Tharcisse Renzaho

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Tharcisse Renzaho (* 1944 in Kiarama ) is a former Rwandan politician and prefect of Kigali . He was one of the major contributors to the 1994 genocide . On July 14, 2009, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentenced him to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocol II .

Life

Tharcisse Renzaho was born in 1944 in Kiamara, Kibungo Prefecture , southeastern Rwanda. He studied in German, Belgian and French military academies and became a military engineer. In the Rwandan army he reached the rank of colonel . In the 1970s and 80s he worked for the Rwandan military intelligence service . In his letters from these years, racist remarks against the ethnic minority of the Tutsi are said to appear. In 1990 he became prefect of the capital Kigali and president of the local civil defense committee. As such, he also had contacts with the MRND party militia Interahamwe . In a letter to his superiors in June 1993, he alleged that the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel movement had set up an information network in Kigali and named its members on a list of 20 suspects. In January 1994 he accused RPF soldiers stationed in Kigali on the RTLM radio station of taking in murderers. After rioting, Renzaho took part in a public debate in February 1994 in which he called for an end to the violence in Kigali. He pledged to support UNAMIR . In the months that followed, Renzaho helped set up the Interahamwe in Kigali. He is said to have enriched himself on the fortune of the Tutsi threatened by the Interahamwe.

During the genocide (April – July 1994), Renzaho in Kigali reportedly gave instructions for the elimination of Tutsi and political opponents and coordinated the genocide in Kigali. In one case, a conversation between Renzaho and Théoneste Bagosora is known in which Renzaho confirmed the murder of the manager of the Banque Rwandaise de Développement . He is also said to have called for violence against Tutsi on the radio. According to Jean Kambanda , at a meeting of the interim government on April 11th, Renzaho called for the locations of the massacres to be hidden as far as possible. Renzaho is said to have allowed the Red Cross to take care of those in need and UNAMIR to protect potential victims of the genocide in certain areas, so that numerous persecuted people could survive in Kigali.

After the RPF conquered Rwanda in July 1994, Renzaho went into exile. In 1997 in Kenya and 2000 in Zambia , he managed to escape from imminent arrest by investigators from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He was arrested in the Republic of the Congo on September 29, 2002 and charged with genocide offenses on November 11, 2002 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The charges were later expanded. The trial began on January 8, 2007 and ended on September 6, 2007 after 49 days of trial and the hearing of 53 witnesses. Renzaho pleaded "not guilty". On July 14, 2009 he was sentenced to life imprisonment for genocide, crimes against humanity and serious violations of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocol II. The court found it established that he was involved in the June 17, 1994 massacre in the Sainte Famille church in the Rwandan capital, in which over a hundred Tutsis were killed. He also called for women and girls to be raped and had roadblocks erected at which Tutsi were intercepted and killed. The court also found him guilty of issuing weapons that were subsequently used to kill Tutsi and of overseeing a selection process in the CELA refugee camp in which 40 Tutsi were kidnapped and killed.

literature

  • Linda Melvern: Rwanda The genocide and the participation of the western world , Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Kreuzlingen / Munich 2004. ISBN 3-7205-2486-8 .

Notes and individual references

  1. ↑ Press release of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (PDF file; 31 kB).
  2. ↑ Linda Melvern: Rwanda: Genocide and the Involvement of the Western World , p. 60.
  3. ^ Melvern, p. 143.
  4. ↑ Melvern, p. 60.
  5. ↑ Melvern, p. 127.
  6. ↑ Melvern, p. 134.
  7. ^ Melvern, p. 149.
  8. ^ Melvern, p. 242.
  9. ^ Melvern, p. 209.
  10. ↑ Melvern, p. 228.
  11. ↑ Melvern, pp. 257, 267 ff.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Renzaho, Tharcisse
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Rwandan politician, involved in the 1994 genocide
DATE OF BIRTH 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiarama