From New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro, this is The Daily. Yesterday, inside a courtroom in Rwanda, an unusual trial began charging a man once seen around the world as a humanitarian hero with being a terrorist.

Today, my colleagues Declan Walsh and Abdelatif on the improbable story of Paul Rusesabagina and what it reveals about the past, present and future of Rwanda itself.

It's Thursday, February 18th. And when did you start covering Rwanda? Nineteen ninety nine. I had just arrived in Africa as a freelance reporter. It was the start of my career as a foreign correspondent. And one of the first assignments I took was to go from my base in Kenya to Rwanda. It had only been five years since the genocide. And I went over there to report on the fallout from that genocide that was still taking place.

And remind us about the Rwandan genocide. I recall it as a singular atrocity.

Absolutely. Its roots really went back decades to the colonial period in Rwanda. It was colonized by Belgium. And there are two main ethnic groups, the Hutu who make up the majority of the population and the Tutsi who make up the minority. The divisions between these two groups preceding the colonial period were quite fluid. But during colonialism, people have identity cards that identify them as either Hutu or Tutsi. And as the colonial period comes to an end, in the late 1950s, the Hutus claimed power and effectively take over the country, pushing hundreds of thousands of Tutsis into exile abroad.

So a few decades pass with the Tutsis living abroad in refugee camps. And then in 1990, a small group of those Tutsi exiles formed a militia. They returned to Rwanda to try to seize control. Tensions build for two or three years, and suddenly in 1994, they explode into this genocide. It is not like anything I've ever seen in 30 years as a reporter. This is the start of the bloodiest hundred days in human history.

I've seen some of the most terrible things today that I've ever seen. Gangs of Hutu militiamen take to the streets of Kigali, the capital, and across Rwanda.

They got the identical national identity cards, all those who were supposed to be seated in one line and set about systematically attacking members of the Tutsi minority.

They cut off the fingers. They have the army, they take out their eyes and they kill, kill, kill, hacking them to death with machetes.

We're exposed to this every day and night.

Neighbors killed neighbors, husbands even killed their Tutsi wives, members of the security forces, the police, the army, they join in the slaughter. It is open season on Tutsis in Rwanda.

It is, I think, the standard against which all future tragedies will be measured. And at the same time, to the shame of the international community, there is silence, reports about the slaughter are coming out, but nothing happens. And so this goes on for one hundred days and eventually ends in July of 1994, when the Tutsi rebel army makes its way back to Kigali and they're led by this person called Paul Kagame. And what do we need to know about Paul Kagame?

I tell you, half of my life I've been living in the trenches, not sure of living to the next day.

So Paul Kagame is this Rwandan Tutsi who has been raised in exile in refugee camps in neighboring Uganda.

So we mainly focused on the very fact that there was a need for change and that these stateless people ourselves needed to come back home. And he joins this Tutsi rebel group so that they can return after so many years in exile to their home. So I was fighting for my own rights and is known as this very cool, collected military commander who's been able to marshal the resources that his disposal and bring this conflict to a conclusion.

And the genocide is over. And so by the time I got to Rwanda a few years later, Kagame was in the throes of this effort to rebuild the country.

And what did that look like? One of the first things he does is to abolish the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis. He outlaws any public mention of that distinction. He removes it from the government ID cards and he rips it out of all school textbooks. So from then on, at least in public, Rwandans may no longer identify themselves as belonging to one group or another.

And he capitalizes on the collective shame of the international community. Western countries in particular were really gripped by a sense of shame that they had failed to intervene during the genocide. And so many countries were throwing aid at Rwanda to make amends for their own failings and also to help the country genuinely to move on. And Paul Kagame was proving to be a very efficient administrator and in some ways a model leader. He is engaging in these development projects, helping women, helping the poor.

The country's economy starts to gradually pick up so very quickly, Rwanda becomes this country that coming from this terrible tragedy is sort of unlikely African success story even at that point, Michael. There are some grumbles about Kagame. There are some signs that he is, for all of that, quite a harsh leader. But by and large, the international community turns a blind eye to these signs. As far as people are concerned, Rwanda has been through a terrible time and Kagame is really the country's best hope for a new beginning.

And that's pretty much how the world understands the story of Rwanda.

Until 2004, we have been abandoned.

When a new story emerges, there will be no rescue in the form of a Hollywood movie. We need to help one another. That is the only thing that is keeping us alive. Hotel Rwanda and Hotel Rwanda centers on the story of a man called Paul Rusesabagina.

Yes, sir.

Paul Rusesabagina, the house manager who was the manager of Kigali's best hotel during the genocide in 1994.

The michaeline is an oasis of calm, and Rusesabagina, who is himself a Hutu, uses his wiles and his charm and the resources at his disposal to prevent militiamen from entering the hotel and killing his guests.

I will give you a hundred thousand francs, I swear. 100000 francs. I will get you the money, so he gives free beer to extremist commanders, he bribes them with cigars and bottles of expensive whiskey. He takes dollars out of the hotel safe and gives it to commanders to persuade them to go away and not to turn their machetes and their guns on his guests. And it's because of Paul Rusesabagina that when the genocide ends, everyone inside the hotel makes it out alive.

Good morning. Thank you now. Right in this movie, as I recall, it was a very big event in Hollywood and in our understanding of Rwanda.

Oh, absolutely. It is an instant success. At the premiere in Los Angeles, Paul Rusesabagina is photographed beside Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie and Harrison Ford. He goes on the media circuit in the US. He is celebrated by people like Oprah Winfrey.

And then in 2005, Paul has insisted, quote, I'm not a hero.

I'm simply a man who made a decision to hold on to my family, my life and my beliefs until the end.

President Bush awards him America's highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But the world came to know the story and people everywhere can recognize heroism.

So here's this guy who nobody knew about before the movie at the time, he was actually driving a taxi and living in Belgium, where he and his family had fled as refugees after the genocide. And now suddenly he's in the White House telling his story to President Bush and being celebrated across the U.S.. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

He arguably becomes the most famous Rwandan on the planet, words can be the best or the worst weapon in the human beings arsenal, more famous even than the president.

My message is to ask you to stand up. We have stood by for so long. Let us all together. Hand in hand. Stand up. Thank you. And so how does Rwanda's President, Paul Kagame, respond to all this? Well, in the beginning, Paul Kagame likes the movie Hotel Rwanda. He welcomes the director to Kigali, where they host a premiere of the movie. Later, he courts some of the stars of the movie, like the actor Don Cheadle, who he invites to his palace in Rwanda.

But then things start to go wrong when Paul Rusesabagina publishes his memoir in which he sharply criticizes Kagame and the way he's governed the country since taking power. Hmm. And if you like, I can read you a small extract from that memoir, please. So he wrote. Rwanda is a country that has never known democracy. The current president, Paul Kagame, has exhibited many characteristics of the classic African strongman since taking power. He was re-elected with 95 percent of the vote.

And there's nobody in the world that can call results like that a free election and keep a straight face. Rwanda is today a nation governed by and for the benefit of a small group of Tutsis. We have changed the dancers, but the music remains the same.

And then he does something even more confrontational. He writes a letter to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recommending that war crime charges be brought against Kagame.

Were these things that Paul Rusesabagina wrote? Were they fair? Were they accurate?

By and large, they were during the 94 genocide. It wasn't just Hutu extremists who were doing the killing. There were also credible unconfirmed reports that some of President Kagame soldiers, the Tutsi rebels, had also carried out violence against civilians. And after the genocide, when Kagame soldiers took over the country, they also went into some of these camps that were filled with Hutus and slaughtered thousands of civilians. Wow. So many Rwandan Hutus fled across the border into neighboring Congo because they were afraid to come home.

Mm hmm. At the same time, back in Rwanda, Paul Kagame starts to take measures to tighten his grip on power. He changes the Constitution for more terms. He starts to win elections by improbable margins, like 99 percent of the vote. And some of his political opponents inside Rwanda start to come under incredible pressure.

The Rwandan police arrested Dan Shemar. Do we gather a leading critic of President Paul Kagame charged with forgery?

And some people who stand against him for election are prosecuted under this rule is Arika was found murdered, his head almost entirely severed from his body. Some start to disappear and even die. Critics of Kagame abroad also start to come under attack.

In a statement, authorities said his body was found on the bed and there were signs he was strangled.

In South Africa, you have a former intelligence chief who was found dead in his hotel room.

The Rwandan defense minister said in relation to that murdered former intelligence chief, when you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog.

In Kenya, a former Rwandan minister is found shot dead in his car. In Belgium, there's a fugitive Rwandan politician who's found floating in a canal. And in London, the Metropolitan Police come to a number of Rwandan exiles and warn them that they are being hunted by Rwandan government agents who are trying to kill them.

The president is reported to have said it's a matter of time. Whoever betrayed the nation cannot escape the consequences.

All of this seems to suggest that to cross President Kagame is a very dangerous thing to do. And I have to think that when Paul Rusesabagina is speaking out, writing what he wrote in his book, making these direct critiques of Kagame, he understands that he may be putting his own life at risk.

Absolutely.

He knows that he's frontally taking on the most powerful man in Rwanda. He's attacking his reputation abroad. And he's also saying that Kagame should be prosecuted for war crimes. So in so doing, he's setting himself up as one of the most prominent and vocal critics of President Kagame. And he knows that he's playing with fire. We'll be right back. This podcast is supported by Facebook 25 years ago, phones weren't smart yet and people still said, fax it to me.

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Hi, I'm Bianca Jagger. I'm a producer on The Daily. One of the things I love about audio is that there's an intimate quality to people's voices that you sometimes can't get in print. You can hear people wonder out loud. You can hear when they're questioning something, you can be there with them. And when we hit the milestone of a million lives lost to coronavirus around the world, we made an episode. There was a portrait of the grief people were feeling to put a human face to the news.

We talked to people in Kenya, in Israel, in Turkey and China. I spent many, many hours listening to them laugh and cry about the people they had lost. We wouldn't be able to make emotional episodes like this one or any of the daily without your support. So if you can, please subscribe to The New York Times. Thank you. Hi there. Hi, Michael, nice to meet you. So to introduce you, you are Abdelatif, you are based in Nairobi, you're from there, and you have been covering East Africa for the Times for years.

So I wonder if you could pick up this story where Declan Walsh left off. Paul Rusesabagina is very quickly becoming a public enemy of Rwandan President Kagame based on speeches and the publication of a memoir. So what happens next?

So in 2009, things start getting very hairy for Paul Rusesabagina. First, his house is broken into. Pictures were moved around as sheets were removed from the bed. They stole his laptop and documents and later he was almost run off the road while driving his car. So Paul Rusesabagina and his family took that as a message from the government that we are watching you. We know that we can reach you any time. Don't think you're safe in Belgium, even though you're so far away from Rwanda.

So in the family's mind and in his mind, these break ins and this attempt to run him off the road feel like a coordinated campaign of harassment that they suspect can be traced back to President Kagame. Yes, exactly, and he responds to these harassments by making a very big decision, he decides that Belgium is no longer safe and that he wants to move to the United States. And so he and his family, they find a home in San Antonio, Texas, in this gated community, and living there gives him the space to continue his campaign criticizing the government of Rwanda.

Welcome to the program. It's been 20 years since the genocide. What are your feelings?

20 years later, he continues talking about how much the country that he loves has become an autocracy that he is not safe.

Going back to some 20 years later, we see that all of those people who advocate for human rights are put in prison, people who have fled the country into exile, being followed into exile to kill them, one of them.

And whenever Paul Rusesabagina is calling for change in Rwanda, the only better future for Rwanda in the region would be to silence guns.

He's always calling for peaceful change. He's being true to the humanitarian figure the world knows him to be.

By dialogue, we then find a lasting peace. So Paul Rusesabagina spends the next decade spreading this message, criticizing Kagame, calling for peaceful reform in Rwanda. But the facts on the ground remain pretty much the same. Kagame faces no serious challenge to his rule and continues to tighten his grip on power. And all the while, thousands of Hutu refugees are still living in camps in the Congo and in other neighboring countries, sometimes in pretty tough conditions decades after they left Rwanda.

And in these camps, some Hutus are actually forming militias and agitating to go home.

So before the genocide, you had Tutsis outside the country agitating to come home and now the rules have flipped.

That's exactly right, Michael. And then in twenty eighteen, in the midst of all this tension.

Fellow residents, friends of Rwanda. A video emerges online of Paul Rusesabagina giving a speech and he sees something he's never seen before.

The time has come for us to use any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda as all political means have been tried and failed. He says that the time for us has come to use any means possible to bring about change in Rwanda.

It is time to attempt our last resort, and he pledges support for this armed rebel group made up of Hutu refugees called the National Liberation Forces, also known as the FLN hurts. I plead my unreserved support that national liberation forces lathis against the Kagame in order to free that one people.

This group was at the time being accused by the Rwandan government of killing innocent Rwandans, kidnapping people, looting property along the southern borders of the country. I wish or residents, friends of Rwanda are happy and blessed, Christmas and a prosperous new year, we justice, peace and democracy for the.

What do you make of this drastic change in Paul Rusesabagina is messaging?

You know, it just showed for me to show the political reality in Rwanda and how exiled opponents were very much tired or angry at the government of Paul Kagame basically turned to more extreme measures.

So to you, it was a sign of desperation. It was definitely a message that we have tried our best, but they're not listening to us.

And so we're going to take the war to them, reinstatement on board with this. And then in August of last year, this is suspected to be the founder or leader or sponsor or a member of violent, armed extremist terror.

We get news that Paul Rusesabagina has disappeared from his home in Texas.

Paul Rusesabagina was arrested and is currently detained at a police station while his case is being processed in accordance with Rwandan criminal procedure and has actually been arrested in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

How did that happen? Why would he ever be back in Rwanda knowing everything he knows? He's moved as far away from Rwanda as humanly possible to avoid the Kagame government. And it was a shock.

It was it was a huge shock. The government was basically using that twenty eighteen video where Paul Rusesabagina pledges support for the FLN to justify arresting him on terrorism charges. Now, Paul Rusesabagina is a United States resident and a Belgian citizen, and you typically need a formal extradition process for repatriating someone.

So my colleagues and I are all trying to figure out how did they get him to Rwanda? Heading to passport control. So much hand sanitizer. So I flew to Rwanda in the middle of the night. Have great I, of course, booked myself into the Marklin Hotel, the hotel where and Paul Rusesabagina had sheltered and saved more than 100 people. I'm standing on the balcony of my room. It's almost 8:00 a.m. in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.

And from my room, I can see this beautiful view of Kigali, all these undulating terrains to my right below.

And I can see the poor where in those tragic days in 1994, those who had lived in the hotel actually started drinking from it for survival.

And it was just a surreal moment, like just, you know, being there to understand what happened to the man who made history in that same hotel. You guys. How are you guys? A few days after my arrival, I have some very good news.

We have Rusesabagina at 11.

We got word that the government had approved our request to speak with Paul Rusesabagina.

So so we have.

So my photographer and I head to the headquarters of the Rwanda Investigation Bureau, which is kind of like their version of the FBI.

OK, are you with the. All right. Yes. OK, great. Nice to meet you.

And it's at these headquarters where Paul Rusesabagina is being held. And we are brought inside.

We are led to this room.

And suddenly, yeah, I'm just going to put this recording. There is Paul Rusesabagina.

Why do you want to know where and how does he look? And we essentially distanced enough for us to move on and do not little old men and bandits to be safe, to try to be safe. This is what meant.

He looked really tired, but at the same time, he greeted me warmly.

Well, thank you so much for your time. This is the guy. I appreciate it. And I want to stay for the record from the beginning that you are doing this out of your mind and out of the convention, is that right? Yeah, OK.

Right after I sat in front of him is when I noticed that there was a camera hanging on top of the room. Where he was at that point is sort of like realized that, you know, he might not be able to talk to me freely, that he was definitely speaking under duress.

How do you been how are you since the two of you will do it? I've been doing very well. I had a warm welcome to the living my room. Sometimes they give me a full day today, so they are very good. So and everything has been smooth. So far, so good.

Could you tell us a little bit about how you got here, how I got here, that is a surprise.

He told me I thought I was landing in trouble.

He had been invited by a friend to speak in Burundi. But when he landed, he realized he was in Rwanda.

What did you feel like when you got out of the plane and the soldiers were surrounding you and you knew that you can't imagine how you would feel if you felt so yourself where you're not supposed to be?

And then I asked him about what brought him there, his political opposition to Kagame, including his support for the militia group, the FLN.

Let's talk a little bit about the charges and the issues that you're facing in court. What pushed him to a position and political position? When you're not satisfied by what is going on, then you go to a position.

Yeah, this is where I raised the voice. You will notice that the 2005 06, there was a lot talking that was not in politics many years when I just that just to say, OK, maybe things are going to improve and be bit. What about the in felons, not terrorist organization? They are people who are really tired to live outside the country in refugee camps without schools for children without food and other aid and others. Those are people they need attention in our main objective was to attract attention.

They say in English that east, west, north, south is always best because I don't believe somebody should be a refugee forever.

Just listening to him talk, it was interesting because I knew that he was under duress, but he was still finding a way to criticize the government and highlight the plight of Hutu refugees and other exiles like himself.

As I said this, it was a wake up call. To the international community, international organizations, foreign countries and Rwanda itself to remember that it was.

And I believe that one day my message will be heard and understood, and that can take this as a conclusion.

And given how other critics of Kagame and his government have been treated, I just couldn't help but wonder if this was going to be his last interview that he ever does. I just kept thinking, would this be the final message that he ever has to deliver to the rest of the world?

Thank you so much for the update. Appreciate it. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you. So after the interview with Paul Rusesabagina, I was able to meet with two top government officials who had been behind this arrest. They were the country's chief spy, Joseph Amitabh and Johnstone passenger who is the justice minister. And they want to go actually on record in terms of how Paul Rusesabagina got to Kigali.

There's only one place and we go into a conference room, we bump elbows as a way of greeting.

We all sit down and then the interview began.

Thanks for taking the time. Appreciate it. Thank you. Maybe I should give you the chance, first of all, to make you want to say something about it. And then I can get on to my questions for. Well, it was quite flawless, and I should say.

One of the best operations that any country can ever conduct, the thing that has stayed with me up until now is how the intelligence chief was.

That's why I told you that this is what this was one of the best intelligence operations. He was just gleeful. He was his face was beaming.

He was smiling.

You get a man executed, was actually executed in a raid from the from the planning to the execution when he landed.

And he essentially admitted that the Rwandan government had been tracking Paul Rusesabagina, his movements through it for his covid just bought his ticket.

And it suddenly became clear to me that the main reason the spy chief was giving me an interview was because they were very proud of what they had done and they wanted the world to know.

So he delivered himself here.

And we got Paul Rusesabagina here. And as the chief spy was explaining and gloating about this elaborate process, what he has to account for is, one, he declared war.

The justice minister was there to basically say to he made good on his promise, his forces attacked.

This was all legal. This was all justified. And this was not a kidnapping.

We were at war with Islam. He subscribed. He needs the finances. He does many things around Africa.

So we were at war and he is like any country in the world would do this and it would not be a problem. So you should not be a problem that Rwanda did this.

When you when you declare war, at some point, you need to accept that the other party with whom you are launching your war is also going to fight back, because the things he did, this government wanted him to come and answer for the things he was doing. There is no country that I know which we don't want you to Islam. Then turn the other cheek, you slap them, turn the other cheek, continue turning chips for you there.

There's no country that I know sometimes not you.

And so what do you make of what the justice minister has just told you, Michael?

What I make of that reaction is that the Rwandan government is going to go after anybody who is threatening its stability wherever they are in the world.

It was a scary message, honestly, to listen to particular. I think it was being delivered to all the Kagame critics all across the world.

Thanks. Wish you the best. So it has now been many years of these two men trying to establish these competing stories of Rwanda on the international stage, and given that Paul Rusesabagina is now inside a Rwandan prison for what could be a very long time.

Where does that leave them? Where does that leave Rwanda? Yes, Paul Rusesabagina, for now, he lingers in a prison in Rwanda. He's basically lost everything. And meanwhile, Paul Kagame and his government are still in tight control of the country since the genocide. And under his leadership, for whatever tactics it's used, he's been able to bring back the country from the brink.

But on the other hand, you have these Hutu Tutsi ethnic tensions that have been there for decades and are escalating. So it all feels like a ticking bomb.

Paul Kagame is trying to build this country where ethnicity doesn't exist and that Rwanda's progress as one strong nation on contrast like you have policies are beginning to see the system that you've created is not an inclusive system. It needs a lot of reform.

And so Paul Kagame and Paul Rusesabagina, you can see them as symbols of the divisions in the country, and these divisions at some point will have to be reconciled, that they will have to be healed one way or another if Rwanda is going to move forward.

Bobby, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. Michael. On Wednesday, Paul Rusesabagina, wearing a mask and a pink prison uniform, arrived at the Supreme Court of Rwanda for the start of his trial. Among other things, he faces the charge of being a member of a terrorist organization. His prosecution has been roundly criticized by human rights groups and the international community, including the European Parliament and 37 members of the U.S. Congress who issued a letter calling on President Kagame to release him.

We'll be right back. This podcast is supported by Facebook 25 years ago, phones weren't smart yet and people still said, fax it to me. The Internet has changed a lot since 1996, but that's the last time comprehensive Internet regulations were passed. That's why Facebook once updated Internet regulations to set clear guidelines for addressing today's toughest challenges protecting privacy, enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms and more. Learn more about why Facebook supports updated Internet regulations at about that FBI dotcoms regulations.

Here's what else you need to know today, a dangerous new winter storm was headed for Texas on Wednesday night, even as the state struggled to restore electricity from the last storm. Millions of Texans remained without power as brutally cold weather battered the state's electrical grid, freezing natural gas pipelines, wind turbines and power lines.

I want to address an issue that some Texans are already beginning to deal with, but many Texans will be having to deal with here in the coming days, and that is the results of busted pipes.

During a news conference, Texas Governor Greg Abbott resorted to advising homeowners without power to manually turn off their water supply to avoid having pipes freeze, burst and flood their homes.

If you are a homeowner, there should be a location typically outside, maybe near the curb side, where you have the ability to physically turn off the water supply to your house and you can turn it off at the time of your choosing.

Today's episode was produced by Beyoncé, who gave her and Daniel Guimet with help from Diana when it was edited by Marc George and Larissa Anderson and engineered by Chris Wood.

That's it for The Daily, I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow. This podcast is supported by Facebook 25 years ago, phones weren't smart yet and people still said, fax it to me. The Internet has changed a lot since 1996, but that's the last time comprehensive Internet regulations were passed. That's why Facebook once updated Internet regulations to set clear guidelines for addressing today's toughest challenges protecting privacy, enabling safe and easy data portability between platforms and more. Learn more about why Facebook supports updated Internet regulations at about that FBI dot coms regulations.