Valérie Bemeriki
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Valérie Bemeriki
Valérie Bemeriki (born 1955) is a Rwandan convicted war criminal and radio entertainer. Bemeriki was one of the main RTLM#Individuals associated with the station, ''animatrices''''http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/6922 '' of Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), which played a significant role in promoting the Rwanda genocide, genocide against the Tutsi. Early life Although born in Rutshuru, Democratic Republic of Congo (then Belgian Congo), Bemeriki's hometown is Giciye commune, Gisenyi préfecture, in Rwanda. Prior to working at RTLM, Bemeriki worked for the ruling MRND party as a propagandist, also writing for the Interahamwe's (MRND's youth wing) publication. Role in genocide On April 8, 1994, two days after the Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana, Rwandan president Juvénal Habyarimana, Bemeriki ironically noted on air that opposition members of the previous government "could not be found", w ...
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Rwanda
Rwanda, officially the Republic of Rwanda, is a landlocked country in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, where the African Great Lakes region and Southeast Africa converge. Located a few degrees south of the Equator, Rwanda is bordered by Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. With a comparatively high elevation, Rwanda has been given the sobriquet "land of a thousand hills" (), with its geography dominated by mountains in the west and savanna to the southeast, with numerous lakes throughout the country. The climate is temperate to subtropical, with two rainy seasons and two dry seasons each year. It is the most densely populated mainland African country; among countries larger than 10,000 km2, it is the third-most densely populated country in the world. Its Capital city, capital and largest city is Kigali. Hunter-gatherers settled the territory in the Stone Age, Stone and Iron Ages, followed later by Bantu peoples. The population coalesce ...
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Juvénal Habyarimana
Juvénal Habyarimana (; ; 8 March 19376 April 1994) was a Rwandan politician and military officer who was the second president of Rwanda, from 1973 until Assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, his assassination in 1994. He was nicknamed ''Kinani'', a Kinyarwanda word meaning "invincible". An ethnic Hutu, Habyarimana served in several security positions including Ministry of Defence (Rwanda), minister of defense under Rwanda's first president, Grégoire Kayibanda. After overthrowing Kayibanda in a 1973 Rwandan coup d'etat, coup in 1973, he became the country's new president and eventually continued his predecessor's pro-Hutu policies. He was a dictator, and electoral fraud was suspected for his unopposed re-elections: 98.99% of the vote on 24 December 1978, 99.97% of the vote on 19 December 1983, and 99.98% of the vote on 19 December 1988. During his rule, Rwanda became a totalitarian, One-party state, one-party state in which his National Revolutionary Mo ...
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Zaire
Zaire, officially the Republic of Zaire, was the name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 1971 to 18 May 1997. Located in Central Africa, it was, by area, the third-largest country in Africa after Sudan and Algeria, and the 11th-largest country in the world from 1965 to 1991. With a population of over 23 million, Zaire was the most populous Francophone country in Africa. Zaire was strategically important to the West during the Cold War, particularly the U.S., as a counterbalance to Soviet influence in Africa. The U.S. and its allies supported the Mobutu regime (1965–1997) with military and economic aid to prevent the spread of communism. The country was a one-party totalitarian military dictatorship, run by Mobutu Sese Seko and his Popular Movement of the Revolution. Zaire was established following Mobutu's seizure of power in a military coup in 1965, after five years of political upheaval following independence from Belgium known as the Congo Crisis. Zaire ...
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Kantano Habimana
Kantano Habimana (died c. 1998–2002), commonly referred to as Kantano, was a presenter (''animateur'') on the Rwandan radio station RTLM, which played a significant role in promoting the genocide against the Tutsi. Like the station's other broadcasters, Habimana incited violence against Tutsi and moderate Hutu on the air. The most popular RTML ''animateur'' in terms of airtime, his appeal was attributed to his "loose and comical style on the air". During his time on air, he was noted for his charisma and sense of humor, and he was noted for being able to speak profusely "as if people were right in front of him, which was good for getting their attention. Early life Habimana's birth date and most details about his early life prior to joining the RTLM are unknown. What is known is that he received a master's degree while studying journalism in Leningrad (now ''Saint Petersburg'') in the Soviet Union and subsequently worked at Rwandan newspapers ''Imvaho'' and ''Umurwanashyaka ...
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Agnès Ntamabyaliro Rutagwera
Agnès Ntamabyaliro Rutagwera (born 1937) is a Rwandan politician. Though she was of mixed Tutsi-Hutu descent and children of intermarriage were targets during the genocide, Rutagwera has been sentenced for her involvement in the genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. Notably, she was accused of arranging the murder of Tutsi politician Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana, who resisted the genocide. Life Ntamabyariro was born in 1937 and she had a Tutsi mother and a Hutu father. In 1994 she was the minister of justice in the provisional government that was held responsible for the genocide that took place in Rwanda. Ntamabyariro is particularly accused of arranging for Jean-Baptiste Habyalimana to be killed. He was a Tutsi prefect who resisted the genocide. She is said to have organised his murder in addition to inciting and planning the genocide.
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Pauline Nyiramasuhuko
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko (born 1 April 1946) is a Rwandan politician who was the Minister for Family Welfare and the Advancement of Women. She was convicted of having incited troops and militia to carry out rape during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. She was tried for genocide and incitement to rape as part of the "Butare Group" at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. In June 2011, she was convicted of seven charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. Nyiramasuhuko is the first woman to be convicted of genocide by the ICTR, and the first woman to be convicted of genocidal rape. Female mass murderers Early life and career Pauline Nyiramasuhuko was born in the small farming community of Ndora, in the province of Butare, to a poor Hutu family. She attended high school at the Ecole sociale de Karubanda. There, she became friends with Agathe Habyarimana, the future wife of Juvénal Habyarimana, who became President of Rwanda in 1973. Nyiramas ...
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Machete
A machete (; ) is a broad blade used either as an agricultural implement similar to an axe, or in combat like a long-bladed knife. The blade is typically long and usually under thick. In the Spanish language, the word is possibly a diminutive form of the word ''macho'', which was used to refer to sledgehammers. Alternatively, its origin may be ''makhaira, machaera'', the name given by the Greeks and Romans to the falcata. It is the origin of the English language equivalent term ''matchet'', though this is rarely used. In much of the English-speaking Caribbean, such as Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago, the term ''cutlass'' is used for these agricultural tools. Uses Agriculture In various tropical and subtropical countries, the machete is frequently used to cut through rainforest undergrowth and for agricultural purposes (e.g. cutting sugar cane). Besides this, in Latin America a common use is for such household tasks as cutting large foodstu ...
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Impuzamugambi
The Impuzamugambi (, ''"those with the same goal"'') was a Hutu militia in Rwanda formed in 1992. Together with the Interahamwe militia, which formed earlier and had more members, the Impuzamugambi was responsible for many of the deaths of Tutsis and moderate Hutus during the Rwandan genocide of 1994. While the Interahamwe was led by prominent figures in the ruling party, the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (, MRND), the Impuzamugambi was controlled by the leadership of the Coalition for the Defense of the Republic (, CDR) and recruited its members from the youth wing of the CDR. The CDR was a separate Hutu party which cooperated with the MRND, though it had a significantly more extreme ethnically Pro-Hutu and Anti-Tutsi agenda than the MRND. The smaller Impuzamugambi was less organized than the Interahamwe, but it was responsible for a large portion of genocidal deaths. Alongside killings, both groups employed rape as a tool of genocide. Like the Int ...
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Hutu Power
Hutu Power, or Hutu Supremacy, is an ethnic supremacist ideology that asserts the ethnic superiority of Hutu, often in the context of being superior to Tutsi and Twa, and therefore, they are entitled to dominate and murder these two groups and other minorities. Espoused by Hutu extremists, widespread support for the ideology led to the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi and the members of their families, the moderate Hutu who opposed the killings, and the Twa, who were considered traitors. Hutu Power political parties and movements included the ''Akazu'', the Parmehutu, the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic and its '' Impuzamugambi'' paramilitary militia, and the governing National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development and its '' Interahamwe'' paramilitary militia. The belief in the theory that Hutu people are superior is most common in Rwanda and Burundi, where they make up the majority of the population. Due to its sheer destructiveness, the ideolo ...
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Rwandan Patriotic Front
The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF–Inkotanyi; , FPR) is the ruling political party in Rwanda. The RPF was founded in December 1987 by Rwandan Tutsi in exile in Uganda because of the ethnic violence that had occurred during the Rwandan Hutu Revolution in 1959–1962. In 1990, the RPF started the Rwandan Civil War in an attempt to overthrow the government, which was dominated by Hutu. Later on, the Rwandan genocide occurred that ended on 4 July with the RPF conquest of the entire country. The RPF have ruled the country since then as a one-party state, and its current leader, Paul Kagame, became the president of Rwanda in 2000, and remains in office. Since 1994, RPF rule has been characterized by political repression, relative stability, and economic growth. Among other policies implemented by the government are the non-recognition of ethnic identities and a wide-ranging prohibition on what the government calls " genocide ideology", including discussion of ethnic differences. Des ...
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Tutsi
The Tutsi ( ), also called Watusi, Watutsi or Abatutsi (), are an ethnic group of the African Great Lakes region. They are a Bantu languages, Bantu-speaking ethnic group and the second largest of three main ethnic groups in Rwanda and Burundi (the other two being the largest Bantu peoples, Bantu ethnic group Hutu and the African Pygmies, Pygmy group of the Twa). Historically, the Tutsi were Pastoralism, pastoralists and filled the ranks of the warriors' caste. Before 1962, they regulated and controlled Rwandan society, which was composed of Tutsi aristocracy and Hutu commoners, utilizing a clientship structure. They occupied the dominant positions in the sharply stratified society and constituted the ruling class. Origins and classification The historian Christopher Ehret believes that the Tutsi mainly descend from speakers of an extinct branch of South Cushitic languages, South Cushitic he calls "Tale south Cushitic." The Tale southern cushites entered the Great Lakes region s ...
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UNAMIR
The United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) was established by United Nations Security Council Resolution 872 on 5 October 1993. It was intended to assist in the implementation of the Arusha Accords, signed on 4 August 1993, which was meant to end the Rwandan Civil War. The mission lasted from October 1993 to March 1996. Its activities were meant to aid the peace process between the Hutu-dominated Rwandese government and the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The UNAMIR has received much attention for its role in failing, due to the limitations of its rules of engagement, to prevent the Rwandan genocide and outbreak of fighting. Its mandate extended past the RPF overthrow of the government and into the Great Lakes refugee crisis. The mission is thus regarded as a major failure. Background In October 1990 the Rwandan Civil War began when the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebel group invaded across Uganda's southern border into northern Rw ...
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