Women's protector ordered rape

2004-02-04 14:26

Arusha, Tanzania - A witness told the UN tribunal trying suspected ringleaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide that she had been repeatedly raped on the orders of the country's then minister of the family and women's protection, the independent Hirondelle news agency said Wednesday.

The witness, whose name was not disclosed, said the former minister, Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, who is being prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), gave orders that "all Tutsi women and girls" should be raped.

The witness was unable to give the precise dates of the alleged crimes, which she said took place in the southern region of Butare.

She said she had been infected with HIV during the alleged rapes.

Nyiramasuhuko, who has already been accused of the same crime during her trial, which began in June 2001, is the first woman to be accused of genocide and rape as a crime against humanity by an international court.

She is also the only woman on trial at the ICTR.

As far as the ICTR is concerned, the crime of rape covers incitement as well as the act itself.

The former minister is being jointly tried with five others, including her son Arsene Shalom Ntahobari.

Between April and July 1994, up to a million people were slaughtered in Rwanda in a carefully planned attempt to rid the small central African country of its Tutsi minority population.

- AFP