HOTEL RWANDA

Hotel Rwanda

Hotel Rwanda

How does this movie address the failure of international human rights?

Those on the right wing of the political spectrum would be quick to point out that the UN did very little about the situation, and they would be right. However, such a statement does not discredit the UN as much as it does the nations that rule it. The UN Security Council has the primary authority to launch or authorize large military interventions. The most powerful members of the UNSC are those holding veto power: the United States, France, Russia, China, and the UK. At the time, the US was under the leadership of Bill Clinton, who was under fire for his role in the Whitewater Scandal, as well as a failed US military intervention in Somalia that left 18 Americans dead. It has been suspected that the Clinton Administration thought it a bad political move to intervene in Rwanda. Russia had its own problems, including the constant Chechnyan uprising and adjusting to capitalism (Burr 2005). China is traditionally isolationist, and doesn't make a habit of participating in UN interventions. France had considerable economic interests in Central Africa because of its large French-speaking population, and feared that the UK and US would try to take away from French influence in the area. This is widely believed to be the underlying cause of French refusal to support an intervention. Also, the Rwandan Catholic Church, which held strong ties to the Hutu elite, pulled strings in Europe in order to prevent an intervention. When a large-scale intervention was organized, it was mainly comprised of African troops and some 50 US troop transports, and weren't deployed because of disagreements about monetary costs. A French force did intervene eventually, but it was too little, too late.

How did tribal and ethnic conflicts influence the state of affairs of Rwanda at the time?

Hotel Rwanda, directed by Terry George, is a 2004 film made depicting the Rwandan genocides. The historical context of the film is in 1994 in Rwanda, when the extremist Interahamwe militias were gathering forces to kill Tutsi tribe's people. They succeeded for the most part, killing more than 800,000 innocent people within a hundred days. The film is shown entirely from the point of view of Paul Rusesabagina, who hosted over 1200 Rwandan refugees in his Hotel Mille Collines.

The camera only leaves Paul's situation very rarely. The effect that this has on the veracity of the film is that it shows that this story is only his story. It recreates all the emotions of unpredictability, suspense and unsureness of what's going to happen next. For example, in one of the scenes after Paul and his family enjoy a safe night together, the next morning he wakes up with a gun to his head. However, following Paul's situation is used more than just for dramatic value. The audience is drawn in to the film, as if they are right there with Paul, and this creates a very “real” ...