An Ordinary Man by Paul Rusesabagina Read Free Book Online

President Grégoire Kayibanda to wrap
     itself in the flag of the Hutu Revolution and begin a purge of the Tutsis who remained inside Rwanda. There is no greater
     gift to an insecure leader that quite matches a vague “enemy” who can be used to whip up fear and hatred among the population.
     It is a cheap way to consolidate one’s hold on power. And this is just what the new regime did.
    The persecution was made all the eaiser because Rwanda is a meticulously organized country. The nation is arranged into a
     series of twelve prefectures, which look a bit like American states, except they have no powers. Within every prefecture are
     several communes, which are the real building blocks of authority in Rwanda. The head of the commune is known as the bourgmeister, or mayor, and he usually gets his job through a personal friendship with the president. This is the real seat of power in
     tiny Rwanda, which is like one giant village. Four out of five of us live in the rural areas and nine out of every ten people
     here draws some income from farming the hills. Even the most urbanized among us has a close connection with the backcountry.
     And so the orders came down to every hill: It was the duty of every good and patriotic Hutu to join “public safety committees”
     to periodically help “clear the brush.” Everyone understood this to mean slaughtering Tutsi peasants whenever there was a
     raid from the exiles across the border. In 1963 thousands of Tutsis were chopped apart in the southern prefecture of Gikongoro.
     These countryside massacres continued off and on throughout the decade and flared up again after the trouble in Burundi in
     1972 that caused the education of my best friend, Gerard, to be stolen.
    He never quite recovered. Though he had the skills and the ambition to become an engineer, the only job he could get was selling
     banana beer in a stand by the side of the road. He later moved to Kigali, where he landed a clerical job in a bank. But he
     was always plagued by the image of what he might have become had he been allowed to continue his education and use all of
     the formidable talents that had rotted inside of him. When we were both much older I tried to get together with him for beers
     from time to time, but there was a taint of sadness, and even anger, that always hung over our friendship. I was one thing
     in the blood and he was another and there was nothing either of us could do to change it. He was a Tutsi by accident and he
     had to live the rest of his life under that taint, occasionally in fear for his life from the public safety committees and
     destined to work in dead-end jobs. It was an appalling waste—not just of a man but of a potential asset to Rwanda and the
     rest of the world. Gerard had something to give. It was not wanted.
    As one born into the favored class, my accidental path would be different.

THREE
    I SUPPOSE THAT every capital city in Africa—even those of the poorest countries—must have a place like the Hotel Mille Collines near its
     heart.
    All the impoverished nations on earth, in fact, have these few basic things: a flag, an army, borders, something resembling
     a government, and at least one luxury hotel where the rich foreign visitors and aid workers can stay. When operatives from
     the Red Cross in Geneva or researchers from Amnesty International in London come here on their missions, they don’t stay in
     local guesthouses. They stay where they are treated to high standards of comfort—even though they’ve come to work on uncomfortable
     problems like AIDS, deforestation, torture, and starvation. So there is always a demand for a spot of opulence in a nation
     of mud houses. It is not all bad. A few hundred locals get decent jobs as chambermaids, waiters, and receptionists. Some elite
     suppliers get food and beverage contracts. Most of the profits, however, are shuttled back to whatever multinational company
     owns the property. The cost for a room is