RWANDA: Painful memories are being relived ten years after the genocide, writes Declan Walsh in Kigali
A decade ago the Mille Collines was Kigali's premier luxury hotel. It had a commanding view over the hilly city, a beautiful garden and a fine restaurant. Then a demonic genocide exploded across the city, and the four-star hotel became its last sanctuary.
More than 1,200 Tutsis cowered in the corridors as Hutus armed with machetes, guns and clubs slaughtered Tutsis at roadblocks around Kigali. One roadblock was at the hotel entrance. Miraculously, those Tutsis survived for two months - sleeping up to 10 per room, drinking the swimming pool water, and bribing militia commanders with beer to keep the killers at bay.
Now the story of the Mille Collines is going celluloid. Irish director Terry George is making Hotel Rwanda, a film centred on Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel's brave manager who protected his refugee guests from the slaughter outside.
Starring Don Cheadle and Nick Nolte, the Hollywood production recently finished filming in South Africa. But in Rwanda, where a sombre nation will mark the 10th anniversary of the genocide this Wednesday, some of the film's real-life characters are coming back.
On Saturday, Lieut Gen Romeo Dallaire - the embattled Canadian UN officer who was subsequently haunted by his failure to save more lives - returned to Kigali for the first time since 1994. And in the Mille Collines itself, other characters never even checked out.
Guests are still greeted by Zozo, the smiling concierge who fled there during the genocide. Looking out over the city from the spectacular fourth floor restaurant, he recalled the bloody mayhem. "The city was burning, so much smoke everywhere. It was really terrible," he said.
As a "cockroach" - the extremist nickname for Tutsis - Zozo was safe inside the Milles Collines. But his family, which was trapped outside, was not. Six weeks into the 100-day slaughter he learned that his wife, two children and his brother's family were all dead.
The West's failure to stop the massacre of over 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus was "one of the greatest collective shames of the rest of the world," said film director Terry George, a former INLA prisoner who wrote the Oscar-nominated In the Name of the Father.
He shot the film in South Africa because it has a developed film industry.
At the Mille Collines the narrative's hero, Mr Rusesabagina, who now lives in Belgium, is remembered as a "strong man," said porter Ephrem Rwamanywa.
He added that he couldn't forget the villains, either - such as the Hutu commander Augustin Bizimungu, who used to come looking for beer, and a Catholic priest named Father Wenceslas.
As the genocide was exploding, the cleric checked his mother into the Mille Collines. Then he returned to Sainte Famille, a church down the hill where hundreds of Tutsis were butchered. Human rights groups later accused Father Wenceslas of involvement in the killing.
Ephrem recalled that one day, while visiting the hotel, Father Wenceslas accidentally dropped a revolver on the floor. Now he is angry that the priest is allowed to live quietly in France. "Apparently he is still celebrating Mass. How can that be?" he asked angrily.
Rwanda has grown rapidly since the genocide - it has one of Africa's fastest growing economies thanks to massive foreign aid - but the Mille Collines has changed little. The carpets have been cleaned and some furniture replaced, but otherwise the €120 rooms retain their original 1970s décor. There is competition from a new Intercontinental hotel and its owner, Sabena, has put it up for sale.
The movie business may cement its place in history. Three other genocide films are also in production of which one, based on the novel A Sunday by the Pool in Kigali, is also set in the Mille Collines.
But fictionalised accounts of the slaughter are a sensitive subject in Rwanda. During filming by the US cable channel HBO, teams of psychologists were on hand to comfort genocide survivors working as extras after traumatic scenes of butchery were re-enacted.
The government has thrown its weight behind a national memorial centre, which is due to open on Wednesday. Situated above a mass grave on a Kigali hillside, it seeks to gently confront Hutus and Tutsis with their disturbing recent past.
Wall-sized interactive exhibits show the heroes, villains and victims of the genocide; the infamous Hutu "Ten Commandments" urging the extermination of all Tutsis; Gen Dallaire's desperate faxes to UN headquarters in New York - which were never answered. Another exhibit celebrates Rwanda's "Schindlers" - Hutus who risked their lives to save Tutsis.
Nevertheless Rwandan society remains ill-at-ease with the genocide. Tutsi survivors are disillusion by the slow pace of bringing the killers to justice while Hutus feel marginalised by the Tutsi-led government.
"We have started the process of reconciliation," said Milles Collines porter Ephrem Rwamanywa. "But we haven't caught all those who organised the genocide. And their ideology is still going around."