Film on Rwandan 'savior' in Hutu killings

KIGALI, Rwanda, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The man who inspired the newly released "Hotel Rwanda" about a hotel manager saving guests in a 1994 genocide doesn't think of himself as a hero.

"I rather take myself as someone who did his duties and responsibilities, someone who remained until the end when others changed completely their professions, and most of them became killers and others were killed," Paul Rusesabagina, 50, told the Scotsman.

The movie, directed by Terry George and starring Don Cheadle as Rusesabagina, reveals how he saved 1,268 mostly Tutsi people from the Hutu genocide of 1994.

Rusesabagina, who now lives in Brussels with his children and Tutsi wife, managed to hide the people as guests at the Mille Collines Hotel where he was working as a substitute manager when the attacks that killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus began.

The film portrays how Rusesabagina bribed killers with money and Scotch, rationed swimming pool water, had checkpoints removed and kept a secret telephone line open to the outside world. All of his "guests" survived.

Nick Nolte plays Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian U.N. commander who withdrew most of his 2,500 troops after the killing started and later nearly committed suicide.