Paul Rusesabagina
For two months of his life Paul Rusesabagina held insanity at bay as he watched his country fall into the grips of genocide in 1994. A Hutu manager of a luxury hotel in Rwanda, he sheltered over 1,200 people, including his own Tutsi wife and children, saving their lives at a time when extremists massacred more than 800,000 members of the Tutsi tribe, along with more moderate Hutus, in just 100 days. His wrenching story is chronicled in the critically acclaimed film, Hotel Rwanda, a riveting account of a man finding courage within himself to save others in the midst of his country's darkest moment. When Rwanda descended into madness, Rusesabagina took action. While militants threatened and surrounded the hotel, he spent hours on the phone, pleading with influential leaders, his international connections his only defense against attack. He bartered luxury items -- such as money, gold, cigars, and aged bottles of wine he had hoarded in the hotel -- for the lives of strangers seeking refuge in the chaos. Miraculously, no one housed in the hotel died. As the world turned its back on the horrific tragedy, Rusesabagina was one man who saved few among the many lost. Through the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, he supports the survivors of the genocide in Rwanda, and attempts to raise the world's awareness of similar horrors now unfolding in the Congo and in the Darfur region of Sudan.