After Hotel Rwanda, Part 2: The Backstory

Summary

Podcast Summary: I Spy – After Hotel Rwanda, Part 2: The Backstory

Host: Robbie Gramme (Foreign Policy)
Air Date: May 21, 2024

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Episode Overview

This episode of I Spy, “After Hotel Rwanda, Part 2: The Backstory,” delves into the historical, personal, and political forces that shaped the lives of Paul Rusesabagina and his family before, during, and after the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The host, Robbie Gramme, combines firsthand accounts from the Rusesabagina family with historical analysis to illuminate the transition from pre-genocide Rwanda to the country’s modern-day realities, and Paul’s path from being celebrated as a hero to becoming a high-profile government detainee.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Tatiana’s Childhood: Rwanda Before the Genocide

• Pre-1994 Rwanda:

  • Tatiana, Paul’s wife, shares that as a child, she was unaware of her Tutsi identity due to the interwoven lives of Hutus and Tutsis.
    • “I did not know even that I was a Tutsi.” — Tatiana Rosasobogina [00:50]
  • In school, ethnic identity became pronounced through arbitrary policies.
    • Anecdote: “They asked people to stand up, Hutu to stand up, Tutsi to stand up. And I stand up with Hutu. I stand up with Tutsi. The teacher said, why do you stand up with everybody?” — Tatiana [01:33]

• Impact of Colonial Rule:

  • Louis Mudge (Human Rights Watch) explains Belgian colonial tactics, where initial favoring of Tutsis was reversed at independence, giving Hutus political majority but leaving Tutsis with economic influence, sowing resentment. [02:59-04:23]
  • “At the time of independence… Hutu were taking over the levers of power, but ethnic Tutsi continued to control many aspects in terms of administrative positions and the economy.” — Historian/Expert [03:21]

Escalating Tensions: 1970s–1980s

• 1973 coup by Hutu general Juvenal Habyarimana further marginalized Tutsis.
  • Tatiana describes firsthand discrimination, being expelled from school for a year because she was Tutsi.
    • “That time I was kicked out in the school. I spent a year because I was a Tutsi.” — Tatiana [04:50]
  • Many Tutsis fled for safety; some resettled in Uganda, while Tatiana’s family stayed.
  • Despite tensions, day-to-day life sometimes resumed a “normal” surface.
    • “We forget that that incident happened… Tutsis and Hutus married together. They were not Tutsi land. No Hutuland… People speak the same language, the same religion.” — Tatiana [05:26]

Paul and Tatiana’s Relationship

• They met at a wedding in 1987 amid growing unrest, representing resilience and normalcy despite ethnic divides. [05:51-06:02]
• Tatiana, restricted by her Tutsi identity, became a nurse because she “did not have choice. They gave me what they want me to learn.” [06:21]
• Paul’s mixed Hutu-Tutsi heritage afforded him more opportunities. He was known for hiring without ethnic distinction.
  • “He…never really made distinctions around ethnicity…already known as this man who viewed and did things differently and kindly.” — Karine Rosasobogina, daughter [06:45]

Prelude to Genocide: Civil War Breaks Out

• 1990: The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) led by Paul Kagame invades from Uganda, aiming to overthrow Habyarimana. This triggers brutal reprisals against Tutsis, leading to job loss and imprisonment threats for Tatiana.

  • “When the war started, I had many problems at hospital…They wanted to put me in jail because in 1990 they imprisoned many people.” — Tatiana [07:39]

• Kagame’s Background:

  • Kagame’s rise through Ugandan intelligence and eventual leadership in the RPF, leveraging Ugandan alliances, is detailed. [08:05-09:05]

• April 6, 1994 – The Spark:

  • Shooting down of the plane carrying the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi ignites the genocide within hours.
  • “It was 8pm when I heard the missile hitting the plane…from that day, the war started.” — Tatiana [10:28-10:43]
  • The specifics of the crash remain contested, with Kagame never claiming responsibility but accepting moral justification to fight for “my rights.” [11:22]

Inside the Genocide: Hotel Rwanda for Real

• Broadcast propaganda incites neighbors to commit murder, leading to mass killings and sexual violence.

• Paul’s Response:

  • Paul sheltered 1,200+ people—Tutsis and moderate Hutus—in his hotel, negotiating and bribing killers to keep them safe.
    • “I knew that these people would kill me, and I was also threatened.…Before we kill them, we do have to kill you.” — Paul [14:00]
    • “Every day he had to convince them again to go away again. And the next day they would come back.” — Karine [14:36]

• Tatiana’s Ordeal:

  • She describes staying inside with their toddler son, the uncertainty, and her heartbreak over family outside.
    • “I was so sad. I thought about my parents. I thought about my brother. It was very hard for me.” — Tatiana [15:17]
  • She recounts a harrowing escape attempt when militias attacked her and her child.
    • “I put him down and I tried to cover him like this. I thought, if they shoot me, maybe my son will stay. You never know. Someone can take him to his dad.” — Tatiana [16:50]

• After the Worst:

  • Paul insists the film Hotel Rwanda understates reality:
    • “Hotel Rwanda is actually is a true story which is made…less violent than the real life…no one was killed, no one was taken out, no one was tortured, beaten…in that hotel.” — Paul [18:20]

The World Watches, But Fails to Act

• International society was horrified but inactive; Bill Clinton later called inaction his presidency’s “biggest regret.”

  • “We just blew it…I think had we sent 10,000 troops here and gotten a few more, we might have been able to save a third of the people who died.” — US Official [19:41]

• Cynthia McKinney (then-Congresswoman) questioned why the world and the US “allowed the world to stand by silent.” [20:00]

Aftermath: Family Tragedy and Survival

• As the genocide ends (RPF takes power in July 1994), Paul and Tatiana adopt their nieces after their biological parents are murdered.

  • “We had learned that we were adopted and that the people we had learned to call mom and dad were not our biological parents.…It was traumatic, of course, to understand how close it was to us.” — Karine [22:04]

• The family relocates to Brussels, beginning their life as exiles.

New Rwanda, Old Tactics

• Kagame consolidates power as president in 2000. Rwanda becomes a Western “success story,” even as human rights abuses persist.

  • Human Rights Watch warns of “unlawful or arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention…journalists have been threatened or killed…” — Historian/Expert [24:31]

• Paul, once a hero, becomes a public critic of Kagame and is targeted. Their Brussels home is ransacked, suspected Rwanda agents steal only documents, and Paul survives a suspicious car accident.

  • “They ransacked the house…I think four times they wanted to kill him.” — Tatiana [25:22]
  • “They took only paper that written in Kinyarwanda, and they don’t steal anything.” — Tatiana [25:48]
  • “I can tell you that I never felt safe since 2000 when I started this struggle, moving around the world talking about what was going on in Rwanda.” — Paul [26:31]

• They move to San Antonio, Texas, hoping for safety…until Paul is lured back and detained in 2020.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Tatiana’s Loss of Innocence:
  • “I did not know even that I was a Tutsi.” [00:50]
• Paul’s Motive During Genocide:
  • “I kept doing every small thing I could do. That was my message, my way of doing things.” [14:44]
• Global Failure, in Clinton’s Words:
  • “We just blew it…we might have been able to save a third of the people who died.” [19:41]
• Rwandan State Tactics:
  • “I can tell you that I never felt safe since 2000 when I started this struggle, moving around the world talking about what was going on in Rwanda.” — Paul [26:31]

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Timeline of Key Segments (Timestamps)

• Tatiana’s childhood & ethnic identity: 00:50–02:00
• Rwanda under colonial rule and transition: 02:55–04:50
• Tatiana meets Paul; escalating ethnic tensions: 05:51–07:39
• Kagame’s background and RPF Civil War: 08:05–10:28
• April 6, 1994 plane crash—start of genocide: 10:28–11:36
• Inside the hotel during the genocide: 12:44–17:18
• Survival, heroism, and after the genocide: 18:20–22:04
• Western failure to intervene: 19:18–20:17
• Paul and Tatiana’s exile, threats, and activism: 24:31–26:45
• Set up for next episode (Paul’s kidnapping): 27:02

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Overall Tone & Approach

Robbie Gramme and the guests use a mix of calm reflection, somber truths, and personal vulnerability, with Tatiana’s and Karine’s straightforward testimonies capturing both raw trauma and the resilience of survival. The historical context is clear and concise, but always rooted in human experience. The hosts avoid sensationalism, focusing on facts and personal voice to evoke empathy and understanding.

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Takeaway

This episode contextualizes the Rusesabagina family’s trajectory against Rwanda’s painful past and complex present, contrasting global horror at the genocide with the international community's inaction and highlighting Paul’s evolution from national hero to targeted dissident. It stands as a gripping portrait of individual morality amidst systemic violence and the ongoing dangers faced by those who dare dissent against powerful regimes.

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For more stories and the next chapter in Paul’s odyssey, listeners are directed to the next episode.

Transcript

[Historian/Expert]

A History of the United States in 100 Objects is a brand new podcast from 99% Invisible and BBC Studios. Each week we're looking at a different object from across American history with a unique story to tell about who we've been, what we've built, and what we've allowed ourselves to forget. Some of these objects are well known, many are not, but all of them carry the story of how we got to this moment. Find A History of the United States and 100 objects on the 99% invisible feed. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robbie Gramme]

A few months ago, I had the chance to visit the Rosasobogina family at their home in San Antonio, Texas. We talked mostly about Paul's prison ordeal, but I also asked Paul's wife, Tatiana, about her childhood, about growing up in Rwanda. She said something that surprised me.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

I did not know even that I was a Tutsi.

[Robbie Gramme]

Tatiana, of course, lived through the genocide in 1994. She was with Paul, trapped in the hotel he managed then, where more than 1200 people had taken shelter. The mass killings that took place outside the walls of the hotel and across the country would wipe out more than 75% of the country's Tutsi population, along with moderate Hutus. It came to define Paul's life and his improbable journey to prison in Rwanda in 2020. But the Rwanda of 1994 was a lot different from the Rwanda of the 1960s, when Tatiana was growing up, at least in her own experience.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

When I was in fourth grade at the school, I remember that time they asked people to stand up, Hutu to stand up, Tutsi to stand up. And I stand up with Hutu. I stand up with Tutsi. The teacher said, why do you stand up with everybody?

[Robbie Gramme]

Welcome to After Hotel Rwanda, a special four part series from Foreign Policy about Paul Rina, how he went from being a hero in Rwanda to being kidnapped, imprisoned in his home country and eventually freed. I'm Robbie Gramme. In our first episode, I described how in 2020, Paul was lured from his home in San Antonio, Texas, to Rwanda. He thought he was flying to the country of Burundi for what he said was a big speaking event with the church there. But it was an elaborate trap orchestrated by the Rwandan security services. On the plane, he said he was drugged. He woke up in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, where he was jailed on charges of supporting terrorism. On this episode, we're going to talk about the years leading up to the genocide, what they were like for Rwanda and also for Paul and his wife

[Historian/Expert]

pre 94, Rwanda was very authoritarian.

[Robbie Gramme]

This is Louis Mudge from Human Rights Watch. He spent seven years living in Rwanda working on human rights issues before the Rwandan government kicked him out of the country. Mudge says the roots of the genocide date back to Belgian colonial rule, which lasted until 1962. The Belgians helped stoke tensions between Rwanda's ethnic groups to retain their power.

[Historian/Expert]

It was a context in which Hutu had been accorded most of the power, the ethnic Hutu. This was because the colonial power at the time of independence, the Belgians had done a last minute switch and they had actually ceded most of the power to the Hutu, which are the dominant ethnic group in the country by far. Roughly 85% of the country is ethnic Hutu. But before they gave that power over to the Hutu, they had for generations in Rwanda favored the Tutsi. And so at the time of independence in the early 60s, you had a situation whereby Hutu were taking over the the levers of power. But ethnic Tutsi continued to control many, many aspects in terms of the administrative positions within the state, in terms of the economy. And so at the time of independence, because of the Belgian legacy, you had tension between those two groups.

[Robbie Gramme]

The situation became worse starting in 1973. That's when Rwanda's military chief, Juvenile Habi Rahmana, seized power in a coup. He was Hutu and he stoked tensions between the ethnic groups to consolidate power.

[Historian/Expert]

By really the 70s and 80s, you began to see the marginalization of the Tutsi as a political platform of Hutu party.

[Robbie Gramme]

This also had a direct impact on Tatiana.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

That time I was kicked out in the school. I spent a year because I was a Tutsi.

[Robbie Gramme]

There were also more and more flare ups of violence against Tutsis.

[Historian/Expert]

You started to see waves of Tutsi leave the country for their own safety and fairly, you know, rightly so. You saw the establishment in of many Tutsi in Uganda, neighboring Uganda, to the north of Rwanda.

[Robbie Gramme]

But Tatiana's family stayed and a year later she was allowed back in school. She said things kind of went back to normal kind of after that, we

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

forget that that incident happened. We were living with other kids. The people were loved each other. Tutsis and Hutus married together. They were not Tutsi land. No Hutuland In Uganda people speak the same language, the same religion.

[Robbie Gramme]

In 1987, Tatiana was at a wedding where she says another guest there caught her eye.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

He was close to the groom and I was close to the bride.

[Robbie Gramme]

It was Paul Rusesabagina. The two fell in love, but life outside their relationship was becoming more complicated and riskier. Being a Tutsi met, Tatiana faced discrimination at every level, including the profession she could choose. Tatiana became a nurse.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

Because I was Tutsis, I did not have choice. They gave me what they want me to learn.

[Robbie Gramme]

As for Paul, whose lineage was both Hutu and Tutsi, he had a much different path.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

He grew up as a farmer, grew up in a poor family in the countryside of Rwanda.

[Robbie Gramme]

This is Paul and Tatiana's daughter Karine.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

He received a scholarship and had the opportunity to go and study abroad, and then moved back to Rwanda and became a hotel manager, essentially. And at the hotel, when he would hire people, he would hire everyone. He never really made distinctions around ethnicity, and he gave opportunities to everyone. So he was already known as this man who viewed and did things differently and kindly. In the Rwandan community, Paul and Tatiana

[Robbie Gramme]

found ways to shield their relationship from the country's growing ethnic tensions, which were getting worse. By now, some Tutsis who had fled the country formed groups to fight back. The most powerful of these groups was called the Rwandan patriotic front, or RPF. In 1990, the RPF launched an invasion from its base in northern Uganda to overthrow Habi Ramana, triggering a civil war.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

When the war started, I had many problems at hospital. They said, I am too serious. They wanted to put me in jail because in 1990 they imprisoned many people. I stopped working. I go home again, stay in my home.

[Robbie Gramme]

The RPF was led by Paul Kagame. His rise to power is a fascinating story, worthy of a movie in its own right. Kagame was born to a Tutsi family. He and his parents fled Rwanda during the violence of the 1960s, and he grew up in neighboring Uganda. This was after Belgium renounced its colonial holdings and Rwanda became an independent state. Though Kagame was an outsider in Uganda, he came to prominence by helping Ugandan rebel leader Yoweri Museveni overthrow the country's military dictatorship.

[Historian/Expert]

Paul Kagame rose up through the ranks, actually, of the Ugandan intelligence services. He's not Ugandan, he's Rwandan. But many of the Rwandan refugees who would emerge to be RPF leaders actually tied themselves to Museveni during his own wars. He tapped into a resource which was these Rwandan refugees that were in Uganda.

[Robbie Gramme]

When Museveni became president, he appointed Kagame as his intelligence chief. Museveni, by the way, still rules Uganda nearly four decades later. In any case, Kagame dreamed of returning to Rwanda. Through the early 1990s, the RPF's incursions became increasingly violent. This is a British reporter describing events in Rwanda around 1992. When the RPF launched their recent offensive. They did command considerable sympathy in the international community. But within days, sympathy for the RPF began to evaporate as the world's attention was drawn to government allegations that the RPF were meting out brutal treatment to civilians found in the newly acquired rebel territories. Clashes between the Rwandan government and RPF continued between 1990 and 1994, with neither side gaining ground. And then, on April 6, 1994, the sudden escalation. A plane carrying the presidents of both Rwanda and Burundi was shot down. President of the Security Council delivered the shocking news. The presidents of two troubled East African countries had been killed aboard the same plane. Shot down, it's presumed, by rebels in Rwanda's capital. Within hours, a bloodbath was underway in that country, which has been torn by civil war for decades.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

It was 8pm when I heard the missile hitting the plane.

[Robbie Gramme]

Tatiana remembers that night clearly as well. She was working at the airport at the time. Her job was to check the vaccination cards of travelers.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

From that day, the war started.

[Robbie Gramme]

The precise circumstances of that plane crash remain disputed to this day. Broadly speaking, there are two versions of what happened. One camp believes that Habi Romane's own people took his plane down. Another camp believes that the RPF and Kagame were behind it. In the years since, Kagame has justified the attack without ever taking responsibility. Here he is in an interview with the BBC. I had a right. I had a basis for getting involved in the armed struggle to liberate my country from Habyarmana, from the government he was leading. I've been a refugee in outside Rwanda for 30 years. So you have a right to shoot down his plane and to assassinate him? Well, I had a right to fight for my rights. But do you believe you had a right to assassinate him?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

No.

[Robbie Gramme]

But of course, Havi Aman, having been on the other side that I was fighting, it was possible that he could easily die. Even with those comments, the Rwandan government denies that the RPF had anything to do with the plane's downing. There was even a court case in France over this that went on for decades. French judges eventually dropped the case, citing the lack of evidence. In any case, within hours, the country descended into chaos and a firestorm of ethnic violence. Neighbors killing neighbors, often with machetes. Sexual assault surged against Tutsi women and girls. We heard a tape of this call to genocide which had been broadcast on the radio throughout the country, reaching every corner of Rwanda. It told people that graves were only half full and said, fill them with Tutsis. As the message spread, soldiers and militia would appear in the most remote parts of the country with lists of those to be exterminated.

[Paul Rosasobogina]

Killing had become a job in 1994, during the Rwandan genocide, killing was a job among many others.

[Robbie Gramme]

This is Paul Rosasobogina recounting what happened during a lecture he gave to students at the University of Michigan.

[Paul Rosasobogina]

Decades later, approximately 10,000 people were being returned every day.

[Robbie Gramme]

More after the break. Amid all this carnage, Paul found himself in an unusual position. Rwandans were fleeing for their lives, mostly Tutsis, but also moderate Hutus. Waves of them began showing up at the hotel. Paul managed, looking for shelter. This is Karim, followed by Paul.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

He protected people. He allowed whoever could get to the hotel to take shelter in the hotel. He used whatever he could to tell the killers not to enter the hotel and kill people. He took the decision to risk his

[Paul Rosasobogina]

own life because I was protecting the most wanted people. I knew that these people would kill me, and I was also threatened. They came to me and told me that, we know. We know that before we kill all of these people, you have protecting them. Before we kill them, we do have to kill you.

[Robbie Gramme]

Paul managed to keep everyone in the hotel safe from roving groups of men armed with machetes carrying out the genocide. Sometimes he negotiated with armed leaders, sometimes he bribed them.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

Every day he had to convince them again to go away again. And the next day they would come back and he'd have to find something else to keep them out.

[Paul Rosasobogina]

I kept doing every small thing I could do. That was my message, my way of doing things.

[Robbie Gramme]

Paul had brought his family to the hotel as well, his wife, Tatiana, and his son Tresor. The boy was just one and a half at the time. Other members of Tatiana's family were scattered around the country and facing danger, including her parents. What was it like trying to manage everything going on outside of the hotel while you had a one and a half year old?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

Yeah, I was always in the hotel, in the room, in the room. We were many people. I was so sad. I thought about my parents. I thought about my brother. My. It was very hard for me.

[Robbie Gramme]

And you had Tracer with you the whole time. Did that help?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

It hurt me because I had my baby, but it was too hard to. To hear what had happened outside there. And since we were in the hotel, we did not know our fate. I thought we would be killed

[Robbie Gramme]

traveling outside the Hotel compound was dangerous. Militias had set up checkpoints around the city where they were stopping people and sometimes beating or killing them. Tatiana recalls a time she tried to flee to safety with her son.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

When we went, we were stopped by Mirisha people where we were going to the airport. Those Mirisha, they beat me, they beat other people, were together. They even wanted to shoot.

[Robbie Gramme]

Tatiana is telling me this at her dining room table in the Resassa Baggina home in suburban San Antonio. Tresor, their son, is holding her hand and watching her as she recounts this.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

I remember that when they started to shoot on us, we were in the road. I put him down and I tried to cover him like this. I thought, if they shoot me, maybe my son will stay. You never know. Someone can take him to his dad.

[Robbie Gramme]

Tatian is describing throwing herself over Tresor to protect him from bullets. She and Traysor got away safely. But she realized later that covering Tracer with her own body would not have guaranteed his safety. Her son was just a toddler. If she had died on top of him, how would he have managed to get away? Paul's family was lucky, unlike hundreds of thousands of other Rwandan families, as the movie Hotel Rwanda makes clear. Fred, it's David. I've got incredible footage. It's a massacre, dead bodies, machetes. If I get this through right away, can you make the evening news? Years later, the Rwandan government and some genocide survivor groups affiliated with the government would say Paul exaggerated his role at the hotel. But other survivors have confirmed the accounts of Paul's heroism. Paul says the movie gives an accurate portrayal of what happened, with one big caveat.

[Paul Rosasobogina]

Well, Hotel Rwanda is actually is a true story which is made a little bit less or much less violent than the real life you can imagine in 1994. We could go to the roof of the Nicoline Hotel. You could go to the roof and see people being butchered all around. You think about a country which has got the size of Vermont with 7 million people, and in just 90 days, three months, at least 15% of the population was killed. And you happened to be in a place where nobody was killed. Everybody survived. No one was killed, no one was taken out, no one was tortured, beaten. No one was even beaten in that hotel.

[Robbie Gramme]

The world responded to the genocide with horror, but countries around the globe did very little to stop it, including Belgium and France, the other colonial power in the region, and also the United States. President Bill Clinton later told CNN that not intervening in Rwanda in 1994 was one of the biggest regrets of his presidency.

[Historian/Expert]

We Just blew it. And I think had we sent 10,000 troops here and gotten a few more people to come, we might have been

[Robbie Gramme]

able to save a third of the people who died. It's a view shared by many other U.S. officials. Here's Cynthia McKinney, who was a Democratic congresswoman at the time.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

The genocide in Rwanda calls for us to establish why the United nations, with timely warnings of the events to come, allowed the world to stand by silent. It calls for us to understand as well why our own country, with its position of world leadership, did so very

[Robbie Gramme]

little without outside intervention. The brutal killing went on for months. It finally ended when Kagame and the RPF captured Kigali and took control of the rest of the country in July of 1994. By then, hundreds of thousands of people, perhaps even a million, had been slaughtered. Human rights groups said the RPF killed thousands of Hutus in a revenge campaign as it took power and more in neighboring countries. The RPF denies this. Hundreds of thousands of Hutus, including some perpetrators of the genocide, fled to neighboring countries as the RPF took over. When the fighting died down and the people at the hotel were safe, Paul and Tatiana left to search for family members. And here I need to explain something. We've been referring to Anais and Karine as Paul's daughters. In fact, they were the daughters of Tatiana's brother. He and his wife were murdered during the genocide. Corinne was just a year old at the time. Anais was two years old. A neighbor helped them hide, along with Tatiana's other sister. Paul and Tatiana found them at one of the refugee camps where survivors of the mass killings had fled to.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

It was sad to see them. They were, like, dying. They did not have something to eat.

[Robbie Gramme]

And you just knew that you were going to adopt them at that time?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

Yes.

[Robbie Gramme]

Eventually, the Recessibaginas moved to Brussels to start a new life. It would take years before Tatiana would explain to Anais and Karin the real story. Here's Karine.

[Karine Rosasobogina]

I was six or seven years old at the time that I, our adoptive mother, sat us down and said, you know, that you and your sister have different last names. You know, my brother was your father, and he was killed during the genocide. We didn't believe it at first because for the first time, we had learned that we were adopted and that the people we had learned to call mom and dad were not our biological parents. But we knew that so many people, so many Rwandans had lost loved ones. So it wasn't completely out of the norm to hear that we, too, had been impacted so strongly. It was traumatic, of course, to understand how close it was to us and how much we had lost. But we, of course, grew up already knowing of this huge event, this genocide that had occurred, yet not exactly understanding the gravity of it.

[Robbie Gramme]

Back in Rwanda, the political situation stabilized. Kagame became the country's new vice president. Then, in 2000, he became the president, and he's ruled the country ever since. These days, the United States and other major Western powers see Rwanda as an important strategic partner. For starters, it's a bastion of stability in an unstable neighborhood. It also hosts refugees from around the continent, partnering with Western countries to help tackle migration crises. This year, for example, the United Kingdom struck a controversial deal with Rwanda to deport asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda and have their asylum applications processed there. But views on Rwanda are changing, particularly in Washington. Top US Officials have accused Rwanda of backing violent rebel groups in the neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo, fueling more instability in an already shaky country. The Rwandan government denies these claims. Human rights groups also say that Kagame's government has ruthlessly suppressed dissent. Its intelligence services have targeted critics of Kagame abroad, elsewhere in Africa and even in Europe. Sometimes it's just threats and online harassment. Other times it's much worse. This is a report from PBS NewsHour.

[Historian/Expert]

A few years ago, the 2018 U.S. state Department's own human rights report on Kagame's Rwanda cites instances of unlawful or arbitrary killings, forced disappearances, torture, and arbitrary detention of Rwandan civilians by state security forces. Journalists have been threatened by police or killed under mysterious circumstances. Most at risk are those who directly oppose the government.

[Robbie Gramme]

The Rwandan government consistently denies charges that it targets dissidents living abroad. By the mid 2000s, Paul had become an outspoken critic of Kagame's government, and Hotel Rwanda had given him the platform of a celebrity. He and Tatiana said weird things started happening when they lived in Brussels. As Paul spoke out, Tatiana believes the Rwandan intelligence services were behind it.

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

In Brussels, in our house, they ransacked the house. I think four times they wanted to kill him. And if I remember, in 2005, he did a car accident, which was weird.

[Robbie Gramme]

You said in Brussels they ransacked your house four times. Who is they?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

Dorwandani people. We know that they are Rwandani people because when they enter the house, they don't steal anything. They took only paper that written in Kenya, Rwanda, and they don't steal anything.

[Robbie Gramme]

And this 2005 car accident, you said it was weird. Why is that?

[Tatiana Rosasobogina]

Because when they hit Pol, they didn't stop and we knew that they killed people.

[Robbie Gramme]

We couldn't independently verify these specific claims, but what Tatiana and Paul describe aligns with how Rwandan dissidents are harassed and intimidated, according to human rights groups.

[Paul Rosasobogina]

I can tell you that I never felt safe since 2000 when I started this struggle, moving around the world talking about what was going on in Rwanda.

[Robbie Gramme]

Eventually, Paul and Tatiana decided to leave Brussels. They moved to San Antonio, Texas, where they thought they'd finally be out of reach of Kagame. And that was true for a while, until a certain bishop lured him back to Rwanda.

[Historian/Expert]

The real life hero behind the movie Hotel Rwanda pulled Paul Rusessa Baguina, handcuffed and paraded in front of cameras in Rwanda's capital, Kigali.

[Robbie Gramme]

Next time on After Hotel Rwanda, Paul's family assembles a team of lawyers and advocates across three continents to try and get him released. After Hotel Rwanda is a production of Foreign Policy. Our series is produced by Rob Sachs and edited by Dan Efron. FP's audio production staff includes Laura Rosbrough Telum, Rosie Julin and Claudia Tate. For more about Paul's story, check out foreign policy.com we'll have an accompanying article there with more details on the story. And if you like what you're hearing, listeners to this series can get a 15% discount on a subscription to Foreign Policy magazine. Go to the website and enter the code. Ispy. I'm Robby Grammer. Thanks for for listening.