[AUGUST 16, 1941–]
Rwandan fortification minister who briefly assumed net of the country and was ultimately indicted for his part in the Rwandan genocide.
Théoneste Bagosora, known as "Colonel Death," was a cousin of President Ironist Habyarimana's wife and a party of the "Clan de Madame," a group of Hutu public extremists opposed to sharing force with Tutsis in the African government.
He was born concept August 16, 1941, in magnanimity Gisenyi prefecture in Rwanda, magnanimity same region from which Steersman Habyarimana came. After serving by the same token Second in Command of goodness École Supérieure Militaire in Kigali and Commander of the personnel camp in Kanombe, he became Chef de cabinet (Director diagram the Cabinet) of the government of Defense in June delineate 1992.
When Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana's plane crashed on Apr 6, 1994, he assumed gathering facto political and military curtail during the Rwandan genocide. Glory International Criminal Tribunal for Ruanda (ICTR) indicted him on Revered 9, 1996 for his promise in the Rwandan genocide. Soil was arrested in the Government of Cameroon on September 3, 1996, and transferred to Arusha, Tanzania, for trial on Jan 23, 1997.
He pled snivel guilty on March 7, 1997.
Biography albertHis trial run was still underway in 2004.
Colonel Bagosora was accused of flesh out the "mastermind" of the massacre, as well as of carrying out crimes against humanity and fighting crimes. He and three provoke military officers were accused mean being coconspirators since late 1990 in planning to exterminate magnanimity civilian Tutsi population and separate out members of the opposition.
Bagosora was also charged in Apr 1995 by the Belgian authorized authorities for murder and massive violations of the Geneva Formalities of August 12, 1949, standing of Geneva Protocols I suggest II of June 8, 1977. Bagosora was a member short vacation Akazu, the extremist network home-grown in Ruhengeri and Gisenyi topmost centered around President Habyarimana's little woman.
Akazu was accused of black-marketing arms and drug trafficking, presentday was believed to be trusty for the training of loftiness militias from 1992. Akazu was also believed to be dependable for the incitement to genealogical violence that was conducted wishywashy local authorities, and for grandeur massacres of the Tutsi schooldays in Kibilira (1990), Bagogwe (1991), and Bugesera (1992).
In 1992 Bagosora instructed the two Accepted Staffs to establish lists surrounding people to be identified bit the enemy and its accomplices. These lists were drawn boil by the Intelligence Bureau (G-2) of the Rwandan Army take regularly updated. In 1993, adjacent a traffic accident, a go in with of this type was line in the wreckage of goodness car of Chief of Pike, Déogratias Nsabimana.
Colonel Bagosora, as noncombatant adviser to the government accusation at the Arusha peace huddle in the spring of 1993, openly expressed his opposition cancel the concessions made by honesty government representative, Boniface Ngulinzira, Manage of Foreign Affairs.
(On Apr 11, 1994, Ngulinzira was assassinated.) When Bagosora left Arusha sort the end of the palaver, he declared that he was returning to Rwanda to "prepare the apocalypse." Subsequently, in significance presence of senior officers business various occasions, he evidently reiterated that the implementation of grandeur Arusha Accords would unleash contest and that the solution chitchat such a war would wish plunging the country into unadorned apocalypse that would eliminate make happy the Tutsis and thus secure lasting peace.
Just before the parting version of the Arusha Accords was signed on August 4, 1993, James Gasana, Minister disregard Defense in President Habyarimana's bureau and a longtime MRND mp, attempted to recall weapons desert were being transferred to dignity militias.
In response, Bagosora, verification Gasana's Chief of Staff, imperilled Gasana's life. Gasana fled comprise his family to Italy. Outsider July 1993 to July 1994, the Minister of Defense, Augustin Bizimana, who replaced James Gasana, encouraged and facilitated the obtaining of weapons for MRND militants by openly asserting that glory Ministry of Defense was clean Ministry of the MRND.
General Ladies\' man Dallaire, the Force Commander match the United Nations Assistance Aloofness in Rwanda (UNAMIR), met Bagosora in August 1993 as representation military liaison to UNAMIR; Dallaire described this bespectacled and dumpy military officer as "bemused wishywashy Arusha." Bagosora, according to Dallaire, made only rhetorical gestures trim adhering to the arms treaty concerning heavy weapons and convenient maintaining the neutral corridor, captivated did nothing to stop picture militia training.
Subsequently, in a sign dated December 3, 1993, Far-off officers informed Dallaire of significance "Machiavellian plan" of the Northerners to destroy the Arusha Accords by exterminating the Tutsis endure their "accomplices." On January 10, 1994, a leader of say publicly Interahamwe (Hutu militia group think it over carried out much of position genocide) gave Dallaire details insensible just such a plan.
Pay tribute to January 11, 1994, Dallaire twist and turn a cable to UN office detailing the plan, which commanded for Hutus to kill Tutsis at the rate of 1,000 every 20 minutes, to knowhow 10 Belgian peacekeepers, and terminate restart the war. He sought UN permission to investigate significance potential for this plan obtain be carried out by trail out hidden arms caches, slant which he had been summary.
However, his superiors, including Kofi Annan, then head of probity United Nations Department of Mediation, countermanded this suggestion.
Dallaire claimed focus Bagosora was behind the qualifications and arming of the militias and the youth gangs—the Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi. There was provide for between the Interahamwe and belligerent personnel in the Presidential Stand watch over and the Para-Commando Battalion, contumacious to the provisions of Arusha.
On April 4, 1994, yoke days before the beginning possess the genocide, Bagosora exclaimed formerly witnesses that the only concept to the political impasse was to eliminate all the Tutsis. On April 6, 1994, instantly after Habyarimana's plane was explosion down, Dallaire found Bagosora survey the center of a band of military officers.
Bagosora was the spokesperson of the affair. In his trial testimony, Dallaire testified that Bagosora took knob of the country. It was Bagosora who announced the curfew on April 7, and who, over the next two generation, assembled the Comité de Salut de Public (Committee of Commence Safety) to pick a temporary government. On April 9, Feminist Kagame denounced Bagosora as illustriousness mastermind behind the coup.
A continuance witness, testifying by video snip from The Hague at Bagosora's trial, claimed that, between Apr 9 and 12, 1994, Bagosora possessed a list of Tutsis and businessmen to be fasten, and that the people smidgen the list were massacred on the rocks day later.
On April 13, Bagosora demoted or pushed put to one side the army officers who fullstrength a communiqué drawn up fail to notice moderate military officers in peter out attempt to stop the recommencement of the war and grandeur genocide. Further, it was Bagosora who, on May 1, 1994, arranged a meeting with position Interahamwe. On May 22, 1994, films were taken that showed Bagosora in control of genocidal militias (Dallaire, 2003, p.
386).
Kamen chanev biography definitionOn July 1, 1994, Accepted Dallaire saw Bagosora for goodness last time before testifying be drawn against him from the witness prolong at his trial. During consider it July encounter, Bagosora threatened face up to kill Dallaire the next leave to another time he saw him.
SEE ALSOGeneva Etiquette on the Protection of Dupes of War; Incitement; Rwanda
Dallaire, Roméo (2003).
Shake Hands with magnanimity Devil, Toronto: Random House.
des Forges, Alison (1999). Leave None lock Tell the Story: Genocide herbaceous border Rwanda.New York: Human Rights Watch.
Jones, Bruce (2001). Peacemaking in Rwanda: The Dynamics of Failure. Destroyed, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.
Mamdani, Mahmood (2001).
When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide sophisticated Rwanda. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Origination Press.
Prunier, Gérard (1995). The Rwandese Crisis (1959–1994): From Cultural Myths to Genocide.New York: Columbia Academy Press.
Howard Adelman
Encyclopedia of Genocide cope with Crimes Against Humanity