Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana

Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana (1953-1994), Rwandan educator and politician. Uwilingiyimana was born in the village of Nyaruhengeri, the fourth of eight children born to farming parents. She attended Notre Dame des Citeaux High School, where she headed clothing drives and worked to improve relations among the Hutu and Tutsi, Rwanda’s two major ethnic groups. She became certified to teach humanities, mathematics and chemistry and worked at a school in the town of Butare. In 1983, Uwilingiyimana became a chemistry professor at the National University of Rwanda and later earned an advanced degree in chemistry despite criticism from those who thought that females should not study science. Three years later, she created a credit union for teachers in Butare. This drew the attention of the government, which wanted to include talented individuals from southern Rwanda, and so she was appointed her Director of Small and Medium Sized Industries. Although some people opposed placing a woman in a high position of authority, she ultimately won the respect of many of them; one later recalled, “Not only did the men accept her for her competence but the women adopted her for her generosity.” Uwilingiyimana helped create the Seruka (“Show Me”) Association, which provided education, job training and business opportunities for women. 

In 1992, she was appointed Minister of Education. In her short time in this office, she appointed larger numbers of women to high-ranking positions in the school system; encouraged girls to pursue careers in science; ended the policy of expelling pregnant girls from school; helped establish the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), a multinational organization that increased girls’ access to education; and awarded scholarships based solely on merit, thus ending the old ethnic quota system. The last of these policies angered Hutu extremists; although the Hutu already controlled the government, some wanted to completely eliminate Tutsi influence and destroy the Tutsi rebels who opposed the government. In 1993, she became the first woman prime minister in Rwanda and the second in all of Africa. Her appointment had been based in part on the president’s belief that she would divide his opponents and their belief that they could control her, but she quickly proved to be a formidable politician by helping to create the Arusha Accords, a peace agreement between the government and the rebels. This was the final straw for Hutu extremists, who in April 1994 assassinated Rwanda’s president and blamed Tutsi rebels for the crime. This immediately led to the Rwandan Genocide, in which soldiers and militiamen murdered Tutsi men, women and children, along with any Hutu who they considered a traitor. This included Agathe Uwilingiyimana. In an international radio broadcast on the night that the Genocide began, she announced “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.” 

She refused to flee the country, instead staying to help restore the peace. She and her family were initially protected in their house by United Nations troops, but Hutu troops ordered them to lay down their arms, so Uwilingiyimana and her family took refuge in a UN compound the next morning. Two hours later, troops entered the compound. Agathe and her husband came out voluntarily to give their children a chance to escape, and they were immediately executed. Their children eventually fled to Switzerland. Agathe Uwilingiyimana was one of the first of 937,000 people killed in only 100 days during the Rwandan Genocide. After the killings ended and peace was restored, the new government gave her an official state burial. FAWE established the Agathe Innovative Award Competition to encourage educational and economic projects for African girls. She is still the only female prime minister in Rwandan history.

©David Brodnax, Sr.