Woman gaoled for Rwanda genocide

The first woman convicted in connection with the 1994 Rwanda genocide has been sent to gaol for life.     Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, aged 65, was the minister for family and women’s development (!).    Her son, Arsène Shalom Ntahobali, and four other people were also convicted.

When Hutus began murdering Tutsis in other parts of the country, the Butare region, by the Burundi border, was for a short time a haven of peace.    Then Nyiramasuhuko, a former social worker, ordered the local governor to get killing.    When he refused, he was sacked and then killed.

The convicted woman brought in militias from the capital, Kigali, and, with the help of her son, organised mass murder and the kidnap and rape of women and girls.   She and her son often manned the roadblocks at which Tutsis were detained.

When the Rwandan Patriotic Front deposed the genocidal government in July 1994, Nyiramasuhuko fled, but was arrested in Kenya in 1997.   Altogether, 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered in just 100 days.   (See also my blogs of April 9, 2009, Dec 11, 2010, May 9 and 29, 2011 etc)

Rwanda genocide - another arrest

According to the old saying, the wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceeding small. Fifteen years after the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were murdered in 100 days, another suspect has been arrested.

This follows the detention last month of a former mayor, and the conviction of the former governor of Rwanda’s capital, Kigali, in July. This time the indicted man is a former intelligence chief and senior figure at Rwanda’s elite military training school, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, who was apprehended in Uganda.

He is accused of organising the killing of thousands of people, setting up roadblocks and organising special military units to carry out the slaughter. Troops said to have been under his command rampaged through the University of Butare killing Tutsi lecturers and students.

A spokesman for the prosecutor at the UN-backed tribunal at which he will be tried said: “there is no time limit for justice.” The court is still searching for another 11 fugitives. (See also my blogs of March 1, 25, April 9, July 16, Sept 23.)