Hero of the Week 114

Welcome back viewers

This week's hero is...

Agathe Uwilingiyimana 

Agathe Uwilingiyimana was born on May 23, 1953, in the town of Nyaruhengai, Rwanda. Despite being from a very poor family, she was very determined to make a difference in the growth of her country. Her achievements would prove to be quite monumental and would inspire thousands across Rwanda.

She received her high school diploma in the subjects of mathematics and chemistry in 1976. She then became a math teacher in the Butare providence of Rwanda. After teaching for thirteen years, Agathe was appointed, director of Butare's Ministry of Commerce. Her impressive credentials eventually caught the eye of Rwanda's President, Juvenál Habyarimana. In 1992, he made her the Minister of Education. One of her first acts as Minister was to abolish the system of the academic ethnic quota. 

Up until this moment, Rwanda's education system had been purposely segregated between the Hutu tribe (the country's ethnic majority) and the smaller Tutsi tribe (the ethnic minority). Since Rwanda had gained it's independence from Belgian occupation in the 1950s, those classified as Tutsis had lived as second class citizens in their own country. Many were denied education based on their tribal status and forced to go to much poorer and isolated schools. Agathe's decision to abolish this policy, made it possible for Tutsi's to get into better schools based on their academic merit. Although this decision was very popular among most Rwandans, it also made Agathe an enemy in the eyes of Hutu extremists within the government. On July 17, 1993, Agathe became the very first female Prime Minister of Rwanda. 

However, everything changed less than a year later, when President Habyarimana was assassinated (along with President Cyprien Ntaryamira of Burundi). He had been heading to a meeting with the leader of a Tutsi rebel group (the Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF), Paul Kagame. Before he could met with the latter, Habyarimana's plane was shot from the sky. Within hours, a series of horrific massacres were committed by Hutu extremists against Tutsis and moderate Hutus across the country. What followed was one of the worst genocides to ever be committed in the 20th Century. By the time it ended on July 15, 1994 (when the RPF overthrew the Hutu government), more than one million Rwandans had been murdered.

Sadly, Agathe Uwilingiyimana and her husband (Ignace Barahira) were among the very first to be murdered. Although both of them were Hutus, Agathe's sympathy and support for Tutsis led to both of them being targeted by the Hutu Interahamwe, the government's paramilitary death squad (now labeled a terrorist group). When they saw the Interahamwe approaching their house, Agathe and Ignace told their five children to run and hide. They then stepped out of their house to meet the killers. They along with ten UN peacekeepers from Belgium (assigned to guard them) were then savagely killed. All five of their kids escaped to a neighbor's house.

Today, Agathe Uwilingiyimana is remembered as a leading figure for human rights and education for many countries on the continent of Africa (Rwanda included). Her efforts to bridge the gap in education between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes also helped to inspire many survivors of the genocide to attempt to reconcile and rebuild their shattered country. She truly is someone who deserves to always be remembered.

https://real-life-heroes.fandom.com/wiki/Agathe_Uwilingiyimana

https://pantheon.world/profile/person/Agathe_Uwilingiyimana/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Agathe-Uwilingiyimana

http://maps.cga.harvard.edu/rwanda/pm.html

https://www.ktpress.rw/2017/01/23-years-later-meet-ex-pm-agathe-uwilingiyimanas-children/