Kaltura Video
20 years after the Rwandan Genocide - with Paul Rusesabagina
Date & time
Mar 27, 2014,
4:30-6:00 pm EDT
Location
Free and open to the public.
Join in on the discussion on social media using #fordschoolrwanda
This Keynote lecture is part of the IPC commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide. Rwandan Event Registration.
In 1994 Paul Rusesabagina, a Hutu manager of a luxury hotel in Rwanda, sheltered over 1,200 people, including his own Tutsi wife and children, saving their lives at a time when extremists massacred more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi and moderate Hutu tribes in just 100 days.
Considered the "Rwandan Schindler," his wrenching story and that of the genocide is chronicled in the critically acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda, a riveting account of a man finding courage within himself to save others in the midst of his country's darkest moment.
When Rwanda descended into madness, Rusesabagina took action. A fastidious, crafty, and yet highly principled businessman, he resorted to desperate tactics. While militants threatened and surrounded the well-groomed grounds of the hotel, he spent hours on the phone, pleading with influential leaders, his international connections his only defense against attack. He bartered luxury items such as money, gold, cigars, and aged bottles of wine he hoarded in his hotel, for the lives of strangers seeking refuge in the chaos. Miraculously, no one who housed at his hotel died.
He has since founded the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation (HRRF) which provides support, care, and assistance to children orphaned by, and women abused during, the genocide in Rwanda. Lauded by many, he is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award, and the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award. In 2005 Paul Rusesabagina was awarded the University of Michigan's Wallenberg Medal and offered a lecture in the Power Center.
The IPC will begin the week with a free screening of "Hotel Rwanda" on Monday, March 24th from 7:00pm-9:00pm in the Annenberg Auditorium Ford School of Public Policy.
For more information: Watch Allan Stam, IPC Director and U-M Professor of Political Science and Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies, discuss the genocide, civil war, vendetta killings and random violence that took place in Rwanda in 1994.
These events are sponsored in part by:
The International Institute (II) African Studies Center (ASC)
Department of Afroamerican and African Studies (DAAS)
Center for Public Policy in Diverse Societies at the Ford School of Public Policy
A special thanks to the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Dr. Lester Monts