Théodore Sindikubwabo

Théodore Sindikubwabo (born 1928 – died late 1990s) was the interim president of Rwanda from April 9 to July 19, 1994, during the Rwandan genocide.

Born in the town of Butare in the south of Rwanda, Sindikubwabo was educated as a physician, and was Minister of Health in the administration of President Kayibanda. Following the takeover by Juvénal Habyarimana, Sindikubwabo became a practising pediatrician in Kigali Central Hospital. He later returned to politics as a deputy in parliament.

Immediately following Habyarimana's assassination on April 6, 1994, Sindikubwabo was installed as interim President by the Crisis Committee controlled by Colonel Théoneste Bagosora, and was the head of government during the Rwandan Genocide. Many scholars and the British MI6 report that Sindikubwabo and Hutu hardliners organized Habyarimana's assassination due to concerns over the Arusha Accords with the aid of French intelligence. Sindikubwabo is widely believed to have been a puppet of the group of military officers who held the real power. On 19 April 1994, he made a now infamous speech at the ceremony appointing a new "Préfet" (Governor) of Butare that was broadcast on national radio, in which he insulted those who were not "working", a euphemism for killing Tutsis, and told them to "get out of the way and let us work". On 29 April, he returned to Butare and told the populace that he was there to supervise the killing of Tutsi. On an 18 May visit to Kibuye Prefecture, he congratulated the people on how well they had done their "work".

Following the invasion of the Rwandese Patriotic Front that took control of the country and ended the genocide, Sindikubwabo fled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he lived in exile in Bukavu. He was interviewed there for the book "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families" and quoted as saying: "The moment has not yet come to say who is guilty and who is not guilty." He was initially reported to have been killed in the Rwandan government attack on Bukavu in November 1996 at the beginning of the First Congo War, but subsequent reports put him in Kinshasa. He died in exile in Democratic Republic of the Congo in the late 1990s of natural causes and was never charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

External links

* [http://allafrica.com/stories/200502180725.html Butare, an 'Intellectual' Town That Outdid Itself, Even in Genocide] , 18 February 2005