Dynamic Africa

noeuddeviperes:

Agathe Uwilingiyimana (23 May 1953 – 7 April 1994) was a Rwandan political figure. She served as Prime Minister of Rwanda from 18 July 1993 until her death on 7 April 1994. Her term was ended when she was assassinated during the opening stages of the Tutsi Genocide. She was Rwanda’s first and so far only female prime minister.

She joined the Republican and Democratic Movement (MDR), an opposition party, in 1992, and four months later was appointed Minister of Education by Dismas Nsengiyaremye, the first opposition prime minister under a power-sharing scheme negotiated between President Juvénal Habyarimana and five major opposition parties. As education minister she abolished the academic ethnic quota system, awarding public school places and scholarships by open merit ranking. This decision earned her the enmity of the Hutu-extremist parties.

From Habyarimana’s death until her assassination the following morning (approximately 14 hours), Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was Rwanda’s constitutional head of government. The U.N. peacekeeping force sent a Belgian escort to her home before 3 am 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 am the presidential guard surrounded the U.N. 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. Fearing for the lives of her children, Agathe and her husband emerged, and they were shot and killed by the presidential guard on the morning of 7 April 1994. Her children escaped and eventually took refuge in Switzerland. In his book, Me Against My Brother, Scott Peterson writes that the U.N. troops sent to protect Uwilingiyimana were castrated, gagged with their own genitalia, and then murdered.

She said in her last recorded words:

There is shooting, people are being terrorized, people are inside their homes lying on the floor. We are suffering the consequences of the death of the head of state, I believe. We, the civilians, are in no way responsible for the death of our head of state.

 

(via b-sama)

noeuddeviperes:

Rwanda’s first female pilot takes to the skies at 24

Esther Mbabazi trained to fly Rwandair regional jets despite her father being killed in a plane crash when she was eight

By Jenny Clover

Esther Mbabazi was eight years old when her father was killed in a crash as the plane he was flying in overshot the runway landing in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

So when, a few years later she announced her intention to train as a pilot, the planwas not well received by some of her family. But at the age of 24, Mbabazi has made history as the first female Rwandan pilot – although as a woman she says she doesn’t make flight announcements because it scares the passengers.

“Some people questioned why I wanted to do it, they thought I wanted to be a pilot to find out what happened to my dad, but that didn’t have anything to do with it,” Mbabazi said.

“Being a pilot really was my childhood dream, I don’t think anything was going to stop it. It started when I travelled with my family and we would get the free things for kids, like the backpacks. I really liked that and I just liked to travel. The whole intrigue of this big bird in the sky, I was amazed. That and the free backpacks planted the seed.”

Mbabazi, who is fluent in five languages, trained at the Soroti flight school in Uganda before being sponsored to continue her training in Florida by national carrier Rwandair. She now flies the company’s CRJ-900 regional jets across Africa.

The death of her father has influenced the way she flies. “It has moulded my character as a pilot, and I think what happened to my dad makes me a little more safe. It could have stopped me, but an accident is an accident. If someone is knocked over in a car you don’t stop driving. As a pastor’s child I know that you have to let stuff go.”

One person who never questioned Mbabazi’s plans was her mother, Ruth. A strong farmer and businesswoman, she wasn’t fazed to see her daughter take to the air after what the death of her husband, who was a Pentecostal pastor before his death.

“I didn’t get any resistance from my mum,” Mbabazi said. “In her time she was the only girl in her electricity class, so she doesn’t have any issues with what I do. She has five children and whether we want to do fashion or aviation, as long as we’re doing something we’re interested in, she’s happy.”

Mbabazi was born in Burundi, where her family had moved beforeRwanda’s genocide in 1994. The family moved back to Rwanda in 1996.

While not without its critics, particularly on human rights issues, Rwanda is now a secure and rapidly developing country. GDP grew by 7.7% last year and the government claims to have lifted one million people out of poverty in five years. Particular progress has been made towards gender equality. Women make up more than half of MPs.

“Things are changing in Rwanda,” says Mbabazi. “Before you wouldn’t find women driving taxis here, and now you see it. There are men who cook now in Rwanda, when, in an African culture, women have to cook. So I think eventually things change. If you really work hard and you prove that you can do something well, I don’t think there’s a question of you being a woman, it doesn’t come into the equation.

“There are not so many male Rwandan pilots either. So even though I am the first female, my colleagues are the first male Rwandan pilots to be flying commercial planes. So I think it’s a big change for all of us Rwandans and something that should be celebrated.”

georgepericles:

Good morning #Kagugu ! #rwanda #taximoto #kigali

thesmithian:

…a series of environmental portraits made in Rwanda of women that were brutally raped during the Rwandan genocide and the children they bore from those brutal encounters.

more.

wanderlustswede:

Kigali, Rwanda

eastafricaart:

‘Summer time’ by Emmanuel Nkuranga

Emmanuel Nkuranga was born in 1987. The second born in a family of six boys, Emmanuel lived in Uganda for the first ten years of his life.

The artist moved to Rwanda in 1997 and attended two different high schools. He then attended Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) where he completed his university education in computer studies. He played a lot of sports during his childhood, such as soccer and basketball, and still does as an adult. This really is not too shocking, because Emmanuel strikes one as a playful person and this exuberance for life translates into his art.

Emmanuel is a self taught painter. He is a mixed- media expressionist. His art development is due to his personal day to day painting experiments with wide range of materials.

He is not restricted in his creative exploitation of ideas, techniques and believes such dynamism is healthy in nurturing of skills, ideas that progress him as an artist to produce unique art works. 

Emmanuel is a member of Ivuka Arts Kigali and also runs a project called Art with a Mission which he started in 2010 through which he works in 2 orphanages MPORE, in Gikondo, Rwanda and a FIDESCO orphanage in Kigali. 

He brings supplies for the children and give the teenagers, ages 10 to 17, lessons and also a market for their finished products for them to improve their standards of living hence building the future art generation in Rwanda both on the local and international scene.

nkururich:

#kigali by #night #lights #photo #photography #dark (at Papyrus)