Message of hope from Rwanda

Paul Rusesabagina, survivor of the brutal Rwandan genocide, came to Tech Oct. 5 to tell students about the atrocities he faced in 1994.

A full house of students, alumni and faculty packed the Student Center Ballroom to see Rusesabagina, former interim manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines during the Rwandan genocide.

Rusesabagina is revered all over the world as a civil rights leader because he protected thousands of individuals from the Hutu-led Interahamwe army.

His trials are also documented in the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda, directed by Terry George and starring Don Cheadle.

Rusesabagina spent the lecture explaining what it was like to live in Rwanda during the massacres of the Hutus and the Tutsis.

His story began with how he discovered that the Interahamwe militia was coming to kill all Tutsis in the area.

"He made me realize that there are countries that have no control over the violence and the well-being of their people...the more powerful countries need to step in to help them," said Drew Glaser, a fifth-year Mechanical Engineering major.

Later, Rusesabagina revealed that he had to house almost 30 people in his house to hide them from the Interahamwe forces.

"I never made that decision; that decision was made by God," said Rusesabagina.

No security was sent to their locale, and only 2,500 United Nations peacekeeping soldiers were stationed for protection, so Rusesabagina had to house over 1,000 fellow Rwandans inside the hotel.

"I was the only general manager in the country," Rusesabagina said.

He said that he felt trapped in his own country because the United Nations had only "observed and recorded" the atrocities rather than sending in more peacekeepers.

Rusesabagina hoped more would come, but the British pulled out a sizable chunk of peacekeepers within a few days. He ended up protecting the hotel himself.

In the future, Rusesabagina urged more action to be taken by the United Nations through extended peacekeeping operations.

"Anything can be possible. Where there is a will, there is a way," Rusesabagina said.

During the speech, Rusesabagina also advocated for an increase in education about genocide.

Rusesabagina's upbringing may reveal why he is so compassionate about protecting all racial sects in Rwanda from the Interahamwe forces. He was born into a mixed family in which his mother was a Hutu and his father a Tutsi.

The Hutus and the Tutsis, he said, had been divided as a society for years. Ethnic tensions simmered between the two groups, erupting finally in genocidal massacres. The Hutu army became charged with killing all Tutsi civilians in Rwanda. The genocide lasted almost two months.

Rusesabagina himself did not escape the tragedies of the massacres. One day, he found his mother and sister-in-law murdered and laid in a pit used to grow banana plants.

However, Rusesabagina never used a weapon against the armed forces because he tried to convert his fear into nonviolence.

"Being scared taught me a lesson-how to deal with evil," Rusesabagina said.

The horrendous acts against his own people gave him more strength to hold off the Interahamwe army.

While combating Rwanda's internal violence, Rusesabagina also described the experience of trying to live in an abandoned hotel for over two months.

He said that most phone lines were dead and he had to live without food, water and electricity.

Rusesabagina had no idea how long he would reside in the hotel and had to constantly find ways to obtain water for the hotel residents.

"Life became so difficult and in the meantime the hotel was attacked many times," Rusesabagina said.

Rusesabagina eventually fled the country; he now lives in Belgium with his wife and children.

Students were stunned up until the last minute of the presentation.

"It was very interesting and made you more aware of what was going on in the world," said John Zullo, a first-year Mechanical Engineering major.

Afterwards, Rusesabagina stayed for book signings of his autobiography, An Ordinary Man.

In closing, Rusesabagina said that everyone needs to realize that this generation will be tomorrow's leaders.

"Take Hotel Rwanda and An Ordinary Man as an example. Please be my messenger!" Rusesabagina said.

"I thought [the lecture] was eye-opening; it told us [about] a perspective we never see being from the West," Glaser said.

According to the Human Rights Watch, at least half a million Tutsis were killed in the genocide, a loss that represented about three-quarters of the Tutsi population of Rwanda.