Following several protests of 1994 Genocide survivors against awarding human rights prize 2011 to Paul Rusesabagina, Lantos Foundation has hit back to survivors strongly insisting to award the winner.
This year’s Lantos prize has been surrounded by controversy of which the foundation has identified as manufactured controversy.
In a press release now on Lantos Foundation website, Katrina Lantos Swett, President of The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice said the protest intended to smear what she called the good name of Rusesabagina.
“We did not intend to cause controversy with this year’s Lantos Prize, but it seems the controversy has found us anyway,” Katrina Lantos Swett a child of Tom Lantos the founder of the foundation said in a press release.
“We did not intend to step into the political disagreements that are currently swirling in and around Rwanda, but it seems we are not able to avoid that either.”
“ We originally chose Paul Rusesabagina as the Lantos Prize recipient purely based on his heroic actions during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, not for his work since then through the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation. But we now find ourselves quite in awe of Paul’s willingness to stand up and speak out for freedoms in his home country, despite the backlash that work has caused,” She vehemently pointed out.
According to Katrina Lantos Swett, all reasons emerging against the awarding of self made hero aims at smear their 2011 human rights nominee Rusesabagina.
“The protest staged today is only the latest attempt to smear the good name of this year’s Lantos Prize recipient, Paul Rusesabagina. These protests were not staged when the Oscar-nominated film Hotel Rwanda was released, nor were they staged when Paul received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush. It was only once he started to speak out about the need for more freedom and democracy in Rwanda, including a Truth and Reconciliation process, that these attacks were suddenly manufactured,” Katrina complained.
“Unfortunately these attacks appear to be consistent with a disturbing pattern of censorship, intimidation and even violence that has been directed at those who have dared voice concerns about the government of Rwanda. This pattern is not unique to Rwanda. Other authoritarian regimes have responded in a similar fashion,” she claimed.
Katrina added; “As the child of Holocaust survivors, I, along with the Lantos Foundation staff, have made particular efforts to listen to the concerns of Rwandan genocide survivors who have contacted us. While many have thanked us for our decision to honor Paul Rusesabagina, there are others who have expressed contrary views.”
We have spent hours talking to these individuals by phone and email, and even meeting with some in person. The bottom-line is that the more we speak to them, the more it becomes painfully obvious that there is a script in place,”
She claims that Rusesabagina has devoted his life to telling the awful story of Rwanda’s Genocide and working to achieve genuine peace and reconciliation.
Human rights and Justice President said that Rusesabagina collected money from Hotel des Mille Colline survivors so as to feed them in the hotel and to bribe the murderous gangs that prowled outside the hotel gates.
“At the end of the day, it seems that his real offense in their eyes, is that he has been outspoken in defense of democracy in Rwanda even in the face of determined efforts to silence him,” she added.
It is said that Ibuka the survivors’ association president Dr Jean-Pierre Dusingizemungu is in United States of America to hold more talks with Lantos Foundation management to reconsider and don’t award Rusesabagina this year’s human rights prize.
The Lantos Foundation established the Lantos Human Rights Prize in 2009 to honor and bring attention to heroes of the human rights movement.
It is awarded annually to an individual or organization that best exemplifies the Foundation’s mission, namely to be a vital voice standing up for the values of decency, dignity, freedom, and justice in every corner of the world.
The prize also serves to commemorate the late Congressman Tom Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to the U.S. Congress and a prominent advocate for human rights during his nearly three decades as a U.S. Representative.
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