Considering its subject matter, there is an understandable hesitancy to criticize the new movie "Hotel Rwanda," starring Don Cheadle. One feels a bit guilty criticizing such a well-intentioned and important movie - but one also feels obligated to highlight its shortcomings because it is such an important movie.
The average American movie-goer probably has very little understanding of what actually transpired in this tiny African country more than a decade ago. By simply bringing the story of Paul Rusesabagina, the Hotel Mille Collines, and the 1200 Rwandans he saved to the screen, director Terry George has accomplished a remarkable feat and done a great service. But considering that his audience is coming to this film looking, in part, for an explanation of what happened and why, I feel that George focused too much (and too narrowly) on the "what happened" part and too little on the "why."
There can be no doubt that, during 100 horrifying days in 1994, the world stood by and watched as militants slaughtered nearly 1 million people. Yet, in "Hotel Rwanda," the vast majority of the narrative focuses on Rusesabagina and his attempts to save his family and his own life. Much of the movie takes place within the walls of the Mille Collines and, though the genocide unfolding beyond this small sanctuary permeates the story, I felt that the true size and the horror of what was taking place was somewhat lost.
There are several scenes in which we get a sense of what was happening to those who were not as lucky as Rusesabagina, and while those scenes helped to place Rusesabagina's story in its proper context, why this was happening was completely overlooked.
There are four key aspects to the genocide that George does not mention (or mentions only in passing) that I feel need to be understood in order to truly explain just what occurred and why. George's story begins sometime in April 1994, when Hutu genocidal animosity has already reached a fevered pitch and ends with the RPF taking over Kigali. As such, it pretty much covers the entire 100 days of the genocide, though I don't think you would ever get the impression that the genocide lasted 3 months from the film. But there was much that occurred before and after these 100 days that influenced the course of history and must be acknowledged for one to have a true understanding of what took place.
1. The Rwandan Patriotic Front
Following the 1959 revolution in which the Hutus took power from the Tutsi aristocracy that had long dominated the country with the backing of Belgian colonialists, many thousands of Tutsis were killed while many thousands more fled to neighboring countries. Many of them settled in permanent refugee camps and, as a result, their children grew up stateless. Many of these Rwandan children eventually joined the Ugandan rebel National Resistance Army, led by Yoweri Museveni. In 1986, the NRA took over Uganda and Museveni became president, at which time he turned on his Rwandan allies in the army and forced them out. They left, but took their weapons with them and regrouped into the Rwandan Patriotic Front. From Uganda, they launched an invasion of Rwanda in 1990. By 1993, the RPF and the government of Kigali had worked out a peace-deal that guaranteed the right of return for refugees and implemented a power-sharing government. The militant Hutu political factions saw the peace deal as a betrayal by their president, Juvenal Habyarimana, and on April 6th, shot down his airplane as he was returning from Tanzania. (Nobody really knows for sure who shot down the plane, but most experts point the finger at the Rwandan Army.)
2. Burundi
Burundi is, in many ways, Rwanda's twin. They are of similar size, population and ethnic make-up, but unlike Rwanda, Burundi's army is dominated by the Tutsi minority. In 1993, Tutsi army officers killed Burundi's president Melchior Ndadaye. Hutu forces then retaliated on the country's Tutsis before the Tutsi-dominated army put down the insurrection and killed an estimated 100,000 people in the process.
3. Black Hawk Down
In October 1993, the United States lost 18 Army Rangers during a peacekeeping mission in Somalia. Amid harsh criticism, the Clinton administration almost immediately pulled US troops out of the country and set about drafting Presidential Decision Directive 25 which created strict guidelines regarding the use of US forces in multinational peacekeeping operations. PDD 25 was signed by President Clinton on May 6, 1994 - one month into the genocide. Traumatized by the episode in Somalia, the Clinton administration was not prepared to send US soldiers to another African country to stop a slaughter in which the US had no national interest. In fact, they used the directive as an excuse to force the withdrawal of the vast majority of UNAMIR troops mere days into the genocide. Which brings us to our final point ...
4. The Deaths of the Belgian Peacekeepers
On April 7th, 10 Belgian troops who had been sent to protect transitional Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyamana were surrounded by Rwandan troops, disarmed and taken away. Uwilingiyamana was killed by the soldiers near her home and the Belgian soldiers were tortured and killed at a nearby army base. As a result, Belgium, backed by the US, immediately pushed for a complete withdrawal of all UNAMIR troops. The UN eventually reduced the force by 90%, leaving a mere 250 poorly trained and equipped soldiers with a limited mandate to stand by while Interahamwe militias worked to kill all the Tutsis in the country, as well as any moderate Hutus who refused to join them.
These four things played a key role in the course of Rwanda's history and explain a great deal about why the genocide occurred. The invasion of the RPF and the simultaneous slaughter of Hutus in Burundi gave Hutu Power leaders in Rwanda a platform for their genocidal campaign against the country's Tutsi minority. The Tutsi were painted as collaborators with the rebel army who would, if they won the war or were granted power via the peace accord, implement the same sort of murderous oppression then occurring in Burundi. It was thus imperative, if Hutus were to survive, that they completely wipe out all the Tutsis in the country. It was, in reality, a political power struggle masked in ethnic terms but with a massive propaganda campaign, the Hutu Power contingent managed to arm and train a ruthless militia force and mentally prepare the population for the coming slaughter.
Once that slaughter began, memories of the Black Hawk Down incident and the brutal deaths of the Belgian peacekeepers not only prevented the international community from intervening, but created pressure to withdraw all UNAMIR troops. France, the US and Belgium immeditately sent troops but only to evacuate their own citizens and then immediately left, choosing to let Rwanda fend for itself. Months later, France did organize "Operation Turquoise" which was nominally designed to protect vulnerable civilians but mainly just allowed the perpetrators of the genocide to flee into Zaire.
It should also be noted that, with the onset of the genocide, the RPF launched an all-out invasion of Rwanda and eventually captured the entire country. During this invasion and afterwards, it is estimated that RPF forces killed more than 60,000 Hutus in reprisal.
The entire point of this post is to give people a little more background than they will get in the movie. The movie itself is very good and most certainly worth seeing but I fear that Terry George's somewhat narrow view of the genocide might lead those who know little about it to simply conclude that is was just "another example of Africans killing each other for no reason."
That most certainly was not the case. Like so much else in Africa (e.g., Darfur) it was a political struggle that exploited ethnic tensions - with devastating results.
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