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Tribunal's Prosecutor, Hassan Bubacar
Jallow |
Rwanda tribunal winds up investigations into genocide of
Tutsis
By Hirondelle News Agency
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), early
this month signed the last indictment regarding the 1994 genocide of Tutsis in
Rwanda.
A total of 91 people were indicted resulting in 22 convictions and three
acquittals ranging from genocide to war crimes.
50 people have been charged with war crimes by the ICTR but none of them come
from within the ranks of the former rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF)
currently in power in Kigali even though they are also suspected to have
committed war crimes.
Investigations have been conducted in that area and the Prosecutor is on record
as saying that he was still evaluating the evidence.
The first indictment was drawn up on October 1, 1995, eighteen months after the
genocide kicked off, leaving in its wake an estimated one million people dead.
It targeted seven personalities from Kibuye in western Rwanda. The last
indictment which was drawn up in September has remained confidential.
Of the 91 persons indicted so far, 36 have been charged with rape by committing
it, encouraging its commission, or doing nothing to prevent it.
Mika Muhimana, a municipal counsellor, was one of the above. He was found guilty
of repeatedly raping many Tutsi women during the genocide.
71 people have so far been arrested; among them are Pauline Nyiramasuhuko,
former minister of gender and only woman indicted by the ICTR, and the only
non-Rwandan, George Ruggiu, a Belgian of Italian descent.
He was a presenter with Radio television libre de mille collines (RTLM), a radio
station notorious for its fanning anti-Tutsi hatred during the genocide.
Three quarters of the members of the interim government in place during the
genocide have been arrested, among them the Prime Minister, Jean Kambanda, who
was sentenced to life in prison.
21 others were also convicted, including a pastor of the Seventh Day Adventist
church, Pastor Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, the first churchman to be found guilty
by the tribunal for taking part in the genocide.
Apart from Kambanda, the only member of the interim government to have pleaded
guilty, three others did the same.
They were Ruggiu, who was sentenced to 12 years in prison; former militia leader
Omar Serushago, who was given 15; and Vincent Rutaganira, a former municipal
counsellor who was sentenced to 6 years, the lightest sentence to have been
handed down by the ICTR.
Also among the convicted are former journalist Hassan Ngeze who was the editor
of Kangura newspaper and two founders of RTLM: Jean Bosco Barayagwiza and
Ferdinand Nahimana.
Observers of the tribunal, while acknowledging ICTR's record in charging a large
proportion of those considered responsible for the genocide, say that it has
been marred by the slow response of the Prosecutor in pursuing the case against
former RPF rebels, now in power in Kigali.
Andre Guichaoua, a French sociologist and specialist on Rwanda who is also
considered to be among the ICTR Prosecutor's best expert witnesses, has rebelled
over what he terms as "deliberate choice by successive prosecutors to ignore one
of the protagonists in the conflict", the RPF.
"Recognising the existence of crimes committed by the RPF leadership does not
water down the crime of genocide of Tutsis nor does it trivialise it", said
Guichaoua in a recent interview in Le Monde.
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