IV 
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 Juve-
nal 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 meet-
•HCON 94 IH 
ing chaired by President Habyarimana, the government 
decided to provide weapons, including grenades and ma-
chetes, to the interhamwe and other militia groups, with 
a directive to kill Tutsis, and, according to the same re-
port, distribution of the weapons began that same month; 
Whereas on January 6, 1994, General Romeo Dallaire, com-
mander of United Nations forces in Rwanda, reported to 
his superiors at the United Nations that the militias in-
tended to kill a large number of Tutsi and moderate 
Hutu civilians, and he informed those at the United Na-
tions responsible for peacekeeping operations that he in-
tended to seize the arms and asked for United Nations 
protection for the informant who provided the informa-
tion; 
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 protec-
tion 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 rap-
idly in late February 1994, with the slaughter of 70 civil-
ians 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;
•HCON 94 IH 
Whereas beginning on April 7, hundreds of Rwandans, most 
of them Tutsi or Hutu threatened by Hutu Power sup-
porters, 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 periodi-
cally 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
•HCON 94 IH 
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 in-
structions; 
Whereas Rusesabagina and several of the occupants began 
telephoning various colonels and anyone else in the re-
gime 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 appeal-
ing 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.
•HCON 94 IH 
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 cour-
age 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 ac-
tions saved as many as a thousand lives, and re-
sulted 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
•HCON 94 IH 
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.
Æ