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Agathe Habyarimana was the First Lady of Rwanda from 1973-1994. As First Lady, she was highly influential, and together with a group of Hutu supremacists who supported her and her husband Juvénal Habyarimana, was instrumental in plotting the Rwandan Genocide.
Early life
Agathe Habyarimana was born Agathe Kanziga in 1942 in Gisenyi Prefecture. She came from a powerful family that had once ruled a Hutu city-state, and was remained influential. In 1963, she was married to Juvenal Habyarimana.
Role in Rwandan politics
In 1973, Juvenal overthrew President Gregoire Kayibanda, and made himself president. It's believed that Agathe's family connections provided him with a lot of support for his coup; as a result, she had a lot of power and was seen by some as Rwanda's real ruler.
Akazu and genocide planning
At some point in the early 1990's in response to the Rwandan Civil War and democratization of the country, Agathe and her allies formed a group called the Akazu(Kinyarwanda: "little house") also known as the Zero Network. Since Agathe was the leader, it was also known as le clan de madame(French: "the lady's clan") They believed the time had come to eliminate the Tutsi once and for all, and their objective was to promote this idea to the general Hutu population.
They created Kangura magazine, which was edited by one of their members, Hassan Ngeze and funded by the businessmen in the group, such as Felicien Kabuga, who, together with some of the group's other members, would also organize Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines.
Habyarimana was flown out of Rwanda three days after the killings began, and landed in France, which had also helped other Akazu members escape, albeit not all to France.
After the genocide
Agathe remained in France until 1995, when she moved to her ally Mobutu Sese Seko's residence in Gbadolite. Fearing Mobutu being overthrown in 1997, she moved to Libreville, Gabon, and then eventually went back to France, where she was arrested in 2010. It's unknown what's happened to her since, but she's unlikely to face any consequences from Rwanda, as a French court has denied to extradite her back there.