The man is named Paul Rusesabagina, a man of quiet,
steady competence in a time of chaos. This is not the
kind of man the camera silhouettes against mountaintops,
but the kind of man who knows how things work in the
real world, who uses his skills of bribery, flattery,
apology and deception to save these lives who have come
into his care.
Hotel managers would make excellent diplomats. They
speak several languages. They are discreet. They know
how to function appropriately in different cultures.
They know when a bottle of scotch will repay itself six
times over. They know how to handle complaints. And they
know everything that happens under their roof, from the
millionaire in the penthouse to the bellboy who can get
you a girl.
Paul is such a hotel manager. He is a Hutu, married to a
Tutsi named Tatiana. He has been trained in Belgium and
runs the four-star Hotel Des Milles Collines in the
capital city of Kigali. He does his job very well. He
understands that when a general's briefcase is taken for
safekeeping, it contains bottles of good scotch when it
is returned. He understands that to get the imported
beer he needs, a bribe must take place. He understands
that his guests are accustomed to luxury, which must be
supplied even here in a tiny central African nation
wedged against Tanzania, Uganda and the Congo. Do these
understandings make him a bad man? Just the opposite.
They make him an expert on situational ethics. The
result of all the things he knows is that the hotel runs
well and everyone is happy.
Then the genocide begins, suddenly, but after a long
history. Rwanda's troubles began, as so many African
troubles began, when European colonial powers
established nations that ignored traditional tribal
boundaries. Enemy tribes were forced into the same land.
For years in Rwanda under the Belgians, the Tutsis ruled
and killed not a few Hutu. Now the Hutus are in control,
and armed troops prowl the nation, killing Tutsis.
There is a United Nations "presence" in Rwanda,
represented by Canadian Colonel Oliver. Oliver--steady, wise,
cynical and a master of the possible--came to Rwanda as
a peacekeeper, and now there is no peace to keep. He
sees what is happening, informs his superiors, asks for
help and intervention, and is ignored. Paul Rusesabagina
informs the corporate headquarters in Brussels of the
growing tragedy, but the hotel in Kigali is not the
chain's greatest concern. The nations of the world
are united in their indifference toward Rwanda. It
finally comes down to these two men acting as
free-lancers to save more than a thousand lives they
have somehow become responsible for.
Colonel Oliver makes a considered choice in ignoring
his orders and doing what he can do, right now, right
here, to save lives.
Paul Rusesabagina intuitively understands that only by
continuing to act as a hotel manager can he achieve
anything. His hotel is hardly functioning, the economy
has broken down, the country is ruled by anarchy, but he
puts on his suit and tie every morning and fakes
business as usual -- even on a day he is so frightened,
he cannot tie his tie.
He deals with a murderous Hutu general, for example, not
as an enemy or an outlaw, but as a longtime client who
knows that the value of a good cigar cannot be measured
in cash. Paul has trained powerful people in Kigali to
consider the Hotel Des Milles Collines an oasis of
sophistication and decorum, and now he pretends that is
still the case. It isn't, but it works as a strategy
because it cues a different kind of behavior; a man who
has yesterday directed a mass murder might today want to
show that he knows how to behave appropriately in the
hotel lobby.
How the 1,200 people come to be "guests" in the hotel is
a chance of war. Some turn left, some right, some live,
some die. Paul is concerned above all with his own
family. As a Hutu, he is safe, but his wife is Tutsi,
his children are threatened, and in any event, he is far
beyond thinking in tribal terms. He has spent years
storing up goodwill and now he calls in favors. He moves
the bribery up another level. He hides people in his
hotel. He lies. He knows how to use a little blackmail:
Sooner or later, he tells a powerful general, the world
will take a reckoning of what happened in Kigali, and if
Paul is not alive to testify for him, who else will be
believed?
Hotel Rwanda is not about hotel management, but
about heroism and survival. Rusesabagina and North both
rise to the challenge.