Genocide In Hotel Rwanda

With tear filled eyes, I write about one of the worst genocides in African history. In Kigali, Rwanda, Spring of 1994 over eight-hundred thousand people were massacred in the streets surrounding the Milles Collines Hotel. This hotel ran by Paul Rusesabagina became shelter to 1,268 Tutsi and Hutu refugees. In December 2004, Terry George releases the film Hotel Rwanda which not only captivates its audience but revisits the mass murderers that the global community collectively turned a blind eye causing many innocent lives to parrish. Georges ability to capture the realism of the event surpasses a film 's primary purpose of entertainment, it educates and reminds viewers to never turn our backs to a country in need. The film reveals how many countries …show more content…
Just steps outside of the Milles Collines Hotel, men with knives and spiked sticks are brutally mutilating people because of their ethnicity. There is no way out for many, except the few that are able to escape to the safety of the hotel. Rusesabagina in this situation does what he has been doing for many years, he welcomes the refugees and treats them as hotel guests. It is an unimaginable task to run a hotel when mass killings are happening at every minute and threatening the safety of every life inside, but this is the only way that Rusesabagina manages to keep things in order. Running the hotel as it normally would helps Rusesabagina keep his thoughts in order and it also helps him maintain a sense of dignity when so much pressure and countless innocent lives are on his shoulders. It is during these critical moments that Rusesabagina calls upon the people he has built a relationship with to ask for favors such as the General, who offers the help of his soldiers in exchange for more alcohol. To Rusesabagina’s surprise many of his safety net people do not extend a helping hand despite their full awareness of the situation which leaves him to his own resources and at times at the mercy of the Hutu extremist. Essentially, The international community did nothing which George shows in the scene where the head of the UN peacekeeping force tells Paul to look at the situation from a Western perspective, the international community overlooked them because they are African. It is disheartening to know that many countries witnessed this series of events on national television or by word of mouth and remained silent as the Hutus continued to take so many