[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>