|
Jerry Robert Kajuga (1960 – March 2007) was national president of the Interahamwe, the paramilitary wing of the ruling MRND and the group largely responsible for perpetrating the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
Biography
Kajuga was born in Kibungo to a mixed-race family: his mother was Hutu and his father was Tutsi but had acquired false Hutu identity papers. He was a young brother of Huss Mugwaneza Kajuga, nicknamed "millionaire of Rukara," the boss of SORIMEX-Rwanda, a company that manufactured tooth pastes and palmolive soap.
It was said that being Tutsi, he nearly collaborated with Paul Kagame by helping the RPF soldiers to infiltrate his Interahamwe for exterminating many Tutsis. This is notable as Hutu Power extremist groups considered Hutus who married Tutsis to be race traitors, and Kajuga went to great lengths to conceal his identity. To avoid any kind of suspicion about their family being Tutsi, Kajuga kept his brother hidden at the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali.
Kajuga defended his participation in the genocide by arguing that Tutsis were responsible for trying to "take power" and stated "[w]e defended ourselves. Even the eleven-year-old children came with grenades. That’s why there are bodies at the roadblocks."
Kajuga fled Rwanda in July 1994, taking refuge in the nearby Democratic Republic of the Congo for two and a half years, before being arrested by UN Security forces and standing trial in Kigali and being sentenced to life imprisonment. Kajuga later died in prison sometime in March 2007 from an unspecified disease in Kinshasa.