Belgium ordered Rosalie Gicanda, the last Queen of Rwanda, to leave its territory in 1994 weeks before the Genocide against the Tutsi began and when she needed constant medical attention. This was revealed on Saturday, April 20, during the commemoration of Gicanda, the wife of King Mutara III Rudahigwa. Queen Gicanda was killed in the Genocide against the Tutsi when she was 66. Despite the knowledge of a genocidal plan by the Rwandan government, in February 1994, Belgian authorities wrote to Queen Gicanda, who was receiving medical treatment in the city of Nivelle, asking her to leave even as her visa was still valid, according to Minister of National Unity and Civic Education Jean Damascene Bizimana. ALSO READ: First Lady Jeannette Kagame pays tribute to late Queen Gicanda Gicanda was killed on April 20, 1994 in the former Butare Prefecture at the orders of Captain Ildephonse Nizeyimana, a commander in the then Rwandan army. Gicanda was killed one day after the only Tutsi prefect Jean Baptise Habyarimana of Butare had been replaced by an extremist, Sylvain Nsabimana who was tasked to fast-track the Genocide against the Tutsi by the president of the genocidal government Theodore Sindikubwabo. “Before the Genocide began, Queen Rosalie Gicanda was in Belgium for medical treatment. Her visa was still valid and Belgium had sufficient information about the preparation of the Genocide,” Bizimana said. “The mayor of Nivelle wrote to Gicanda on February 3, 1994, informing her that, based on the decision of the Belgian Minister of Defence, she was instructed, first, to leave the Belgian territory not later than February 12, 1994,” Bizimana said, quoting from a copy of the letter Gicanda received. Second, the minister said, Gicanda was instructed not to go to Luxembourg or to the Netherlands. Third, the mayor informed Gicanda that she would be prosecuted if she did not obey the decision. Moreover, the Queen was threatened with deportation, which would be preceded by detention, Bizimana said. Following the letter, one Dr Gakwaya informed the city of Nivelle that Gicanda was receiving strong medication that required constant attention by the doctor and that withdrawing from medication suddenly would affect her. The city authorities replied to Dr Gakwaya that Gicanda would be allowed to stay a little longer but not later than March 1994. Dr Gakwaya asked for a written confirmation of the extension, but was never given it. ALSO READ: Tracing the roots of the Genocide against the Tutsi When February 12 approached, Queen Gicanda said that she would leave Belgium as she had agreed to do. “That is the wish of God. I will go back home to see my mother,” she told her carers, adding that she did not wish to put them in trouble. “It is obvious that Belgium has a role in her murder, based on the undisputed evidence of the preparation of the Genocide that was available to them,” Minister Bizimana said. The Minister noted that a 1997 assessment by the Belgian Senate of the role of Belgium in the Genocide against the Tutsi, showed that between January 19 and March 11, 1994 a Belgian lieutenant in the UN forces in Rwanda wrote 29 letters documenting the Rwandan government’s plan for genocide. “The Belgian Senate also showed that on January 15, 1994, the Belgian Ambassador Johan Swinnen, who was in Rwanda, sent a telegram to the Minister of Foreign Affairs informing him about the preparation for genocide,” Bizimana noted. The Belgian Senate, he said, also found that a Belgian intelligence officer compiled a 13-page report documenting the genocidal plan and submitted it to various leaders, including the King of Belgium on February 2, 1994. “The next day, on February 3 as I have noted, Gicanda received the letter giving her a limited time period to return to Rwanda, a country that was preparing a genocide to exterminate one part of Rwandans which [Queen Gicanda] belonged to,” Bizimana said. In 2012, Capt Nizeyimana, who ordered the murder of Queen Gicanda, was convicted of genocide crimes and sentenced to 35 years in prison by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
