Jerome Clement Bicamumpaka is a Rwandan politician. He is one of the 402 co-founders of the Rwandan political party MDR (Mouvement Démocratique Républicain), a democratic opposition party, created in Kigali on July 1, 1991. He was born on November 4, 1957, in Mukono (Rwaza), in Ruhondo commune, Ruhengeri prefecture. An economist by training and consultant by profession, he joined the Interim Government of Rwanda on April 9, 1994, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. This government was in power for only three months, from April 9 to July 17, 1994. Exiled in mid-July 1994, Bicamumpaka moved first to Kinshasa, Zaire, then to Yaoundé, Cameroon, where he tried to work as a consultant. On April 6, 1999, he was arrested by the Prosecutor of the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) who accused him of crimes including genocide. Twelve and a half years later, he was acquitted of all charges by the Trial Chamber of the ICTR and released. Bicamumpaka was then taken into the care of the ICTR Registry in Arusha. Awaiting the opportunity to join his family in Canada, he has since resided in Tanzania. Birth, education and political affiliation Jerome Bicamumpaka is the son of Balthazar Bicamumpaka and Basile Ntakazalimara. Born into a practicing Christian family, he was baptized while still a baby. His father, Balthazar Bicamumpaka, was an important figure in Rwandan politics from the 1950s to the 1960s; he worked for the abolition of the ubuhake (the old Rwandan social order, somewhat akin to feudalism), the advent of representative government, and Rwandan independence from Belgium. He is considered to be a founding father of the Republic of Rwanda, proclaimed in Gitarama on January 28, 1961, alongside, among others, Grégoire Kayibanda, Dominique Mbonyumutwa, Vénuste Kayuku, Joseph Habyarimana Gitera, and Jean-Baptiste Rwasibo. He served as a minister from 1960 to 1965, then as president of the National Assembly of Rwanda from 1965 to 1969. Following a political crisis in 1968, he retired from politics in September 1969 to engage in business. He died on May 13, 1981, and was buried in Rwaza. Bicamumpaka completed his primary and secondary school education in Rwanda, but in 1977, he was obliged, for family reasons, to engage in business alongside his father. Seven years later, he resumed his studies by enrolling in the Faculty of Economics at the Université Libre de Bruxelles, in Belgium. He completed his education at the Institute