Rwanda Man Who Saved 1,200 People In 1994 Genocide Arrested By On Terrorist Charges

Rwanda-native Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroism in the 1994 genocide garnered national acclaim after the 2004 film "Hotel Rwanda," was arrested and charged Monday on terrorism and other charges by the Rwandan government. His family on Tuesday pushed back against the charges and accused the government of kidnapping him from Dubai based on his vocal criticism of President Paul Kagame.

“Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits including MRCD and PDR-Ihumure, operating out of various places in the region and abroad,” the Rwanda Investigation Bureau said in a press release.

“He has been subject of an International Arrest Warrant, wanted to answer charges of serious crime including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory including in Nyabimata - Nyaruguru district in June 2018 and in Nyungwe - Nyamagabe district in December 2018.”

Rusesabagina, 66, is known for his efforts to save Tutsi Rwandans targeted by the Hutu-led government’s genocide. In 2005, he was awarded the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom by George W. Bush. He was portrayed by Don Cheadle in "Hotel Rwanda."

The genocide started in April 1994, nearly a year of uneasy peace created by the Arusha Accords that was meant to end the three-year civil war between the Hutu-led government and Tutsi rebel group the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The assassinations of President Juvenal Habyarimana, who signed the accords, and key Tutsi government and military officials marked the genocide’s start.

Hutu-controlled military, police, and militias would begin rounding up and indiscriminately killing any Tutsi’s they found, along with any sympathizers. Between 500,000 and 1 million Rwandans were killed before the genocide ended in July 1994 when the RPF took control of the country and forced any involved in the genocide not in custody to flee into neighboring Zaire.

Rusesabagina was working at the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda, when the genocide began. He was appointed the acting general manager of the hotel when the other managers fled while he remained behind to tend to his family. The hotel shortly after became home to over 1,200 Rwandan refugees who were turned away from overburdened United Nations and Red Cross refugee camps.

The RPF was eventually able to provide aid, allowing Rusesabagina to escape to Tanzania with his family and the refugees.

He and his family received threats during the genocide by Hutu extremists. He moved to Belgium in 1996 before settling in Texas with his family.

Rusesabagina has been a vocal critic of Kagame, the former RPF leader and current Rwandan President. While Rusesabagina has claimed that Kagame brought peace and stability to the country, he also criticized Kagame for remaining by power by manipulating the press and suppressing potential opposition. He publicly denounced Kagame in a December 2018 YouTube video and was identified as the leader of the Mouvement Rwandais pour le Changement Démocratique and the National Forces of Liberation in Burundi.

“The time has come for us to use any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda as all political means have been tried and failed,” Rusesabagina said in the video. “Rwandan people can no longer stand the cruelty.”

This is a sentiment shared by several human rights groups that have grown more critical of Kagame in recent years.

“The growing list of human rights defenders, journalists, civic activists, opposition members and critics of Kagame, like Rusesabagina, who have been arrested, or otherwise killed or disappeared, is truly staggering,” Vanguard Africa executive director Jeffrey Smith said in a press release. “What Kagame and Rwanda’s ruling party have effectively done is to make the argument, both in rhetoric and in practice, that criticism, resistance or opposition to their rule amounts to terrorism.”

Rusesabagina’s wife said she last spoke to him on Thursday while he was in Dubai.

United Arab Emirates officials have not commented on his arrest.

“We believe he was kidnapped and taken by extraordinary rendition to Rwanda,” Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation spokeswoman Kitty Kurth said in a press release. “He is a regular critic of human rights violations in Rwanda, and the Rwandan government regularly brings false charges against all critics in order to try to silence them.”