1,268 people that hid inside his hotel walls for during 100 days of madness.
But Rwanda was, and is, much different then what I had studied in school, or heard from visiting Westerners. It is a country of overbearing silence, of ever-present police and of tangible grief. Rwanda is, in the most accurate sense, a divided nation covered under a veneer of beauty.
Paul Rusesabagina, the inspiration for the film Hotel Rwanda, knows this all too well. Though widely hailed for his selfless heroism during the 1994 genocide, Rusesbagina is largely a stranger in his own country.
As a Hutu (though ethnic identifiers are no longer used in Rwanda), Rusesabagina has been one of the most outspoken critics of the current Tutsi-led government, accusing them of pandering to fellow Tutsis, participating in reprisal killings against Hutus and suppressing dissidents.
And Rusesabagina would know that best, considering he’s been living in exile in Belgium for more then 10 years after numerous death threats from fellow Rwandans.
But Rusesabagina’s story is part of a larger narrative. One that spans far past what Western newspapers are willing to write, or believe. It is one of skewed justice, of greed and of colonialism gone incredibly wrong.
The plot of the 1994 genocide is commonly understood as a genocide against Tutsis by extremist Hutus. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by current President Kagame, is hailed as the leading force that halted the killings after 100 days of slaughter during those spring and summer months. But few have heard of the severe repression, and possible reprisal murders of innocent Hutus that occurred, and continue to go on, by the Rwandan government.
After the 1994 genocide, President Kagame promised the country a new beginning. One in which the many different ethnic groups would live together, untied from racial hatred which has marred the reputation of the small African nation.
At the same time, allegations aimed at the Rwanda government, slowly began to emerge – those of bodies floating in rivers that simply couldn’t be Tutsi, of entire Hutu villages massacred by unknown forces. The government vehemently denied any involvement, yet those who criticized Kagame are, for national security or post-genocidal paranoia, shunned, detained or banned from entering the country.
Rusesabagina is one of them.
Most recently, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has become the new front of the ongoing Rwandan genocide, which truly never stopped since the ethnic uprisings in the 1970s, or one can argue, since colonialism itself.
Hutu extremists have fled to various Central African nations, most commonly, the edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There, they camp out and reassess their plans for domination of Rwanda. Of course, many of their intentions are horrifying at best, but there are also reputable Hutu societal members living among them. Many of which have no ties to the extremist hate.
After the genocide, the Rwandan government deployed thousands of troops to crush any dissidents – and in some sense, that is understandable. For a country that lost almost three-fourths of the Tutsi population, seeking justice is logical. But reports of torture against innocent Hutus in neighboring nations, of innocent bloodshed, gang rapes, are more than unsettling. There are also claims the Rwandan government is invading areas of the Congo to gather expensive minerals to fuel their war against the Hutus.
Rusesabagina, in an act of defiance against the largely Tutsi-led government, has continuously spoken out against the occupation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as criminal acts that occurred during the 1994 genocide.
He even filed a criminal complaint in 2006 against President Kagame and members of the army concerning “war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide” that were committed against his family during the genocide.
Unfortunately, the shear power of the Rwandan government, which widely censors its media outlets, has used its control to mar Rusesabagina’s reputation. Even at the Hôtel des Mille Collines, where he once acted as the sole voice of reason during the 100 days of madness, there is no tribute, no plaque or picture to honor his work.
Rusesabagina’s open criticism of the government and subsequent exile from his home country illustrate that he is posing questions that a country reconciling with genocide must engage with – those of mysterious killings, of unjust justice, of unyielding power against dissidents.
The veneer we see as Westerners, of lush countryside and bountiful beauty, is only half of the dichotomy of Rwanda. The rest lies in the walls of Hotel Rwanda, and in the forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the minds of the perpetrators and in the lives of the victims, both Tutsi and Hutu.