Agathe Uwilingiyimana: Encyclopedia II - Agathe Uwilingiyimana - Assassination

Agathe Uwilingiyimana - Assassination

The talks between President Habyarimana, Uwilingiyimana, and the Rwandan Patriotic Front were never concluded, because the president's plane was rocketed on April 6, 1994. In an interview with Radio France on the night of President Habyarimana's assassination, Uwilinigiyimana said that there would be an immediate investigation. She also said, in her last recorded words:

The UN peacekeeping force sent a Belgian escort to her home before 3am the following morning; they intended to take her to Radio Rwanda, from where she planned a dawn broadcast appealing for national calm. Uwilingiyimana's house was further guarded by five Ghanaian U.N. troops on the outside in addition to the ten Belgian troops. Inside the house, the family was protected by the Rwandan presidential guard, but between 6.55 and 7.15 the presidential guard surrounded the UN troops and told them to lay down their arms. Fatally, the blue berets ultimately complied (handing over their weapons just before 9 am).

Seeing the stand-off outside her home, Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her family took refuge in the Kigali U.N. volunteer compound around 8 am. Eye witnesses to the inquiry on U.N. actions say that Rwandan soldiers entered the compound at 10 am, and searched it for Agathe Uwilingiyimana; she was eventually found, with her husband, and they were shot and killed by the presidential guard on the morning of April 7, 1994

In his book Shake Hands with the Devil, UN commander Roméo Dallaire writes that Uwilingiyimana and her husband surrendered themselves to the genocidaires to save their children, who stayed successfully hidden in a volunteer's house (the children survived, leaving the country for Switzerland).

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Assassination", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki