On the 31st August 2020, news broke of the arrest of Paul Rusesabagina-a self-declared enemy of the Rwandan government as we shall show below- as he was paraded before the media by the Rwandan Investigation Bureau (RIB). The RIB informed the public that Rusesabagina was to face terrorism-related charges. As to be expected with anything about Rwanda, the news sparked strong reactions ranging from unutterable joy to unmitigated anger, despair and disbelief. “Critics” such as Jeffrey Smith- the founding director of Vanguard Africa- immediately called for the American government to sever its diplomatic ties with Kigali on account of the arrest. Citing a Spokesperson for Rusesabagina’s foundation,Jeffrey Smith accused the Rwandan “regime” of “kidnapping” the “Hotel Rwanda Hero” whose main crime was - if Jeffrey is to be believed- to be “an outspoken critic of the government.” But “Hero” is a term that Jeffrey Smith would similarly use to describe himself in his self-proclaimed role as democratizer-in-chief whose mission is to save hapless Africans themselves from the cruelty of African dictators. To support his claims on the untarnished character of his hero, Smith resurrected the Presidential Medal of Freedom awarded to Paul Rusesabagina by President Bush in 2005. In a similar effort, one of Paul Rusesabaginas daughters invoked her father’s permanent resident status in the United States as well as his Belgian citizenship in calling on both countries to intercede in favor of hisfather’s immediate release. Some indisputable facts regarding Rusesabagina’s culpability are at the disposal of the public. The first is that it is on record that Paul Rusesabagina, as the leader and on behalf of the MRCD movement, called for an armed rebellion against the Rwandan government. In the video, released on Radio Ubumwe YouTube account, Rusesabagina expresses his “unreserved support” for the actions and activities ofhis FLN (National Liberation Front), the armed wing of MRCDthat seeks to “liberate” Rwanda violently.At one point in the video Rusesabagina says that peaceful change has failed and that liberating Rwanda using “any means possible” is the option he has chosen to turn to – a declaration of war substantiated by his own statements following an armed attack (some of those attacks had preceded this statement). At the time of the release of the video on the 25th December 2018, the NLF had already launched several attacks on Rwandan territory and continued to conduct deadly incursions throughout the same year, namely in Nyaruguru and Nyamagabe districts. The attacks targeted and claimed the lives of scores of innocent Rwandan civilians. In his public call supporting the NLF, Rusesabagina referred to these attacks thus: “Since the beginning of July 2018, the NLF launched a military struggle to liberate the Rwandan people,” insisting on the urgent need to speed up the “liberation struggle in 2019. The second indisputable fact is that the NLF movements spokesperson, Callixte Nsabimana, claimed responsibility for these attacks before and after his arrest, both on NLF social media platforms and during his ongoing trial. Nsabimana pleaded guilty to the terrorism charges aspronounced by the prosecution, acknowledging the involvement of MRCD armed wing(the same FLN for which Rusesabagina was pleading for public support) in the attacks which left several Rwandan civilians dead. Since then,Nsabimana had on several occasions apologized to the Rwandan people for the lives lost and appealed to the court’s leniency. The third indisputable fact is the ties between Rusesabagina and Nsabimana. As information about the arrest of Callixte Nsabimana began to circulate at the end of March 2019, Rusesabagina communicated on NLF platforms to reassure supporters about the situation of the FLN spokesperson (Nsabimana). Rusesabagina indicated that he was involved in negotiations to obtain Nsabimana’s release and prevent his deportation to Rwanda. In light of these indisputable facts, as corroborated by Rusesabagina himself on numerous occasions, the terrorism charges against the “Hotel Rwanda hero” have a strong legal basis regardless of whether one is a critic or ally of the government of Rwanda. Therefore, the display of unreserved public support for the armed movement, the incitement to uprising using violent means and the call to wage war against an incumbent democratically elected government by Rusesabagina cannot be merely dismissed by Jeffrey Smith who cannot meaningfully counter indisputable facts beyond peddling innuendos about Africa’s “dictatorship.” White privilege doesn’t think it needs evidence; it assumes itself evidence. It is a natural instinct for many whites like Smith to masquerade as a defender of human rights with a divine mission to democratize Africa with or without the consent of Africans on whose behalf they claim or pretend to speak. This contempt for the African people upon whom Smith forces himself explains why he insists on the Hollywood decreed “hero”status and Bush medal despite the reservations of Rwandans who insist that Rusesabagina only “saved” those who were willing and able to pay for protection. Even capitalism wouldn’t qualify this exploitation as heroism. Moreover, whether Rusesabagina is a hero or not and whether or not he deserved the Bush medal is immaterial in this debate, given that they don’t erase the reality of the undisputable facts cited above. If Smith was a human rights defender as he likes to pose, he would speak on behalf of the Nyaruguru and Nyamagabe residents who were victims of Rusesabagina’s terrorism and demand that all people of conscience desist from watching the Hotel Rwanda movie as well as seek the revocation of the Bush medal. Likewise, the Belgian citizenship and the permanent resident status granted to Paul Rusesabagina are irrelevant to the issue at hand. To quote Olivier Nduhungirihe, the Rwandan ambassador to the Kingdom of The Netherlands, “Rusesabagina is a Rwandan citizen, which is the only point that counts in Rwanda in case of multiple citizenships. Second, the crimes he is accused of were committed on Rwandan soil, against Rwandan citizens. Western citizenship or residence has no primacy in international law”. This should end the debate as to the legitimacy of the Rwandan justice system or that of Rwandan courts’ jurisdiction over its ability to try a “hero.” Moreover, it renders any attempt on the part of the US and Belgium to interfere in the case, especially given the irrefutable facts noted above pointing to a self-confessed terrorist, a direct attack on the sovereignty of Rwanda and a diplomatic blunder. I suspect that Jeffrey Smith and Co have decided to ignore the aforementioned incriminating facts that are inconvenient to their narrative and their regime change agenda quite simply because they do not dare to say loud and clear that they support Rusesabagina’s call for the use of violent means to overthrow the RPF-led government. However, this is precisely what their silence on these facts says. Indeed, while their “human rights and democracy defenders” facade prevents them from clearly saying so, their actions leave no doubt as to their implicit support for and complicity with the use of violence advocated for by their “hero”.Their implicit support is the reason they parrot Rusesabagina’s claims on the nature of the Rwandan government in his justification to launch a war, “The enemy of the Rwandan people has not changed since 1990. His cruelty has intensified,” Rusesabagina says in the same video where he calls for war. It is Rusesabagina’s view that the enemy of the Rwandan people is not the genocidal government that killed one million innocent people; for him, the enemy is the RPF which launched its liberation struggle in October 1990 and defeated the genocidal government. This is the revisionist view of Paul Rusesabagina, the man who, according to Hollywood and Jeffrey Smith, saved Tutsi during the genocide. But the inconvenient questions must also be asked: If Rusesabagina saved Tutsis from genocidaires and if he believes that the enemy of the Rwandan people since 1990 is the RPF, who does he think was killing Tutsi during the genocide in 1994?
