Rwanda’s first post-genocide president walked out of prison on Friday, freed after a presidential pardon for a 15-year sentence he received on charges that included inciting ethnic violence.
Pasteur Bizimungu was jailed in 2004 after a trial critics said was politically motivated. He had been convicted for creating a militia, embezzling state funds and inciting ethnic violence in a nation still healing from genocide.
An ethnic Hutu, he became president when the ruling Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) took power after the genocide in which extremists from the Hutu majority butchered 800 000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.
President Paul Kagame, whose Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Army ended the hundred days of slaughter, was then vice-president and overshadowed Bizimungu because he had more power in reality than his superior.
Cooperation between Bizimungu, a French-speaking Hutu, and Kagame, an English-speaking Tutsi, was intended to symbolise post-genocide reconciliation.
But their relationship soured, and in March 2000, Bizimungu resigned after falling out with senior RPF members over the make-up of a new Cabinet.
Bizimungu in 2006 lost a court appeal to have his conviction overturned, claiming it was politically motivated. He subsequently sent Kagame a letter, pleading for mercy and a release he said would ”be for the good of the nation”. – Reuters