Jean-Damascène Bizimana (born 1950s) 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 diplomat. He was

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

to the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

. At the time of the assassination of president Habyarimana of Rwanda, Bizimana held a non-permanent seat on the

United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...

. He was associated with several leaders of 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 ...

movement, and has been accused by some, such as General Roméo Dallaire, of aiding the

Rwandan genocide The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu ...

by passing information on Security Council deliberations to the Rwandan government at the centre of the genocide. In an interview several years later, Michael Barnett, a diplomat with the United States mission spoke of the level of frustration at Bizimana's statements by those who were aware of what was happening in Rwanda but like the United States, didn't want to assist and stop the genocide."Nobody said, 'Why don't you get out of the room?' There was never a real moment in which they dressed him down, because if you did, you would be breaking the rules of the club." In 2010, researcher David L. Bosco discovered that Bizimana and his family had settled in Opelika, Alabama, where he had become a naturalized citizen and was working as a quality-control manager for a plastic products manufacturer.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bizimana, Jean-Damascene 1970s births Living people Rwandan diplomats Permanent Representatives of Rwanda to the United Nations Rwandan emigrants to the United States