Rosalie Gicanda

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Queen Dowager Rosalie Gicanda was the wife of Rwandan Mwami (King in Kinyarwanda) Mutara III of Rwanda. She survived the death of the king, and the end of the Rwandan monarchy, and lived in Butare, along with her mother and several ladies-in-waiting.

On 20 April 1994, as the Rwandan Genocide began in earnest in Butare, a detachment of soldiers commanded by Lt. Pierre Bizimana, acting under the orders of Capt. Idelphonse Nizeyimana, picked up the queen along with others from her house. They then took the captives behind the National Museum and shot them. Only a younger girl survived to tell the story of the murders. Two days later, the queen's mother was also murdered. At the request of a priest, the Butare mayor Kanyabashi recovered Queen Gicanda’s body and had it buried in the yard next to her house. She was about 80 years old.

The Queen was a living symbol for Tutsis, and her murder shocked many. It effectively signaled the beginning of the slaughter in the Butare area, which saw some of the worst atrocities.

After the genocide, a Rwandan military court found Bizimana and Private lst Class Aloys Mazimpaka guilty of genocide and the murder of Queen Gicanda and her family. (Chambre Specialisée du Conseil de Guerre de Butare, case no. LMD 187, LP 0001-PS 97, Judgment pronounced July 27, 1998.) Bizimana was sentenced to death, Mazimpaka to life in prison.