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Prudence Bushnell | |
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United States Ambassador to Kenya | |
In office 1996–1999 | |
President | Bill Clinton |
Preceded by | Aurelia E. Brazeal |
Succeeded by | Johnnie Carson |
Personal details | |
Born | 1946 (age 77–78) Washington,D.C. |
Education | University of Maryland Russell Sage College |
Prudence Bushnell (born 1946) is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Kenya from 1996 to 1999 and as United States Ambassador to Guatemala from 1999 to 2002. [1]
Bushnell was born in Washington D.C. in 1946. Her father was a career member of the United States Foreign Service and as a result of her family's travels,she grew up in Iran,Germany,France and Pakistan. After obtaining a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Maryland,Bushnell received a graduate degree from Russell Sage College in Troy,New York.
Following graduation,Bushnell went to work as a management consultant in Texas. She joined the foreign service in 1981 as an administrative track officer,with her first assignment being in Bombay,India. She then served as Deputy Chief of Mission under Ambassador George Moose at the U.S. Embassy in Dakar,Senegal.
In 1993,Ambassador Moose was appointed Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs by President Bill Clinton. Bushnell accompanied Moose to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary. Bushnell's time in Washington was marked by extreme tension in Africa. On October 3,1993,18 U.S. soldiers were killed and 73 wounded in an attempt to apprehend warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid at the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia. The American public was appalled at the deaths and support for American involvement in African affairs suffered as a result. It was against this backdrop that the Rwandan genocide began. On April 6,1994,Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira,the President of Burundi,were both killed when their plane was shot down on approach to Kigali Airport in Rwanda. Responsibility for the assassinations has never been clearly established,however,the resulting chaos was the catalyst for the massacre of Tutsis at the hands of Rwanda's Hutu majority.
Bushnell,who had been visiting the area just weeks before,released a memorandum immediately following the assassinations. In it,she predicted widespread violence and the military take-over of the Rwandan government and urged the U.S. government to take action to maintain order. Partly as a result of the Somali incident,the U.S. government chose not to heed Bushnell's recommendations,and on the next day,April 7,the Rwandan genocide began when several Tutsi government officials and moderate Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana were killed by Hutu militias.
Bushnell began calling Rwandan military officials in an attempt to persuade them to cease the slaughter. Without a military commitment,however,her pleas for a stop to the violence fell on deaf ears. On April 29,1994,Bushnell spoke with Colonel Théoneste Bagosora,a Rwandan military official who had been identified as a leader of the genocide. She warned him that the State Department was aware of the violence and called for an end to the massacres. Bagosora was eventually arrested and sentenced to 35 years imprisonment for his role in the genocide. [2]
Bushnell's attempts to stop the genocide and her conversations with Bagosora are dramatised in the 2004 film Sometimes in April . Actress Debra Winger portrayed Bushnell in the film.
Bushnell remained Deputy Assistant Secretary until being nominated by President Clinton to serve as Ambassador to Kenya in 1996. Upon confirmation by the United States Senate,Bushnell took up residence in Nairobi. Bushnell used her office to push Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi to institute democratic reforms and to root out corruption in his government,a major drag on Kenya's economy. Bushnell was also alarmed at the vulnerability of the U.S. embassy compound to attack. For over two years,she complained about security conditions to her superiors in Washington. [3] In spite of Bushnell's request for a new building,a State Department evaluation team concluded that a renovation would suffice. Bushnell's fears proved to be well founded when on August 7,1998 a car bomb was detonated next to the embassy by al-Qaeda agents.
At the time of the bombing,Bushnell was attending a meeting with the Kenyan Trade Minister,Joseph J.Kamotho in the Cooperative Bank Building next to the embassy. She was knocked unconscious by the blast and badly cut by flying glass. Upon regaining consciousness a few minutes later,Bushnell was evacuated to a nearby hotel where she received medical treatment and began overseeing rescue operations. Ultimately,12 embassy staff were killed along with 212 Kenyans and 4,000 people were injured. Additionally,another car bomb exploded simultaneously in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania,killing 11 and wounding 85. In the weeks following the bombings,Bushnell was the target of some criticism in the Kenyan press for not allowing Kenyan civilians to participate in search and rescue operations. She responded by appearing on Kenyan state television to point out the inherent danger the devastated compound posed to untrained searchers and the need to preserve evidence.
In 2001,four al-Qaeda agents,including Wadih El-Hage,the leader of the cell that planned the attack,were put on trial in New York City. Bushnell was a witness for the prosecution. At the end of the trial,all four men were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Several conspirators remain at large however. Osama bin Laden,former leader of al-Qaeda,was indicted in 1998 for his role in ordering the attacks. He was killed on April 30,2011 in Pakistan.
Bushnell was nominated by President Clinton in 1999 to serve as U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala. She was sworn into that position on August 5,1999 by U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. While ambassador,Bushnell sought to boost Guatemala's participation in organic and specialty coffees following a worldwide drop in coffee prices. Of her position as Ambassador,she said:
I think that my getting out in the countryside,letting people see me,puts a human face on the mystique of the United States of America. Every now and then you touch somebody,and somebody touches you. It is extraordinary to overcome race,culture,language,sometimes gender,economic issues,and simply connect as human beings. What is extraordinary about being an ambassador is that you have the power of the United States Government to make a difference.
These are policies that are Strategic,Moral,Achievable,Reliable,and Transformational. Bushnell conceived this framework for examining approaches to global challenges in the wake of her book about the 1998 al Qaeda terrorist attacks. Two decades of “hard”power wars have not deterred terrorist tactics. Ambassador's Bushnell provides an example of a S.M.A.R.T. in her article,"Operation Vittles" found in the May 2019 Issue of Journal of American Diplomacy. [4] Ambassador Bushnell also references the failures of diplomatic actions during the Rwandan genocide in an article published in The Brown Journal of World Affairs. [5]
Bushnell resigned as U.S. Ambassador to Guatemala in July 2002 to become Dean of the Leadership and Management School at the Foreign Service Institute,a position she no longer holds. In 2004,she was the recipient of the Career Achievement Award,a Service to America Medal. She is married to lawyer and playwright Richard Buckley and has five stepchildren.
Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century,the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century,Mwami (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers,Germany and Belgium,allied with the Rwandan court.
The Tutsi,also called Watusi,Watutsi or Abatutsi,are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi.
Roméo Antonius Dallaire is a retired Canadian politician and military officer who was a senator from Quebec from 2005 to 2014,and a lieutenant-general in the Canadian Armed Forces. He notably was the force commander of UNAMIR,the ill-fated United Nations peacekeeping force for Rwanda between 1993 and 1994,and for trying to stop the genocide that was being waged by Hutu extremists against Tutsis. Dallaire is a Senior Fellow at the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies (MIGS) and co-director of the MIGS Will to Intervene Project.
The Rwandan genocide,also known as the genocide against the Tutsi,occurred between 7 April and 19 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. Although the Constitution of Rwanda states that more than 1 million people perished in the genocide,the demographic evidence suggests that the real number killed was likely lower. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths.
Théoneste Bagosora was a Rwandan military officer. He was chiefly known for his key role in the 1994 Rwandan genocide for which he was sentenced to life imprisonment by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). In 2011,the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment on appeal. He was due to be imprisoned until he was 89. According to RenéLemarchand,Bagosora was "the chief organizer of the killings". On 25 September 2021,he died in a prison hospital in Mali,where he was being treated for heart issues.
The assassination of presidents Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira in the evening of April 6,1994 was the proximate trigger for the Rwandan genocide,which resulted in the murder of approximately 800,000 Tutsi and a smaller number of moderate Hutu. The first few days following the assassinations included a number of key events that shaped the subsequent course of the genocide. These included:the seizing of power by an interim government directed by the hard-line Akazu clique;the liquidation of opposition Hutu politicians;the implementation of plans to carry out a genocide throughout the country;and the murder of United Nations peacekeepers,contributing to the impulse of the international community to refrain from intervention.
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.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko is a Rwandan politician who was the Minister for Family Welfare and the Advancement of Women. She was convicted of having incited troops and militia to carry out rape during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. She was tried for genocide and incitement to rape as part of the "Butare Group" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha,Tanzania. In June 2011,she was convicted of seven charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by the ICTR,and the first woman to be convicted of genocidal rape.
The Rwandan Civil War was a large-scale civil war in Rwanda which was fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces,representing the country's government,and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) from 1 October 1990 to 18 July 1994. The war arose from the long-running dispute between the Hutu and Tutsi groups within the Rwandan population. A 1959–1962 revolution had replaced the Tutsi monarchy with a Hutu-led republic,forcing more than 336,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. A group of these refugees in Uganda founded the RPF which,under the leadership of Fred Rwigyema and Paul Kagame,became a battle-ready army by the late 1980s.
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.
Kangura was a Kinyarwanda and French-language magazine in Rwanda that served to stoke ethnic hatred in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. The magazine was established in 1990,following the invasion of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF),and continued publishing up to the genocide. Edited by Hassan Ngeze,the magazine was a response to the RPF-sponsored Kanguka,adopting a similar informal style. "Kangura" was a Rwandan word meaning "wake others up",as opposed to "Kanguka",which meant "wake up". The journal was based in Gisenyi.
On the evening of 6 April 1994,the aircraft carrying Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundian president Cyprien Ntaryamira,both Hutu,was shot down with surface-to-air missiles as their jet prepared to land in Kigali,Rwanda;both were killed. The assassination set in motion the Rwandan genocide,one of the bloodiest events of the late 20th century.
Seth Sendashonga was the Minister of the Interior in the government of national unity in Rwanda,following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after the 1994 genocide. One of the politically moderate Hutus in the National Unity Cabinet,he became increasingly disenchanted with the RPF and was eventually forced from office in 1995 after criticizing government policies. After surviving a 1996 assassination attempt while in exile in Kenya,he launched a new opposition movement,the Forces de Résistance pour la Démocratie (FRD). Sendashonga was killed by unidentified gunmen in May 1998. The Rwandan government is widely believed to be responsible for the assassination.
These are some of the articles related to Rwanda on the English Wikipedia pages:
The 1996 Burundian coup d'état was a military coup d'état that took place in Burundi on 25 July 1996. In the midst of the Burundi Civil War,former president Pierre Buyoya deposed Hutu President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya. According to Amnesty International,in the weeks following the coup,more than 6,000 people were killed in the country. This was Buyoya's second successful coup,having overthrown Jean-Baptiste Bagaza in 1987.
Rosemary Museminali is a Rwandan politician and diplomat,currently working for the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS),as its representative at the African Union and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Museminali is best known for her role as the Rwandan Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation from 2005 until 2009. She has also served as the country's Minister of State for International Cooperation and as ambassador to the United Kingdom.
The role of France in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi has been a source of controversy and debate both within and beyond France and Rwanda. France actively supported the Hutu-led government of Juvénal Habyarimana against the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front,which since 1990 had been engaged in a conflict intended to restore the rights of Rwandan Tutsis both within Rwanda and exiled in neighboring countries following over four decades of anti-Tutsi violence. France provided arms and military training to Habyarimana's militias,the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi,which were among the government's primary means of operationalizing the genocide following the assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira on April 6,1994.
Arlene Render is an American former diplomat. An officer of the United States Foreign Service,she served as the United States Ambassador to the Gambia,Zambia,and Ivory Coast. She was also noted for her role amidst the initial onset of the Rwandan genocide.
The Ikiza,or the Ubwicanyi (Killings),was a series of mass killings—often characterised as a genocide—which were committed in Burundi in 1972 by the Tutsi-dominated army and government,primarily against educated and elite Hutus who lived in the country. Conservative estimates place the death toll of the event between 100,000 and 150,000 killed,while some estimates of the death toll go as high as 300,000.
Rwanda–Turkey relations are the foreign relations between Rwanda and Turkey. Turkey has an embassy in Kigali since December 2014. Rwanda's embassy in Ankara opened in August 2013.