Rusesabagina was born in the Central-South region of Rwanda to a farming family. He wanted to be a pastor when he grew up, but currently is a lapsed Seventh-day Adventist. He had three children (Roger, Diane, Lys) with his wife Ester Rusesabagina. After they separated in 1981, he graduated from the Hotel Management program of Utalii College in Nairobi, Kenya, which included a trip to Switzerland.

When he returned from Switzerland, he was employed in the Hôtel des Mille Collines as assistant general manager from October 1984 until November 1992, at which time he was promoted to general manager of the company's Diplomate Hotel in Kigali. He met his current wife Tatiana in 1987 at a wedding party. Tatiana was a Tutsi suffering discrimination at her job as a nurse; Rusesabagina arranged for her to be moved closer to him for this reason, and to get to know her better. After they married, they had a daughter, who died only a few days after her birth. They later had a son, Tresor.

The Rwandan Genocide started on April 6, 1994 as the Hutu led Interahamwe began to slaughter the Tutsi population. Though Rusesabagina was of mixed heritage – his father was Hutu and his mother Tutsi – he was relatively safe from the Interahamwe due to his position and business connections with important Hutu military leaders. These connections notwithstanding, his wife Tatiana was a Tutsi, and their children were considered mixed, so he could not escape the war zone with his family without outside help. However, no foreign aid came from the United Nations or its more powerful Western member states until after over 800,000 Rwandans had been murdered.

When the violence broke out, Rusesabagina brought his family to the Hôtel des Mille Collines for safety. As other managers departed, Rusesabagina phoned the hotel's corporate owners, Sabena, and secured a letter appointing him the acting general manager of the Mille Collines. Despite some difficulty in getting the staff to accept his authority, he was able to use his position to shelter orphans and other refugees who came to the hotel. His neighbours had moved into his house for safety, though Rusesabagina did not even own a gun. For protection against bullets and grenades they put mattresses against the windows. He described the hardships they faced, which included having to drink the water from the hotel's swimming pool.

When a murderous Hutu militia threatened to enter the Mille Collines, Rusesabagina ensured that his wife and children fled safely in a truck past the militia's roadblocks. The truck set out for Kigali airport so they could flee to another country. He himself remained in the hotel because the refugees needed him. Rusesabagina and his wife discussed this decision for hours, because he had promised her he would never leave her in this situation. Rusesabagina wanted to stay, fearing the remaining refugees would be killed and feeling that he would never be able to forgive himself.

The truck was forced to return to the hotel, never having reached the airport. Everybody in the truck, including Tatiana and the children, had been beaten. Tatiana was a specific target for the beatings because she was the wife of the manager of the Mille Collines; the Hutu militia knew she and her children were in the truck owing to radio messages sent out by presenter Georges Ruggiu. Ruggiu was an Italian-Belgian who was part of the radio station conspiracy to incite ethnic tension and encourage the Hutu population to kill all the Tutsis. Ruggiu called Rusesabagina's family "cockroaches who were fleeing, but would return later to kill all the Hutus".

Tatiana's mother, and 4 nieces and nephews, died in the genocide. Her brother and sister-in-law are missing. Her father paid to be executed so he would not die a more painful death:

?We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That's what her [Tatiana's] father did.

—Paul Rusesabagina in Humo, nr. 3365, March 1, 2005

The Interhamwe left over 1 million corpses behind. Tutsi rebels pushed the Hutus into the Congo in July 1994, after over half of the Tutsis in Rwanda had been killed. Many children became orphaned and even more were killed after the Interhamwe attempted to wipe out the next generation of Tutsis. Rusesabagina took orphans from the camp behind Tutsi rebel lines with him to Tanzania, to keep them safe and away from Rwanda.

Rusesabagina, his wife and children, and the refugees eventually managed to escape to Tanzania, thanks to the Rwandan Patriotic Front. After staying in Rwanda for two more years, Rusesabagina applied for asylum in Belgium and moved to Brussels in 1996 after receiving credible threats on his life.

Rusesabagina received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom on November 9, 2005 from President George W. Bush.

Books

His story was first told in Phillip Gourevitch's book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families," which was published in 1998.

Autobiography

His autobiography entitled An Ordinary Man (written with Tom Zoellner ISBN 0-670-03752-4) was published by Viking Penguin in April 2006.

Film

Paul's work is dramatized in the 2004 movie Hotel Rwanda in which he is played by Don Cheadle. There are few differences with the actual story.

• Tatiana Rusesabagina was not in fact angry about Paul putting her and her children on a truck to escape the Hôtel des Mille Collines but was instead sad about the decision...which she nevertheless accepted due to the circumstances. Paul did not make his decision at the last moment, but rather he discussed the matter with Tatiana and the children the night before they attempted the evacuation.

• Tatiana was so badly beaten after leaving the hotel 'she lay in bed for two weeks unable to turn herself'.

• Paul and his family did leave Rwanda immediately after they escaped the Hôtel des Mille Collines.

• "Paul Rusesabagina's mother is Tutsi although he and his father are Hutu; the film says he is Hutu with no mention of his mixed background. This may be because a child always took the race of the father, and no one was regarded as having a 'mixed heritage.'"

• Paul Rusesabagina said in a lecture that the film was "less violent" than the actual genocide, claiming that "you couldn't invite someone to watch the real thing."

Rusesabagina and Rwandan president and former head of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Paul Kagame have become public enemies of each other. In An Ordinary Man, Rusesabagina alleges "Rwanda is today a nation governed by and for the benefit of a small group of elite Tutsis...Those few Hutus who have been elevated to high-ranking posts are usually empty suits without any real authority of their own. They are known locally as Hutus de service or Hutus for hire." He has also criticized Kagame's election to president.

On April 6, 2006, Kagame suggested, "[Rusesabagina] should try his talents elsewhere and not climb on the falsehood of being a hero, because it's totally false." Francois Xavier Ngarambe, the president of Ibuka, the umbrella body of genocide survivors' associations, said of Rusesabagina, "he has hijacked heroism. He is trading with the genocide. He should be charged." In December, 2006, Rusesabagina sent a letter to Queen Elizabeth II, calling Kagame a war criminal. Taylor-Report.com — Hero of Hotel Rwanda Calls Kagame a War Criminal

In 2008, the book Hotel Rwanda or the Tutsi Genocide as seen by Hollywood, by Alfred Ndahiro, a public relations advisor to Kagame and journalist Privat Rutazibwa, was published. Movie sparks public feud It provides an alternative take to the portrayal of Rusesabagina's actions as seen in Hotel Rwanda. Rusesabagina issued a response to the charges of the book, EUX.TV — Rusesabagina responds to Rwanda government book on Hotel Rwanda which in turn was responded to. The New Times — Rwandas First Daily :: Issue 13545 :: Genocide negationist Paul Rusesabagina tries to drown the fish whenever his lies are exposed