- Théodore Sindikubwabo
Théodore Sindikubwabo (born 1928 – died late 1990s) was the interim
president ofRwanda fromApril 9 toJuly 19 ,1994 , during theRwandan 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 byJuvénal 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 ColonelThéoneste Bagosora , and was the head of government during theRwandan Genocide . Many scholars and the BritishMI6 report that Sindikubwabo and Hutu hardliners organized Habyarimana's assassination due to concerns over theArusha 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. On19 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 killingTutsi s, and told them to "get out of the way and let us work". On29 April , he returned to Butare and told the populace that he was there to supervise the killing of Tutsi. On an18 May visit toKibuye 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 toZaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he lived in exile inBukavu . 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 theFirst Congo War , but subsequent reports put him inKinshasa . He died in exile in Democratic Republic of the Congo in the late 1990s of natural causes and was never charged by theInternational 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
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