Commends Paul Rusesabagina for his courage exhibited through his efforts to save scores of Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Mille Collines hotel in Rwanda.
Acknowledges the heroic work of many other Rwandans and international human rights activists for their campaign to stop the Rwanda genocide.
Remembers the victims of the Rwanda genocide and pledges to work to ensure that such an atrocity does not reoccur.
[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 94 Introduced in House (IH)]
109th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 94
Commending Paul Rusesabagina for his courage and bravery in saving
hundreds of lives from the genocide in Rwanda, and for other purposes.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
March 10, 2005
Mr. Tancredo submitted the following concurrent resolution; which was
referred to the Committee on International Relations
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Commending Paul Rusesabagina for his courage and bravery in saving
hundreds of lives from the genocide in Rwanda, and for other purposes.
Whereas in August 1993, the government of President Juvenal Habyarimana in
Rwanda and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) signed a peace agreement,
paving the way for a power-sharing arrangement and the return of Rwandan
refugees to their country;
Whereas shortly after signing the peace agreement, President Habyarimana
deliberately and systematically delayed the setting up of the coalition
government as agreed to by the parties, expanded the training of
extremist groups, and intensified hate radio through Radio Mille
Collines;
Whereas according to a report of the United Nations Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR),
on November 5, 1993, at a meeting chaired by President Habyarimana, the
government decided to provide weapons, including grenades and machetes,
to the interhamwe and other militia groups, with a directive to kill
Tutsis, and, according to the same report, distribution of the weapons
began that same month;
Whereas on January 6, 1994, General Romeo Dallaire, commander of United Nations
forces in Rwanda, reported to his superiors at the United Nations that
the militias intended to kill a large number of Tutsi and moderate Hutu
civilians, and he informed those at the United Nations responsible for
peacekeeping operations that he intended to seize the arms and asked for
United Nations protection for the informant who provided the
information;
Whereas on January 12, 1994, General Dallaire was told by United Nations
headquarters that the United Nations mandate did not give him the
authority to seize the arms cache and the United Nations would not
provide protection to the informant, and instead, General Dallaire was
ordered to provide the information to President Habyarimana and the
ambassadors of Belgium, France, and the United States;
Whereas the security situation in Rwanda deteriorated rapidly in late February
1994, with the slaughter of 70 civilians in Kigali, the capital of
Rwanda;
Whereas on April 7, 1994, the Rwandan Armed Forces and the interhamwe militia
unleashed genocide against Tutsi civilians and moderate Hutu
politicians, during which hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians,
including women and children, were massacred;
Whereas beginning on April 7, hundreds of Rwandans, most of them Tutsi or Hutu
threatened by Hutu Power supporters, took shelter at the Mille Collines,
a luxury hotel in central Kigali owned by Sabena Airlines;
Whereas the hotel's Dutch manager, who was evacuated from Kigali, left the hotel
in the care of Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu, who negotiated his way,
miraculously unharmed, from his home to the hotel in a hotel van, along
with his family and a few friends;
Whereas the Mille Collines was physically undefended, with interhamwe bands
surrounding the hotel grounds and the six outside telephone lines of the
hotel switchboard cut off by the Hutu Power authorities;
Whereas the number of refugees packed into the rooms and corridors came close to
a thousand, and it was periodically announced by Hutu Power authorities
that they would all be massacred;
Whereas Rusesabagina worked through diverse middlemen to keep the hotel cellars
well stocked, and bribed military command officials with beer to keep
them from killing the refugees under his roof;
Whereas Rusesabagina also traded beer for sweet potatoes and rice to keep the
refugees in the hotel from starving, and the refugees drank from the
hotel swimming pool to keep from dying of thirst;
Whereas Rusesabagina discovered an old fax line which the Hutu Power authorities
had not managed to cut off, and would stay up every night using the line
to send faxes to and calling President of the United States Bill
Clinton, the French Foreign Ministry, the King of Belgium, and other
influential figures, describing the terror engulfing Rwanda;
Whereas On April 23, Lieutenant Apollinaire Hakizimana of the Department of
Military Intelligence arrived at the hotel at 6:00 a.m. and ordered
Rusesabagina to turn out everyone who had sought shelter there, giving
Rusesabagina only one half hour to comply with his instructions;
Whereas Rusesabagina and several of the occupants began telephoning various
colonels and anyone else in the regime they could think of who could
overturn Lieutenant Hakizimana's orders;
Whereas before the half hour had elapsed, a colonel from the Rwandan National
Police arrived to end the siege and to oblige the lieutenant to leave;
Whereas similar attempts were made to lay siege upon the Mille Collines hotel
and kill its inhabitants;
Whereas Rusesabagina saved many more lives by continually sending those he
trusted to rescue other families and friends with the hotel vans and to
bring them back to the hotel;
Whereas Rusesabagina set out to defy the killers by appealing to their passion
for power, acknowledging that they could choose not only to take life
away but also to extend the gift of retaining it, and used his
negotiating skills to persuade them to spare the lives of many;
Whereas Rusesabagina's courage is summed up in his own account of his actions:
``People became fools. I don't know why. I kept telling them, I don't
agree with what you're doing. . . . I'm a man who's used to saying no
when I have to. That's all I did--what I felt like doing. Because I
never agree with killers. . . . I refused, and I told them so.''; and
Whereas none of the people who took shelter at the Mille Collines hotel was
killed, beaten, or taken away during the genocide because of
Rusesabagina's courage, bravery, cleverness, and willingness to
negotiate to save everybody he could: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That the Congress--
(1) commends Paul Rusesabagina for his courage and bravery
exhibited through his efforts to save scores of Tutsis and
moderate Hutus in the Mille Collines hotel, as Oskar Schindler
saved scores of European Jews during the Holocaust;
(2) recognizes that Rusesabagina sought to save everyone he
could, even if it meant negotiating with those who wanted to
kill them;
(3) understands the great risks taken by Rusesabagina in
using his resources and contacts to ensure the safety of so
many;
(4) recognizes that Rusesabagina's willingness to refuse
violence in the face of such monstrous actions saved as many as
a thousand lives, and resulted in one of the greatest examples
of human courage and bravery of our time;
(5) acknowledges the heroic work of many other Rwandans and
international human rights activists for their campaign to stop
the genocide in Rwanda; and
(6) remembers the victims of the genocide that occurred in
1994 in Rwanda and pledges to work to ensure that such an
atrocity does not take place again.
<all>
Introduced in House
Introduced in House
Referred to the House Committee on International Relations.
Referred to the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights and International Relations.
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