‘God’s Assistant’ from Rwanda Lunches at Wallace House
By Graham Griffith ’06In April 1994, when Rwanda was a charnel house of genocide, one man opened the door to refuge—and helped spare a man who would become a Knight-Wallace Fellow, Thomas Kamilindi. Eleven years later, they met for lunch at Wallace House.
The film Hotel Rwanda tells the story of Paul Rusesabagina, a hotel manager who, during the height of the genocide, used savvy and remarkable courage to convert the Hôtel des Milles Collines in Kigali into a de facto refugee camp. In doing so, he saved the lives of hundreds of his fellow Rwandans, including Thomas, defying the genocide in a manner that was only too exceptional.
For his heroism, Rusesabagina was awarded the 2005 Wallenberg Award by the University of Michigan, and during his visit to Ann Arbor in October, the Fellows were honored to meet with him over lunch. We watched Hotel Rwanda in anticipation of Rusesabagina’s visit, and as we watched, we not only gained a portal into the horror of the genocide, but also began to understand, in some small but profound manner, the personal strength of one of our own colleagues.
Thomas joins us through funding provided each year for a journalist who is “under credible threat of death for telling the truth.” Those words alone are chilling enough, but every time Thomas spoke in our first days together, we recognized that here, with us at Wallace House, for our lectures, our dinners, our discussions, was a man for whom the pursuit of journalism was no mere professional career choice. Thomas’s research at the university—hate media and its impact—likewise, is no mere academic exercise.
Thanks to Hotel Rwanda, Paul Rusesabagina’s story is well known. And because of the film, Thomas’s story is public knowledge as well, even if the name Kamilindi is not yet internationally recognized. As we watched Hotel Rwanda with him, we realized we were watching more than a portrait of horrific events that took place halfway around the globe. We were watching a piece of Thomas’s life.
Thomas resigned from state-run radio, controlled by the Hutu-dominated government, a few months before the worst of the genocide began. He refused to deliver news reports in which Rwandan Tutsis were referred to as cockroaches. Himself a Hutu, Thomas is married to a Tutsi (as is Paul Rusesabagina), and, after Rwanda’s Hutu president died in a plane crash, he was accused of sympathizing with the Tutsi rebels. While in the Milles Collines, he phoned in a report of the genocide to European radio. As a result, Hutu forces arrived at the hotel and demanded that Rusesabagina hand over “that dog [Kamilindi].” Rusesabagina refused. It was one of three times that spring when Thomas was nearly killed.
Thomas tells us that he is thankful for every day he is alive, and calls Rusesabagina “God’s Assistant.” But Thomas is understandably reluctant to speak of some of the worst horrors of that time. He lost family members, including a daughter, and one recognizes in any conversation about Rwanda with Thomas that he is living with images exponentially more horrific than any we see on a movie screen. And so, at the close of the film, Wallace House was silent. Even a room full of journalists, who make their living from words, was speechless when confronted with the depths of Thomas’s loss. Thomas, our colleague, our friend, may himself be called “God’s Assistant,” because he lives to bear witness.
— Graham Griffith ’06 is a senior producer with WBUR (Boston).
Thomas Kamilindi '06 of Rwanda (standing left), among the first to break the Rwandan genocide story, introduces Paul Rusesabagina, the real-life manager of Hotel Rwanda.
