Théodore Sindikubwabo

Théodore Sindikubwabo (born 1928 – died late 1990s) was the interim president of Rwanda from April 9 to July 19, 1994. He was born in the town of Butare. He took office as interim President following the murder of President Juvénal Habyarimana and was the head of government during the Rwandan Genocide. However, he is widely believed to have been a puppet of the group of military officers who held the real power. On 19 April 1994, he made a now infamous speech at the ceremony appointing a new Préfet (Governor) of Butare that was broadcast on national radio, in which he insulted those who were not "working", a euphemism for killing Tutsis, and told them to "get out of the way and let us work". On 29 April, he returned to Butare and told the populace that he was there to supervise the killing of Tutsi. On 18 May visit to Kibuye Prefecture, he congratulated the people on how well they had done their "work".

Following the invasion of the Rwandan Patriotic Front that took control of the country and ended the genocide, Sindikubwabo fled to Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), where he lived in exile in Bukavu. He was interviewed there for the book We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families and quoted as saying: "The moment has not yet come to say who is guilty and who is not guilty." He was initally reported to have been killed in the Rwandan government attack on Bukavu in November 1996 at the beginning of the First Congo War, but subsequent reports put him in Kinshasa. He died in exile in Democratic Republic of the Congo in the late 1990s of natural causes and was never charged by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

External links

• Butare, an 'Intellectual' Town That Outdid Itself, Even in Genocide, 18 February 2005