The 'real' Hotel Rwanda Hero - Genocide Revisited

Paul Rusesabagina

"The UK the US the whole world decided to abandon a whole nation to thugs, to thieves, to killers, to gangsters.....without any witness from the international communities Rwandans took machetes and started to butcher each other for 100 days without any witness. On April 15th a week after the genocide started I saw the last journalist...a Newsweek journalist ... being evacuated. Foreigners were evacuated - until that time even soldiers - so-called peacemakers, were evacuated. Without any witness we were slaughtered." Paul Rusesabagina.

The poignancy of these words stirred my heart as I listened from the back of a crowded auditorium at the Colorado Convention center in Denver. Emotions were also palpable among the 5,000 school pupils listening intently to the speech of this outstanding individual. Had they ever in their short lives been in such close proximity to a person who has suffered and witnessed so much horror and terror, and who is actually truly deserving of the title hero? I certainly hadn't and I felt in essence that I was in the company of true greatness.

I was even more privileged than most on that November day in 2005. Following the speech I had arranged for Paul Rusesabagina to join the host of the PBS show I produced, Global Agenda, for an exclusive one-on-one half hour interview where he would share his story and offer comparisons to present day African struggles.

My diligence over several weeks had paid off and I had been assured by the speech organizers, that I would be given time with Rusesabagina for my show. As he finished speaking I escorted him to one of the dressing rooms where we had created a makeshift set. We were soon accosted by members of the press, newspapers and other television stations who were all clamoring for an interview. Because of the rapport I had built beforehand I was allotted thirty out of the meager forty five minutes he had to spare before having to leave for the airport. I could feel just a little resentment among the 'real' TV stations when they found that a trifling little PBS affiliate had more or less exclusive access!