Talk:Paul Rusesabagina/Archive 1

Neutrality/Citation (2005-2014)
While I've heard the allegations that Paul charged people to stay at the hotel and would make people leave if they could no longer pay, I haven't seen any actual interviews or articles with reliable sources say this. The section in movie trivia either needs to cite some specific material or be removed, or possibly a section dedicated to some of the controversies over his memoirs needs to be created. NCErnst 22:31, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Just wished the world was abundant with people like him. But since this is not the case, I guess that's why he is honoured. The world must be a really sick place where acts of humanity are seen as an exception rather than the rule.

Acts of heroism in the face of oppression is a responsibility to humanity, not a gift.

"Those who could not pay for their lodging were forced from their rooms by Rusesabagina himself, literally as well as figuratively. He would send invoices to the rooms. If you did not pay, he called you to his office and asked you to pay or get out of the room. People strongly contested that decision, but some who had money paid, while others signed receipts for the amount owed. Instead of taking one of the regular Mille Collines employees and making that person second-in-command, Rusesabagina hired himself an assistant, Asuman Ngagi, who had been working at the Hotel Méridien . The Méridien was also under UN protection, in the zone controlled by the RPF, as were the Hotel Amahoro and the King Faisal Hospital. Asuman was even more openly hostile toward us Tutsi than Rusesabagina, threatening us at every opportunity. Visions of him haunted my dreams. Now, armed with a strong and loyal assistant, Rusesabagina became even more aggressive in moving people from their rooms because of nonpayment. Once displaced, many of us milled around the hotel and slept wherever we could, mostly in the hallways" (88-89) Kayihura, Edouard; Zukus, Kerry (2014-04-01). Inside the Hotel Rwanda: The Surprising True Story ... and Why It Matters Today (pp. 89-90). BenBella Books, Inc.. Kindle Edition. RansomIblis 20:09, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

Added a section on "Controversy". Hopefully it meets wiki standards; it's well-sourced, at least. RansomIblis 20:54, 9 November 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the original paragraphs I'd taken from HRO.org about Paul Rusesabagina and wrote up my own (well, after seeing Hotel Rwanda). I've still used a reference to hro.org but not because I've taken anything from there other than a single date.

I'm not sure how much cutting/pasting (like one date) constitutes a copyright infringement but I doubt if there's anything that could be considered copyrighted material in the Paul_Rusesabagina/temp page that I added.

I also have no real idea if this is where I was supposed to explain that, or if I'm just writing a note to myself here.

If anyone happens by, feel free to comment.

The new copyright-free material is at Paul_Rusesabagina/temp which I think is where it had to go because of the original screwup.

this was original poster but his post is deleted due to copyright i think. probably this page gets deleted also, but please someone write an article about this man.


 * Done - since I posted the new article it has been significantly expanded, which I'm grateful for since I didn't know much about Rusesabagina outside of Hotel Rwanda. Also, it would be nice if people signed their talk page comments, or at least gave a date. --Chrysaor 01:09, Feb 20, 2005 (UTC)

Foundation Site
I am the designer of the Rusesabgina Foundation site (www.rusesabaginafoundation.org) and also work at the agency that represents Paul for lecture engagements (www.apbspeakers.com). I'm looking for any input on the foundation site. It's still in the early stages of development and I'm just harvesting ideas. Thanks.


 * The foundation site link is appropriate for this article but the commercial pitch for the speakers' bureau is not. I've removed it. JamesMLane 17:54, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Paul is dead? (2005-2007)
I just wanted to know why this entry lists his death date of December 19, 2005. I can't find anything about his death on the web. I thought maybe all people are listed that way, but I clicked on several other live people, and they have no death date.
 * I removed the death date. No confirmation that he has died could be found, and I think we would have heard about it if he had died. --lenehey 209.172.118.16 18:18, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

He's most certainly alive. He's giving a lecture at the University of Oklahoma on September 27.--Syd Henderson 00:18, 26 September 2006

Paul is very much alive. in a week he will be giving my school a lecture on the hardships he faced during the genocide. Governor Mifflin Intermediate School- David George editor. reading Pa 19607 feb.21.2007

Cleanup (2006)
I've tried to tidy the English up a little. However, I don't know enough about the material to try to bring the article towards NPOV without risking material errors or oversights. The article definitely needs further work. --Tom Yates 09:25, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Movie discrepancies?
i like the notion of the first discrepancy, it makes sense, but the second about it taking two hours instead of two minutes for the discussion, that's not relevant, it's a movie, of course it's going to take longer in real life. in real life the whole series of events lasted longer than 2 hours the movie showed too, but we don't list that as a discrepancy because its common sense. its a true-to-life drama movie, not a documentary. -- paul

Commented-out Text (2006)
User added the following text in January. User:SimonP later commented it out with the annotation "This section makes no sense, and needs to be rewritten". I've removed it from the article and put it here for discussion.
 * Rusesabagina claimed he left because of the continuous threats he received from Hutus. They wanted to shoot him at one o'clock in the afternoon in the company of his daughters and had already blocked the street with vehicles. When they approached him from both sides with guns, people in the neighbourhood threw stones at them and screamed for help. This way he survived one of many death threats. His wife was intimidated too and the Hutus knew everything about them. The Rusesabaginas fled towards Brussels, Belgium, but returned back to Kigali in March 1994. It was obvious that there was trouble in the air, but still they returned because they considered it their moral duty; moreover, the Arusha accords had been signed and many UN troops had arrived in the country. One of the UN commanders was General Roméo Dallaire.

Cheers, CWC (talk) 18:47, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"abusing his popularity"(2006)
User recently added the following text to the article, just after the lead paragraph. It seems POV to me, so I've moved it here for discussion.
 * It must be mentioned that through out his tour and speech he portrays Rwanda as being unsafe "No justice", this is his political agenda, this man is using and abusing his popularity for political dispute, instead of goodwill toward humanitarian. Also, this knowledge of the history of Rwanda is questionable and incorrect, there NEVER was slavery of Hutus during post colonialism, there was however a King in power and the citizens are to obey the king regardless. History as we know repeats its self, as he says himself. But we also know that history is made and writen by people. History is told by those remaining and those who have succeeded, and told in their own ways and opinions. Paul does not tell the story as it is, he is trying to participate in the making of history by confusing the whole world and sending the wrong message.

Any thoughts? CWC (talk) 18:52, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The content and message of that paragraph is highly POV, the wording is totally unencyclopedic. You were right to remove it from the article. --Uwe 18:27, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Whose adopted nieces? (2006)
The lead paragraph says that Mr Rusesabagina "currently lives in Belgium with his children and their adopted nieces." It's not immediately clear to me who adopted whom. Could someone clarify this, please? Thanks, CWC (talk) 18:58, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * The movie "Hotel Rwanda" says that Paul Rusesabagina adopted the daughters of Tatiana's brother Thomas and his wife Fedens. Like Tatiana, both were Tutsis. The were never found, so they were most probably killed during the genocide. --Uwe 19:55, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Are Paul R. and Tatiana still together? If so, we should say something like he "and his wife currently live in Belgium with their children and their adopted nieces". CWC (talk) 04:14, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree that a "where are they now?" type section would be a nice addition. I'll look into it. Right now I'm working on cleaning up the Rwandan genocide article. Lisapollison 13:51, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

General Roméo Dallaire
There are a few sentences about General Roméo Dallaire in this article, and I think that this information is covered quite well in the Rwanda Genocide article and the article on the general himself. I don't know whether this information belongs in this article as well. NHammen

I agree. As they were not related to Rusesabagina, I removed them.

Estimates of genocide victims
It should be noted that 900,000 dead from the Rwandan Genocide is the high estimate. Chucklebean hello pal rusesabagina is not dead he is verry much alive i know it to im verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry shure of it he does lots of speaches at war and stuff like that he rocks he has a loada guts to save all them tutsis

trial against him and controversy on his rôle (2007-2008)
I notice that the article about Hotel Rwanda includes this paragraph:
 * According to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, Paul Rusesabagina is being sued by over 100 people who were in Hotel de Mille Collines during the genocide for distorting the truth of events. Current Rwandan President Paul Kagame has claimed the hotel was spared because Hutu militants wanted to use the refugees there to exchange for hostages held by the Tutsi rebel forces. The people who used the hotel as a refuge accuse Mr. Rusesabagina of exaggerating his role in the genocide for profit.

The sources seem more than respectable but I still would like some input before adding this to a living person's biographie. It really feels bad to hurt a hero's image; but I guess reading an encyclopedia is also about learning that the world is more complex than a film (it was said in the other article that the hotel seemed to have been spared by hutus to use it's inhabitant as exchange with the tutsi rebels). Anyway, hat I am waiting for here is comment on the reliability of this material (I certainly will add it if it's true). Aleph42 01:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

The link "2" to WSJ works, although only about 10 lines of the article are accessible to the public. However, a NYTimes search on "Rusesabagina" turns up nothing later than February 2005. Can we get a link to the supposed NYT article about this? Iphthime (talk) 03:40, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

There is a Reuters article about the controversy and criticism of Rusesabagina that could help to shed some light on this issue located here: http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04209686.htm Flixthecat85 02:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)flixthecat85

Some one needs to add a section called "Controversy". I recently visited Rwanda for several weeks and there is an unquestionable amount of doubt and controversy over the role that he played. He is not allowed to return and his work is largely viewed to be an exploitation of the events for his personal gain. During the latest genocide commemoration speech, President Kagame directly referred to Rusesbagina in the speech and explained the pain that he brings to the nation; while Rusesabagina travels and profits largely from his stories, the "real" genocide heroes go unrecognized and "real" genocide victims still suffer.

Several points of controversy: -Rusesabagina possible participation in genocidal events -Hotel always had running water, he made non-paying guests drink from the pool -Took large bribes, so only rich Tutsis were able to benefit from his actions

Many of the heroic actions described to be carried out by Rusesabagina were in fact carried out by UNAMIR personnel, including Captain Mbaye Diagne. See BBC's Mark Doyle for accurate info, Gen. R. Dallaire's book, as well as many eyewitness reports. Rusesabagina has almost NO mention in Dallaire's book. The most detailed, day-by-day source of information is "No witness shall survive", by the International Federation of Human Rights. Check your sources, ask rwandan survivors who wer there, and you will see that Rusesabagina's role is for the most part invented by Hollywood. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.207.236.176 (talk) 02:05, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

In general I think it would be appropriate if someone with research in this area wrote a section on the controversy between Rwanda (Kagame as source of authority) and Rusesbagina, so that readers can understand that these events are severely questioned in the place where they actually take place. --BagelMSU 19:02, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom (2007)
I think it was a wonderful thing that President Bush did in awarding this medal to Paul. This medal honors the great service Paul performed during the failure of the Clinton administration and Democrat Congress to do anything to stop the genocide. I would like to see more about the event when the medal was given described in the article. Jtpaladin 21:45, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Genocide Denial? (2007-2021)
I've seen several mentions that Rusesabagina has made several comments recently along the lines that what happened in Rwanda wasn't actually genocide, but actually Hutus "striking back against Tutsi oppression". I haven't seen any direct quotes about this, but some academics are beginning to take notice (http://lipstadt.blogspot.com/2007/11/rwanda-new-form-of-genocide-denial.html). If anyone has more details about this, I think it would be useful to mention in the article. Rjhatl (talk) 21:07, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

This article also asserts that Rusesabagina trivialises or denies the rwandan genocide http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a913912594&db=all. Same article can be found here: http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/comment/55324 (if you do not have acces to the first.Annika27 (talk) 15:04, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

There is a great deal of controversy that has surrounded Rusesabagina since he moved away from Rwanda, which isn't sufficiently addressed. While some of this is completely unsubstantiated and has no place on a Wikipedia article, there are direct quotes that Rusesabagina has made, it is important to make reference to some of the comments that Rjhatl and Annika27 have referred to - I will add these to the 'contoversy' section, along with any of the other main issues that have been subject to dispute. I think a 'Politics' section which refers to sparring between Rusesabagina and Kagame is appropriate, with a separate section for 'Controversy'. Any input welcome. Africanedits (talk) 10:20, 22 January 2021 (UTC)

Diplomat (2008)
I removed a dubious bit of text claiming he was protected by his "prior work as a diplomat", added in 2005 (!). It seems supported by no source that I can find and is probably derived from a misunderstanding of his stint managing L'Hotel des Diplomates before returning to Milles Collines at the beginning of the crisis. --Dhartung | Talk 07:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Film section (2009)
Are the differences between what happens in the film adaptation and his actual life really pertinent to the article? These details seem far more appropriate to the film's article alone, as is usually the case in similar situations (in fact, all similar situations that I've seen) since the topic of what liberties the film took are the domain of just that—the film. If the details are at all supposed to be a vehicle for discussing more biographical details, then they should be merged with the woefully underwritten "birth and career" section and the "timeline" section into a properly fleshed-out bio.  Mbinebri  talk &larr; 02:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Genocide section (2009)
After reading the deleted genocide section, I decided to restore it, since no apparent discussion took place about having it removed or improved, and the general rationale for its removal (basically that it just wasn't good enough in the editor's opinion) doesn't hold much water. I admit I'm no expert on the subject, so I can't speak to the section's historical accuracy, but it is sourced to at least a small degree, and leaving it out makes as much sense as writing an article on an American president then omitting the topic of his presidency. If there are issues with the section, the far better and more Wiki-like approach would be to seek a knowledgeable Wikipedian's expertise on the subject rather than remove the topic outright, leaving a huge hole in the article.  Mbinebri  talk &larr; 03:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot my pword. I am at work. Just like to mention that the NewTimes article is Opinion Editorial and is not a primary source. It should be eliminated.198.36.23.220 (talk) 14:22, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Undue weight (2012)
I have tagged the article as having undue weight on certain viewpoints. The things mentioned previously on this talk page about his actions during the genocide (e.g. only protecting those who can pay, etc.) and how Rwandans view him should be verified for truthfulness and included in the article if reliable sources could be found. The article currently quotes those critical of him, but they are largely broad accusations that don't go into detail about why he isn't the hero he appears to be in the media. wctaiwan (talk) 06:11, 21 March 2012 (UTC)

Dead Links (2013)
Most of the links at the bottom of the article are dead. Measures should be taken to find updated links, or to remove them. 138.251.225.150 (talk) 01:04, 5 October 2013 (UTC)

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