Monique Mujawamariya | |
|---|---|
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| Born | July 27, 1955 Butare, Rwanda |
| Nationality | Rwanda |
| Known for | Human rights activism |
Hon. Dr. Monique Mujawamariya (born 27 July 1955) is a Rwandan human rights activist who moved to Canada and then South Africa. She was a survivor of the Rwandan genocide and she won an international award in 1995. [1] In 2014 she was living in South Africa where she is concerned with women's rights.
Mujawamariya was born in Butare in Rwanda in 1955. She became concerned with human rights and formed the Rwandan ADL (French : Association rwandaise pour la Défense de la personne et des Libertés publiques). [2]
On the 6 April 1994, the Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana died when his aircraft was shot down and this event immediately preceded what was to be known as the Rwandan genocide in which an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 people are thought to have died. Mujawamariya was a targeted figure in Kigali, where Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines called her a "bad patriot who deserves to die". She was in communication with Alison Des Forges every 30 minutes because of this threat and the aircrash. Des Forges was a member of Human Rights Watch and she was told to look after her children when Mujawamariya ended the call to avoid her friend hearing her die. As it was, Mujawamariya survived. [3]
Mujawamariya managed to escape by running into her garden until the soldiers left. She then hid in a roof space for 40 hours before brazenly approaching the soldiers armed only with a picture of her late husband in uniform. After she had paid a substantial bribe, she was able to escape and contact Des Forges. Des Forges arranged for her to be put on a list for evacuation, and she escorted Mujawamariya through the soldiers who surrounded the airport. [4] Mujawamariya escaped, having sent her children to the south of the country. Weeks later, she still did not know what had happened to her three children. [5]
Mujawamariya was able to fly to Washington, where she met Anthony Lake who was an advisor to President Clinton. [3] She had been amongst a group who had met Clinton the previous December. [5] However, there was little sympathy as it was judged that Rwanda, and its problems, were outside of America's national interest. [3]
She was awarded the Democracy Award from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1995, [1] and the same year she was given an honorary doctorate by Amherst College. [2]
Mujawamariya now (2014) lives in Cape Town where she works on issues relating to women's rights. She returned to Rwanda to attend her son William's wedding in 2014.
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.
Agathe Uwilingiyimana, sometimes known as Madame Agathe, was a Rwandan political figure. She served as Prime Minister of Rwanda from 18 July 1993 until her assassination on 7 April 1994, during the opening stages of the Rwandan genocide. She was also Rwanda's acting head of state in the hours leading up to her death.
The failure of the international community to effectively respond to the Rwandan genocide of 1994 has been the subject of significant criticism. During a period of around 100 days, between 7 April and 15 July, an estimated 500,000-1,100,000 Rwandans, mostly Tutsi and moderate Hutu, were murdered by Interahamwe militias.
Paul Rusesabagina is a Rwandan human rights activist. He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide. None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks.
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Sometimes in April is a 2005 American made-for-television historical drama film about the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, written and directed by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck. The ensemble cast includes Idris Elba, Oris Erhuero, Carole Karemera, and Debra Winger.
Shooting Dogs, released in the United States as Beyond the Gates, is a 2005 film, directed by Michael Caton-Jones and starring John Hurt, Hugh Dancy and Clare-Hope Ashitey. It is based on the experiences of BBC news producer David Belton, who worked in Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide. Belton is the film's co-writer and one of its producers.
Jeanne d'Arc Mujawamariya is a Rwandan politician, currently the Minister of Environment. She was formerly the Minister of Education in the government of Rwanda as well as the Rwandan Ambassador to Russia.
Christianity is the largest religion in Rwanda. The most recent national census from 2012 indicates that: 43.7% of Rwanda's population is Roman Catholic, 37.7% is Protestant, 11.8% is Seventh-day Adventist, 2.0% is Muslim, 2.5% claims no religious affiliation, and 0.7% is Jehovah's Witness.
Alison Des Forges was an American historian and human rights activist who specialized in the African Great Lakes region, particularly the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At the time of her death, she was a senior advisor for the African continent at Human Rights Watch. She died in a plane crash on 12 February 2009.
Georges Anderson Nderubumwe Rutaganda was the second vice-president of the Rwandan Hutu militia Interahamwe. Rutaganda played a crucial role in the Rwandan genocide of 1994. Prosecutor James Stewart stated that "Without Georges Rutaganda, the Rwandan genocide would not have functioned the way it did." He was on radio RTLM in Kigali in 1994, encouraging Interahamwe Militia to exterminate all Tutsis. It was alleged that Rutaganda captured, raped, and tortured Tutsi women in Interahamwe hideouts in Kigali. Other accounts state that Rutaganda captured Tutsi prostitutes, believing them to be witches.
Jerry Robert Kajuga was national president of the Interahamwe, the group largely responsible for perpetrating the Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi people in 1994. Born to a Tutsi father and a Hutu mother, Kajuga concealed his background and presented himself as being of pure Hutu descent. It was said that being Tutsi, he nearly collaborated with Paul Kagame by helping the RPF Inkotanyi soldiers to infiltrate his Interahamwe for exterminating many Tutsis. This is notable as Hutu Power extremist groups considered Hutus who married Tutsis to be race traitors, and Kajuga went to great lengths to conceal his identity.
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Tatiana Rusesabagina is a Rwandan who with her husband Paul Rusesabagina, survived in Hôtel des Mille Collines during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and saved over a thousand people from being murdered. This story was used as the basis for the 2004 film Hotel Rwanda, in which Tatiana was portrayed by Sophie Okonedo, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Tatiana.
The International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since October 1, 1990 was an international inquiry that investigated reported human rights abuses during the Rwandan Civil War. Sponsored by four international non-governmental organizations, the commission was not officially mandated by the Rwandan government. Ten commissioners from eight countries spent two weeks in Rwanda visiting prefectures and documenting oral and written accounts, along with exhuming reported locations of mass grave burials. Primarily, the inquiry examined three major massacres that occurred between 1990 and 1992. The commission lasted three months and the final report was released in March 1993. Due to the dates of its investigation, the commission does not cover the Rwandan genocide, which followed in April 1994.
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In Praise of Blood: The Crimes of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is a 2018 non-fiction book by Canadian journalist Judi Rever and published by Random House of Canada; it has also been translated into Dutch and French. The book describes alleged war crimes by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), Rwanda's ruling political party, during its ascent to power in the 1990s.
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