Callixte Nzabonimana (born 1953) is a former

Rwanda Rwanda (; rw, u Rwanda ), officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of Central Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator ...

n politician who is accused of participating in the Rwandan genocide.

Prior to 1994

An ethnic Hutu from Gitarama prefecture, Nzabonimana held the position of Minister of Planning in the MRND government of Juvénal Habyarimana from 15 January 1989 to 4 February 1991, in the successive "multi-party" government formed on 31 December 1991, and the second "multi-party" government formed on 16 April 1992.Indictment against Nzabonimana
from the ICTR As of 1994, he was also MRND president for Gitarama prefecture. The ICTR indictment against musician Simon Bikindi charges that Bikindi, an author of many racially charged anti-Tutsi songs, “consulted with President Juvénal Habyarimana, Minister of Youth and Sports Callixte Nzabonimana and MRND-aligned military authorities on song lyrics” before releasing them to be played on the

Hutu Power Hutu Power is a racial and ethnosupremacist ideology that asserts the ethnic superiority of Hutu, often in the context of being superior to Tutsi and Twa, and that therefore they are entitled to dominate and murder these two groups and other mino ...

radio station RTLM.Musician again pleads not guilty to genocide
''Hirondelle.org'', March 8, 2003

During the genocide

After the death of Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, Nzabonimana was appointed Minister of Youth and Sports (''Ministre du Sport et de la Jeunesse'') in the interim government. Between April 9 and 14 July, he is alleged to have met with fellow ministers at a number of Government meetings in which ministers received briefings on the genocide's progress, and requested weapons to distribute in their home provinces for use by the genocidaires. On 21 November 2001, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) released an indictment charging Nzabonimana and others with genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

Apprehension

Nzabonimana was detained in Tanzania on February 18, 2008 and transferred to custody of the ICTR on February 19, 2008. According to African Rights, Nzabonimana is one of the "three key civilians" collaborating with the

FLDR The Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (french: Forces démocratiques de libération du Rwanda, FDLR) is an armed rebel group active in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. As an Hutu, ethnic Hutu group opposed to the Tutsi, ...

, operating out of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.African Rights seeks severe sanctions for FDLR
, ''Rwanda News Agency'', October 25, 2005

References

Footnotes

Sources

*http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/Geno4-7-04.htm *Kamanzi, Rwanda, ''Du Génocide à la Defaite'', p. 110; African Rights, Rwanda, Death, Despair, p. 361.

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nzabonimana, Callixte Living people People indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Planning ministers of Rwanda Sports ministers of Rwanda Youth ministers of Rwanda 1953 births