An economist by training and consultant by profession, he joined the Interim Government of Rwanda[2] on April 9, 1994, as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
On April 6, 1999, he was arrested by the Prosecutor of the ICTR[3] (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda) who accused him of crimes including genocide.
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.
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.
The party platform included the development of democracy in Rwanda, support for public freedoms, economic liberalization to strengthen the private sector, and aid for Rwandan refugees.
In 1992, he became chairman of this commission and at the same time a member of the party's Political Bureau, made up of 44 people from the eleven prefectures of Rwanda.
In February 1994, when Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu was designated to lead the transitional government, he asked the MDR to nominate candidates for the three ministerial posts that were due to him.
Bicamumpaka was one of the three MDR candidates submitted for the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, even though he also held elected office.
The leaders of the MDR party proposed Jerome C. Bicamumpaka for the portfolio of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, as the Political Bureau had done two months earlier.
This is how he entered the government, in a chaotic[10] environment of war, massacres of civilians and paralysis of all political and administrative organs of the Rwandan state.
The objective pursued by Bicamumpaka for these meetings was to call on their respective governments to come to the aid of Rwanda and its people, by stopping the massacres of civilians, as well as the war, and by encouraging the immediate resumption of negotiations between the Government and the RPF, with the aim of finally putting in place the organs provided for by the Arusha Peace Agreement.
Among the latter, we can cite the following: In his diplomatic notes, Bicamumpaka described the chaotic and catastrophic situation in which the Rwandan people were living, the massacres of civilians and the dramatic consequences of the war which had resumed in the leader of the RPF, and asked for immediate and urgent assistance to end them, as well as the creation of conditions for the establishment of the organs provided for in the Arusha Peace Agreement.
Although it was difficult for him to be well informed of what was happening on the ground in Rwanda, given the chaos that reigned, he did not hesitate to speak about the fact that the Tutsis seemed to be the most targeted.
During his meeting with General Roméo Dallaire at the Hôtel des diplomats on the afternoon of April 11, 1994, the latter promised to act, but it was only words!
During these trips, he met several political and diplomatic personalities, and the message addressed to them was the following: to call for the help of Rwandans who were perishing for unacceptable reasons, to do everything to help stop the massacres of civilians and the war, to come in humanitarian aid to the Rwandan people, to do everything to ensure that political dialogue is rapidly initiated between the warring parties in order to create the conditions for the implementation of the Arusha Peace Agreement signed on August 4, 1993, etc.
Obviously, the scale of the massacres of civilians and the distress of the Rwandan population in general were not sufficient to arouse the commitment of these countries to come to the aid of Rwanda.
During the delivery of the judgment,[21] the president of the seat declared that the prosecutor had accused Bicamumpaka and his three co-defendants of extremely serious crimes, but that the defendants had produced ample exculpatory evidence.
On December 8, 2021, the Registrar of the Residual Mechanism (UN-IRMCT) who took over from the ICTR in this charge of his management informed him that he would no longer benefit from the protection of the United Nations and his care, in Tanzania, because he would have declined the offer made to him to be relocated to Niger!
[23] In fact, on November 18, 2021, the Registrar told him that he had to travel to Niger within two weeks for his final relocation, along with eight other people awaiting a host country.
On December 16, 2021, Jerome C. Bicamumpaka then had to initiate legal proceedings[25] before the President of the UN-IRMCT, in order to be restored to his rights.