top
San Francisco
San Francisco
Indybay
Indybay
Indybay
Regions
Indybay Regions North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area North Coast Central Valley North Bay East Bay South Bay San Francisco Peninsula Santa Cruz IMC - Independent Media Center for the Monterey Bay Area California United States International Americas Haiti Iraq Palestine Afghanistan
Topics
Newswire
Features
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
Indybay Feature

Paul Rusesabagina speaks in SF on the genocides in Rwanda and Darfur: audio and photos

by dave id
Paul Rusesabagina, general manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, spoke at A Clean, Well-Lighted Place for Books in San Francisco on Friday, April 21, 2006.
paulrusesabagina_04-21-06a.jpg
During the Rwandan genocide in 1994, Paul Rusesabagina helped shelter over 1,200 people from slaughter by using his influence as general manager of the Hotel des Mille Collines in Kigali, Rwanda. Almost a million others were killed in about 100 days. His heroic and resourceful actions inspired the 2004 film "Hotel Rwanda" starring Don Cheadle. As a result of the genocide, the ratio of woman to men today in Rwanda is about 7 to 1 and the country is still struggling to move beyond the horrors of the 1990s. Paul Rusesabagina now lives in Belgium with the surviving members of his family.

Campaigning for world action to help stop the ongoing genocide the Darfur region of Sudan, and in support of his new book, AN ORDINARY MAN: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY, Paul Rusesabagina spoke and took questions from the public. His talk ranged from his experiences in Rwanda, some of the similarities and differences between what happened in 1994 and depictions of them in the film, the relationship between Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda then and now; the current genocide in Darfur; the failures of the UN, the United States, and the rest of the world to take action; the state of democracy in a number of African nations; and prospects for the future.

Paul Rusesabagina also spoke in San Francisco earlier in the day at the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

There will be rallies across the nation on Sunday April 30th to demand action from US political leaders to bring pressure on those responsible for the genocide in Darfur to stop the killing. There will be a rally locally in San Francisco. The largest will be held in Washington, DC.
§audio* of Paul Rusesabagina speaking in San Francisco
by dave id
Listen now:
Copy the code below to embed this audio into a web page:
MP3 file, 35 minutes including Q&A at end (32MB).

Paul Rusesabagina began humbly by claiming he may not deserve the very flattering introduction he received. He started his talk with, "Many people ask me, 'Have I ever been afraid in my life?'" He answers, "Yes," and that is where this recording picks up.

*Note that in the Q&A session the very end of one answer, the following question from an audience member, and the start of the next answer were cut off, with under one minute total missing (due to manual flipping of cassette technology). This gap is indicated by a few seconds of silence and a slight "beep" sound at 30:55 minutes into the recording.
The world fails to act on another slaughter
Rwandan nightmare is relived in Sudan

Paul Rusesabagina, Sunday, April 16, 2006

http://www.indybay.org/news/2006/04/1816684.php

Add Your Comments
We are 100% volunteer and depend on your participation to sustain our efforts!

Donate

$110.00 donated
in the past month

Get Involved

If you'd like to help with maintaining or developing the website, contact us.

Publish

Publish your stories and upcoming events on Indybay.

IMC Network