{"id":55313,"date":"2025-08-21T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-08-21T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/former-un-peacekeeper-dismisses-rusesabagina-s-hotel-rwanda-hero-narrative\/"},"modified":"2025-08-22T18:40:28","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T18:40:28","slug":"former-un-peacekeeper-dismisses-rusesabagina-s-hotel-rwanda-hero-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/former-un-peacekeeper-dismisses-rusesabagina-s-hotel-rwanda-hero-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"Former UN peacekeeper dismisses Rusesabagina\u2019s \u2018Hotel Rwanda\u2019 hero narrative"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> Yaache, who was part of the African UN peacekeepers deployed to Rwanda, recalled that when the UN Security Council voted to reduce the peacekeeping force to just 270 soldiers in 1994, both Gen. Rom\u00e9o Dallaire and Ghanaian Gen. Henry Anyidoho opposed the decision, fearing the atrocities against the Tutsi. Despite the downsizing, some Ghanaian troops refused to withdraw and under Gen. Anyidoho\u2019s leadership, they remained to protect civilians.<\/p>\n<p>During the 100 days of the genocide against the Tutsi, Ghanaian troops managed to rescue an estimated 30,000 people.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to the media in Kigali, Yaache strongly rejected the hero narrative surrounding Rusesabagina, popularised by the film Hotel Rwanda.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI haven\u2019t watched the film, but I\u2019ve heard many times, and to the effect that an individual was mainly responsible for rescuing people from the hotel. And the propaganda, I would call it, went far and near. I would say that the attitude and that statement are a fallacy. It\u2019s ingenious, it is very, very unhelpful, and it\u2019s not the truth,\u201d Yaache said.<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that it was UN peacekeepers, not hotel management, who were responsible for the safety of those sheltering at Mille Collines.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe truth is, we had a shelter in the hotel. That\u2019s the truth. We had UNAMIR troops stationed in the hotel. That\u2019s the truth. And we had protection for the people who were there. It wasn\u2019t the management that provided protection. It was UNAMIR. The movement, the planning, the meetings, everything was done by the UN force, not an individual,\u201d he emphasised.<\/p>\n<p>Survivors and several former UNAMIR officers, including Maj. (Rtd) Peter Sosi, have also criticised the film for spreading falsehoods. Sosi recalled once telling an instructor in Ireland that the movie was \u201criddled with inaccuracies\u201d and should not be used as a teaching resource.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, Rusesabagina only assumed management of the hotel on April 16, 1994 \u2014 nine days after the genocide began. Testimonies suggest he often exercised selective control over admissions, favouring those who could pay or those he knew, while disregarding instructions from Sabena Hotels, the Belgian company that owned Mille Collines, which had ordered that all refugees be sheltered free of charge.<\/p>\n<p>Some survivors further accuse him of obstructing arrangements for refugees who sought safe passage abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Yaache concluded that the protection and survival of those at the hotel were due to the sacrifice of Ghanaian peacekeepers and UNAMIR personnel, not one man.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-92894 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/img-20250820-wa0214-a8773.jpg\" alt=\"Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Clayton Boanubah Yaache said he often heard claims that a single person had saved those who sought refuge at H\u00f4tel des Mille Collines, but that this never happened.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-92893 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/img-20250820-wa0219-7f868.jpg\" alt=\"Maj. (Rtd) Peter Sosi, a former UNAMIR soldier, said that during a program he attended in Ireland, the film Hotel Rwanda was used as a teaching aid.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-92892 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/img-20250820-wa0216-76ea1.jpg\" alt=\"On August 20, 2025, during a press briefing, Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Yaache said that Rusesabagina\u2019s claim of saving Tutsi refugees at H\u00f4tel des Mille Collines had been widely circulated and accepted as fact by many.\" \/><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-92891 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/img-20250820-wa0215-3375c.jpg\" alt=\"These are some of the Senegalese and Ghanaian soldiers who served as African UN peacekeepers in Rwanda in 1994.\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> Maj. Gen. (Rtd) Clayton Boanubah Yaache, a retired Ghanaian officer who served under the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Rwanda in 1994, has dismissed long-standing claims that Paul Rusesabagina single-handedly saved Tutsi refugees at H\u00f4tel des Mille Collines, describing the narrative as \u201ccompletely false.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":2000092895,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[75],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-55313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-homenews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000092895,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/millecollines-2-5b337.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000092895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55313"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=55313"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=55313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}