Chelsea+Force+(Hotel+Rwanda)

Hotel Rwanda Chelsea Force

In the year of 1994 the Rwanda Genocide began, claiming the lives of about 800,000 people in approximately 100 days. Prior to the Genocide, and before the 1950’s, the Tutsis, a minority race that functioned as nobles and supported the monarchial government, ran the country of Rwanda. They ruled the Hutus, another race that held the majority of the country. During the 1950’s, the Hutus rebelled, and many of the Tutsis fled into exile in neighboring countries. Then, in the early 1990’s, the Tutsis exiles helped to form the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and attacked the Hutu areas of Rwanda from their posts in Uganda. When the fighting intensified the Rwandan president, Maj. Gen. Juvenal Habyarimana reached an agreement with the FPR; however, in 1994 President Habyarimana and the president of Burundi were killed in a suspicious plane crash. In response the Hutus, encouraged and supported by their government, systematically massacred 800,000 Tutsis, with tens of thousands of Hutus dying as well. A new government established by the extremist Hutu militia took over, but the FPR claimed victory by July and installed a new government. Around 2 million refugees, both Hutus and Tutsis fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the United Nations sent French troops to establish a safety zone in Rwanda, as well as a peacekeeping mission. However, the refuge camps in Rwanda resulted in disease and starvation, and the heavy flow of people into the DRC led to the wars in future years (//abc-clio.com//).

 When the President of Rwanda died in the plane crash, the 100-day massacre of the Tutsis people began. During this time a man named “Paul Rusesabagina sheltered more than 1,200 Tutsis and moderate Hutus within the walls of the luxury hotel he managed” (npr.org). The hotel’s name, Mille Collines, was quickly forgotten, and it is now known as Hotel Rwanda. There were several instances where the Rwandan police ordered Rusesabagina to turn out all those who were at Hotel Rwandan, and the militia forces surrounded the building, however Rusesabagina called many influential people who had been through the hotel, including military allies, and the forces were called off. In one incident, “on May 13, a captain came to the hotel in the morning to warn that there would be an attack at 4 in the afternoon” (npr.org). In response Rusesabagina sent a fax to the French Foreign Ministry, saying that the Rwandan government forces were going to massacre those taking refuge in the Hotel. In turn UN forces interfered, and the attack never took place. No one that took refuge at the hotel was killed during the Rwanda genocide, and Paul Rusesabagina was, and is still known, as a hero to the people of Rwanda and across the world.



Works Cited “Paul Rusesabagina, No ‘Ordinary Man.” npr. National Public Radio, 2006. Web. 5 Feb. 2011.

Whynot, Wyndham. "Rwanda: Middle East Wars." World at War: Understanding Conflict and Society. __________ ABC-CLIO, 2011. Web. 5 Feb. 2011.