Genocide and Hotel Rwanda - Article Example

HOTEL RWANDA Now more than 10 years ago, the 1994 Rwandan genocide in today’s memory is almost forgotten and what very few people know little about. Quite similarly with the Holocaust of World War II, this very horrible and devastating event in recent world history recalls the systematic genocide carried out by the Hutu-dominated government of Rwanda against the Tutsi ethnic group and some Hutu moderates and sympathizers in belief that the Tutsi tribes do not belong to the Rwandan soil and are “mere cockroaches” that deserve to die. David Scheffer of the Los Angeles Times (2006) said the brutal genocide “were instigated by Rwandan government, military and media leaders and carried out by thousands of machete-wielding Hutus,” with resurgent massacres that plagued the countryside for years thereafter. The Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda chronicles this very brutal chapter in the Rwandan history yet focuses on the heroism and determination of hotelier Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle), who sheltered more than 1,200 people and saved them from the brutal genocide (Holden 2004). While the film asks the viewers what would you choose between protecting or killing your racial enemies, even at the expense of betraying or losing our loved ones and families, it also begs to ask what the Western countries, and the United Nations, thought of the brutal slaughter of more than 800,000 people in one hundred days. Genocide and the case of Rwanda Genocide, coined by Jewish jurist Raphael Lemkin, was derived from the Greek word genes, meaning tribe or race, and the Latin word cide, meaning killing. Lemkin, who escaped from Poland in 1939 and eventually emigrated to the United States, championed the passing of by the United Nations of the convention that will make genocide an international crime, above other crimes such as slavery, piracy and other universally recognized “offenses against the laws of nations” (Genzlinger, 2006). The UN soon passed the convention that aims is to ensure that another holocaust would never again happen or allowed to occur in the history of humanity. The Rwanda’s case is nonetheless a genocide by any standard although at first outsiders thought it was a continuation of the almost never-ending Civil War in this war-torn African country. Historians pointed out that the 1994 genocide or crime to humanity was traceable to then already brewing tensions between the majority Hutu and minority Tutsi in Rwanda, owing to its long-time-ago Rwandan colonial history. On August 4, 1993, tensions were tempered by the so-called Arusha Peace Accords, signed in Arusha, Tanzania that states the comprehensive peace accord between the Rwandan government and the Tutsi-opposition Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). However, the shooting down of the airplane, where both the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi—Juvenal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntayiramira—were aboard, on April 6, 1994, eventuated that sparked and fueled the government-led genocide of Tutsis. Following Habyarimana’s death, the lawful successor of the deceased president Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyamana was also murdered. This was followed by the deaths of ten Belgian peacekeepers, and other moderate politicians. Habyarimana’s rose to power already cultivated a culture of fear and hatred against the minority Tutsis as histories would tell. The death of the president was interpreted as a means for the military to take control of the “collapse of the government” (Scheffer, 2004). Hutu-controlled army called on fellow Hutus for the total elimination of the Tutsi populace. Lists of Tutsi people’s name and addresses who will be killed were already prepared in advance, and aired on the radio station owned by the government, the Radio Television Libres Des Milles Collines (RTLM). It was a duty of every Hutu to kill Tutsis, the Hutu-dominated government urged their fellow Hutus. Kigali was where the killing started off. From automatic weapons to the more rudimentary tools such as household machetes, farm tools, knives, spears and even masu, traditional tools that resemble a bulky club with nails sticking out, were used to do the slaughter as the genocide spreads across the country. The bloody genocide lasted for one hundred days that left streets and towns with mutilated bodies of the victims, shoved in landfills, dumped in ditches and rivers, and left in churches and schools. Few Rwandans escaped the horrors of the genocide. Yet official documents issued by the Ministry of Local Government revealed that over a million were killed and murdered, with only 934,218 victims who could be clearly identified. More than four million, however, were either internally displaced person or refugees (“Rwandan Assails Global Inaction,” 2004). Media accounts, however, revealed that throughout the 100-day genocide, the international community was largely silent. There was either too later or too little response from the Western countries, ironically from nations and States which espoused and supported the United Nation-passed Genocide Declaration. In fact, the Los Angeles Times’ Sebastian Rotella (2007) wrote that the international peacekeeping troops that was stationed in this central African nation when the genocide began in April was pulled out for fear that they would be attacked. U.S. officials were opposed to the sending of troops to Africa, owing to the previous experience they have had when U.S. Marines on a peacekeeping mission had been killed six months prior to the start of the mass slaughter on April. Rwandan Genocide depicted in a Terry George film Released in time for the 10th year of the Rwandan brutal genocide in 1994, Hotel Rwanda (2004) takes viewers on Kigali, the place where the mass killing began, and how in spite of atrocities that occurred in this nation, the human spirit to save lives of people without reservation still triumphs. As a socialist drama, this film works to both illuminate the drama and courage by the hotelier, Paul Rusesabagina who opened the door of the hotel to more than a thousand poor and orphaned people as the slaughter escalated to uncontrollable heights. Rusesabagina is a Hutu who sympathizes with the Tutsis and Hutu moderates, and he is married to a woman, Tatiana (a role played by Sophie Okonedo) from the Tutsi ethnic clan. Before the mass carnage and chaos, the hardworking employee of the posh and luxury Hotel Mille Collines, owned by a Belgian national is busy attending to the needs and convenience sought by many of his affluent, influential and prominent guests, many of them are Whites and European foreigners. His task: to make sure that he delivers the finest and pleasurable things his guests ask of him and the hotel to provide. With each passing days, the genocide spreads across the country. His superiors or white managers leave him in charge of the hotel because they already flee the hotel. Rusesabagina’s initial concerns are to secure his family’s safely, his wife and three children at the hotel because it was under the U.N.’s protection, headed by Col. Oliver played by Nick Nolte. But he soon realized his skills can be used for greater cause so he provided shelter and feed more than 1,200 refugees, saving them from the extremists Hutus who are bent on killing all those in their list. In order to do so, he not only bribed military men to spare them, but also implored, bluff and called on influential and power brokers with whom he had done good deeds or favors so he would be able to carry out his plans. He also shamed or outfoxed a series of preening brutes and vile thugs in the Kigali. Critical in this film is how the director would credibly and authentically transfer facts in this film. The drama that unfolds use the context of the political, social and violent tensions that is growing in the Rwandan nation. The Irish-born director refuses to drag the whole film down with long expositions on the history of the conflict and the indifference by the international community to respond. However, the director made some allusion to the French-Belgian colonialism in Rwanda, the undeniable role of the Hutu-government-controlled RTML radio station and the shameful equivocation of the Clinton Administration in brief references or actual clips (Morgernstern, 2004). Particular information presented by the director are: 1) the RTLM radio station of the government, where viewers would overhear the anti-Tutsi manifestos such as calling the Tutsis as cockroaches, murderers and encouraging the Hutus to protect their Hutu land; 2) the sending of the Belgian troops just to evacuate the foreign hotel guests but not to help the natives or locals; 3) the sending of U.N. soldier in Rwanda not as peacemaker but as peacekeeper; 4) the depiction of the bloody murder where machete massacres and bodies that pile the streets are evoked to show the inhumane tragedy; 5) how journalists are feeling during the genocide, especially the one portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix as an American journalist, who looks very hopeless that any intervention or outside help would be given the land; and several others. Given these critical elements in the film, director George resurrected an old-time question, whether the West and the international community will be able to act quickly once another genocide occur or will be able to prevent such horrible and condemnable crime against humanity. Yet in the film, the little relief given by the U.N. was a little too late or too meager to even solve the larger atrocities that was then happening in Rwanda. Before the film ends and reaches its final moments, where the hotel was ordered ambushed and attacked to kill all people therein including Rusesabagina, a large convoy sent by the U.N. arrives to save people who are then travelling away from the hotel, that eventually reached the refugee camp. It offered a glimmer of hope yet very little only, because these are very few people only and there are already who became victims. Conclusion Hotel Rwanda tells us a tale of the triumph of the human kindness and selflessness in spite of a mad world. But the more bigger picture, echoed by the film is that the sad and unforgettable human atrocities in Rwanda is a reality that happened and may be repeated in the future if people and countries will not learn and be responsible to respond and act. The film echoed the sentiments of those who believe that the U.N., the United States, Belgium and other Western countries refused to help and acted too late to prevent a crime that was not surprisingly going to happen because it was already dictated by the colonial history of this African country. Second, the possibility for such atrocity to happen is high especially to places like Rwanda which is a country apart from the center of world events. There is not even some oil reserves or terrorists cells that would beg the international community to look at or care (McLaughlin, 2004). In sum, policy alone is not enough to completely prevent and diffuse any attempts for genocide in the future. There must also be strong political will among the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries. The participation of the media and public opinion is also central in advocating and opening up the realities that we have in our society. The media has played a key role in exposing to the world the events that happened in Rwanda and this has helped shaped public opinion, to pressure the U.S. to act and recognize the inhuman slaughter as genocide and not just tribal war in places like Rwanda. Works Cited Brazier, Michelle M. Domestic Constraints on American Foreign Policy: A case study of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, November 2003 National Library of Canada, Ottawa Canada Genzlinger, Neil. “Genocide and a Lawyer's Afterlife Lemkin's House.” New York Times on the Web. (February 11, 2006) Accessed December 3, 2007. Henninger, Daniel. “Wonder Land: 'Hotel Rwanda' Forces a Look At Mass Murder.” Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York. (Feb 25, 2005). Accessed November 30, 2007. Holden, Stephen. “Holding a Moral Center as Civilization Fell; [Review] ”New York Times. (Late Edition (East Coast)). New York. (Dec 22, 2004). Accessed November 30, 2007. Hornaday, Ann. “Room at the Inn; 'Hotel Rwanda' Heralds the Triumph of One Man's Decency.” The Washington Post. Washington, D.C. (January 7, 2005) Accessed November 30, 2007. Hotel Rwanda. Director. Terry George. Hollywood: United Artists/Lions Gate Entertainment, 2004. Lippman, John. “Genocide, Films Deal With It in Fiction; Don Cheadle as Hotelier.” Wall Street Journal. (Eastern edition). New York. (Dec 10, 2004). Accessed November 30, 2007. McLaughlin, Abraham. “Would the world allow another genocide?” The Christian Science Monitor. Boston, Mass. (Apr 7, 2004) Accessed November 30, 2007. Morgenstern, Joe. “Review/Film: The Horror: Hotel Rwanda Stunningly Tells of Hotelier And Rescue Amid Genocide.” Wall Street Journal. New York, N.Y.: (December 24, 2004) Accessed November 30, 2007. “Rwandan Assails Global Inaction; President Paul Kagame says the world failed to prevent his nation's genocide in 1994.”Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif. (Apr 5, 2004) Accessed December 1, 2007 Scheffer, David. “Shameful Inaction in Face of Genocide; In 1994, we in the U.S. government failed Rwanda.” Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, Calif. (Apr 5, 2004) accessed December 1, 2007 Read More