Béatrice Nirere is a

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 ...

n politician who was convicted of

genocide Genocide is violence that targets individuals because of their membership of a group and aims at the destruction of a people. Raphael Lemkin, who first coined the term, defined genocide as "the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" by ...

for her involvement in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. At the time of her conviction in 2009, she was a member of the Chamber of Deputies of Rwanda, the country's lower house of

parliament In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

Events

In 1993, Nirere was a deputy governor in charge of social affairs in the Byumba Prefecture. That year, she fled from advancing troops of the

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 Revo ...

(FPR) and moved to a suburb of

Kigali Kigali () is the Capital (political), capital and largest city of Rwanda. It is near the nation's geographic centre in a region of rolling hills, with a series of valleys and ridges joined by steep slopes. As a primate city, Kigali is a relativ ...

. Witnesses stated that during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide Nirere was a member of the

Interahamwe The Interahamwe ( or ) is a Hutu paramilitary organization active in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda. The Interahamwe was formed around 1990, as the youth wing of the National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (M ...

militia that organised the massacre of ethnic

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 ( ...

s and moderate

Hutu The Hutu (), also known as the Abahutu, are a Bantu ethnic group native to the African Great Lakes region. They mainly live in Rwanda, Burundi, and Uganda where they form one of the principal ethnic groups alongside the Tutsi and the Great L ...

s and that Nirere's influence with the militia derived from her political position. Nirere admitted to having handed out uniforms and other supplies to Interahamwe members, but she denied being otherwise affiliated with them. She was also accused of setting up and overseeing a roadblock where Tutsis were detained before they were killed. In September 2008, Nirere was re-elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a member of the ruling FPR. Following a further five months as a member of parliament, she was charged with genocide and tried in a

gacaca The Gacaca courts () were a system of transitional justice in Rwanda following the Rwandan genocide, 1994 genocide. The term 'gacaca' can be translated as 'short grass' referring to the public space where neighborhood male elders (abagabo) used to ...

court in Giporoso, Gasabo District. On 2 March 2009, Nirere was found guilty of genocide and sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence (law), sentence of imprisonment under which the convicted individual is to remain incarcerated for the rest of their natural life (or until pardoned or commuted to a fixed term). Crimes that result in life impr ...

. The question of Nirere's replacement in parliament was raised in the following May, as she had not yet been replaced by the FPR. The speaker of the house,

Rose Mukantabana Rose Mukantabana (born 31 August 1961) is a lawyer and women's rights activist. She is the former President of the Chamber of Deputies of Rwanda and was the first woman elected to the post. She was elected to serve as chair of the African Parliam ...

, raised the issue since a maximum of ten days is allowed by the parliamentary law.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nirere, Beatrice Rwandan people convicted of genocide Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Rwanda Rwandan prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Members of the Chamber of Deputies (Rwanda) Living people People from Northern Province, Rwanda 21st-century Rwandan women politicians 21st-century Rwandan politicians 20th-century Rwandan women politicians 20th-century Rwandan politicians Year of birth missing (living people) Female war criminals