arc travels: Woman guilty of genocide and rape

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Woman guilty of genocide and rape

Rwandan soldier at the genocide memorial in Bisesero, Rwanda

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the genocide

A former Rwandan women's minister has been sentenced to life in prison for her role in the genocide and the rape of Tutsi women and girls.

Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 65, is the first woman convicted by the UN-backed tribunal for the Rwanda genocide.

She was found guilty, along with her son and four other former officials, after a 10-year trial.

Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the 1994 massacres.

Nyiramasuhuko, who was family affairs and women's development minister, was accused of ordering and assisting in the massacres in her home district of Butare in southern Rwanda.

The prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accused her of taking part in the government decision to create militias throughout the country. Their mission was to wipe out the Tutsi population as fast as possible.

Along with her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s at the time, she was also accused of organising the kidnap and rape of Tutsi women and girls.

Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s at the time of the genocide, was also found guilty and sentenced to life.

Four other local officials got between 25 years and life in prison.

Rwanda's genocide800,000 people killed in 100 daysHutu extremists massacred ethnic Tutsi minority and political opponentsRoadblocks set up where people were identified by their ID papers and slaughtered with machetesEnded when Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame seized power in Kigali in June 1994Many Hutus fled into DR Congo, sparking years of unrest in the regionHow the genocide happened

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says Nyiramasuhuko showed no emotion as she was sentenced.

She was found guilty on seven of the 11 charges she faced.

She had denied all the charges.

The trial opened in 2001 and was one of those used by the Rwandan government to highlight the slow pace of justice at the tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Butare was once home to a large mix of Hutu and Tutsi people, and there was some resistance there to the orders to carry out the massacres.

The government of which Nyiramasuhuko was a member dismissed the most senior district official - a man who opposed the genocide. He was never seen again.

When he was replaced, the massacres began and militias were flown in from the Rwandan capital Kigali to assist.

Nyiramasuhuko was accused of requesting military assistance to proceed with the massacres in her home commune.

The prosecution says along with her son she often forced people to undress completely before loading them on to trucks and taking them to their deaths.

Our correspondent says that although she was the only woman on trial for genocide before the ICTR, many other women have been convicted of genocide in Rwandan courts.

Two nuns were found guilty of participating in the genocide by a court in Belgium.

This article is from the BBC News website. ? British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.