Pauline Nyiramasuhuko

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko (born April 1946 in Rugara, Ndora, then Butare Prefecture ) is a Rwandan politician . As minister for women and families, she played a key role in the genocide in Rwanda as a war criminal . She is the first woman convicted of genocide and rape as crimes against humanity .

Life

Family and work

Nyiramasuhuko was born as the daughter of a farming family from Rugara in Ndora, near Butare , the provincial capital of the province of the same name (today: southern province). She attended high school and during this time met Agathe Kanziga , who later became the wife of President Juvénal Habyarimana . After completing her training in 1964, she worked in a social center. She then trained in Israel in the field of community development and adult education. Then she moved to the capital, Kigali , to work as a social worker for the Ministry of Social Affairs.

In 1968 she married Maurice Ntahobali , who later became President of the Rwandan National Assembly and Minister of Education. In 1970 she gave birth to her son Arsène Shalom Ntahobali in Israel, where she attended a seminar for African women in leadership positions. She is the mother of four children.

In later years she graduated with a law degree . With Agathe Kanziga's support, Nyiramasuhuko was promoted to national inspector of the ministry. On April 16, 1992, she was appointed Minister for Women and Family.

Nyiramasuhuko is the mother-in-law of Béatrice Munyenyezi , who was imprisoned in the United States from 2013 to 2019 for lying about naturalization in order to obtain refugee status.

genocide

Nyiramasuhuko also held the post of Minister for Women and Family in 1994 in the Kambanda cabinet , which played the leading role in the genocide in Rwanda. The politician of the MRND took part in several cabinet meetings of the transitional government at which - after the later determination of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - decisions were made in preparation for the genocide.

When the previous prefect of the Butare region resisted the measures against Tutsi and moderate Hutu , he was deposed and believed to be killed. The government then sent commissioners to the south to execute, including Nyiramasuhuko. According to a report in the New York Times , she was making inciting speeches at the time that were broadcast on the state radio station, Radio Rwanda . According to a report in the magazine Der Spiegel , according to testimonies of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch , among other things, she incited the Hutu militias in Butare on refugees, called for the mass rape of Tutsi women, selected some of the victims personally, beer for the militia officers and gasoline worried for the pyre.

She and her husband owned the Hotel Ihuliro in Butare, in front of which a roadblock was erected during the genocide. by the daughter-in-law Béatrice Munyenyezi, Tutsi were deliberately singled out to be raped or killed.

Escape and trial

When the advancing Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) put an end to the genocide, Nyiramasuhuko fled with many other Hutu to neighboring Zaire (today: Democratic Republic of the Congo ) on July 18, 1994 , and later fled to Kenya . After almost three years, she was arrested on July 18, 1997 in Nairobi and shortly thereafter transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha , Tanzania , where she was charged with her involvement in various genocide-related crimes in the Butare region.

The trial opened on June 12, 2001. Nyiramasuhuko himself denied involvement in the crimes. Your defense lawyers pleaded for acquittal, as the incriminating testimony contradicted each other. In their plea in April 2009, however, the public prosecutor stated that the genocide in Butare would not have been possible without the participation of Nyiramasuhuko and her co-accused. On June 24, 2011, she was sentenced to life imprisonment for conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide, crimes against humanity including killings and incitement to rape, and for serious violations of the Geneva Conventions , hundreds of times committed against Tutsi in Butare, sentenced. Her son Arsène Shalom Ntahobali , who was involved as one of the leaders of the Interahamwe militias in Butare, and the four other defendants in the "Butare case" were convicted with her.

literature

  • Carrie Sperling: Mother of Atrocities: Pauline Nyiramasuhuko's Role in the Rwandan Genocide . In: Fordham Urban Law Journal . Vol. 33, No. 2 , 2006, p. 637–664 , doi : 10.2139 / ssrn.1662710 (English, PDF; 339 kB [accessed on May 4, 2014]).
  • Summary of Judgment and Sentence. (PDF; 92 kB) International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, June 24, 2011, accessed on June 29, 2011 (English, summary of the judgment).
  • Leila Fielding: Female Génocidaires. What was the Nature and Motivations for Hutu Female Involvement in Genocidal Violence Towards Tutsi Women During the Rwandan Genocide? GRIN Verlag, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-656-32440-9 (English, dissertation limited preview in Google book search).
  • Donna J. Maier: Women Leaders in the Rwandan Genocide. When Women Choose To Kill . Ed .: University of Iowa . tape 8 , 2013 ( uni.edu [accessed April 20, 2014] first edition: 2012).
  • Mark A. Drumbl: She Makes Me Ashamed to Be a Woman: The Genocide Conviction of Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 2011 . In: Michigan Journal of International Law . tape 34 , no. 3 , 2013, p. 559–603 ( mjilonline.org [PDF; 126 kB ; accessed on May 4, 2014]).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rwanda: First woman behind bars for genocide for life. In: Spiegel Online . June 24, 2011, accessed April 18, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Dominic Johnson: Secretary of State for Rape . In: taz . June 25, 2011, p. 2 ( taz.de [accessed on April 18, 2014]).
  3. ↑ a b c First woman convicted of genocide. In: 20 minutes . June 24, 2011. Retrieved June 28, 2011 .
  4. ↑ a b Prosecutor v. Nyiramasuhuko et al., Case No. ICTR-98-42-T. Judgment and Sentence. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda , June 24, 2011, pp. 3 ff , accessed on May 5, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b Rwanda woman jailed in US for lying about genocide role. BBC , July 16, 2013, accessed April 23, 2014 .
  6. ↑ US District Judge Revokes Beatrice Munyenyezi's US citizenship. (PDF; 79 kB) United States Department of Justice , March 2013, accessed February 4, 2020 (American English).
  7. ↑ Peter Landesman : A Woman's Work . In: The New York Times . September 15, 2002 (English, nytimes.com [accessed April 18, 2014]).
  8. ↑ Alexander Smoltczyk : Days of Judgment . In: Der Spiegel . No.  49 , December 3, 2002, pp. 162 ( spiegel.de [accessed on April 18, 2014]).
  9. ↑ Chris McGreal: Rwandan woman stripped of US citizenship after lying about genocide . In: The Guardian . February 22, 2013 ( theguardian.com [accessed April 29, 2014]).
  10. ↑ UN court convicts a woman for the first time for genocide In: Zeit Online . June 24, 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2011.
  11. ^ Butare Judgment Delivered ( Memento of September 14, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ), publication of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of June 24, 2011. Accessed June 29, 2011
personal data
SURNAME Nyiramasuhuko, Pauline
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Rwandan politician
DATE OF BIRTH April 1946
PLACE OF BIRTH Rugara, Ndora, former Butare prefecture