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Issue 00442 |
October 21 - 27, 2006 |
issn 0856 - 9135 |
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UN Tribunal |
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By Hirondelle News Agency Two years before it closes, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) still wishes to capture and judge the alleged treasurer of the 1994 genocide, billionaire Felicien Kabuga. The ICTR has been trailing him for the past ten years. Washington has promised a five-million dollar reward to whomever will help capture him and, every time they get the chance to, the leaders of the tribunal ask the States, and notably Kenya, to provide help. But the commitment of Nairobi, where Kabuga lives most of the time, is hardly convincing. According to the ICTR chief of prosecutions, Stephen Rapp (US), not one to waffle, the man accused of having ordered the thousands of machetes used during the genocide will be brought before the United Nations tribunal only if “the Kenyan authorities really do cooperate”. Even though he had filed the request one month before his visit in Nairobi at the end of September, the chief prosecutor of the ICTR, Hassan Bubacar Jallow, could not meet the Kenyan Minister of the Interior. John Michuki is the member of the Kenyan government this issue concerns the most, one of the leading newspapers of the country, The Nation, has revealed. Jallow, who was supported with more than twenty diplomats, was received by the Minister of Justice, Martha Karua. This hearing has been presented in Arusha as an improvement and the tribunal’s spokesman, Mr. Everard O'Donnell, has even stated that the days of Kabuga as a free man are numbered. The prosecutor’ s office or the embassies of Western countries in Nairobi tend to be more restrained. According to The Nation, it is unclear whether Kenya has or has not committed itself to set up a special force to help capture the Rwandan runaway, who has escaped several joint operations of the Kenyan police and the ICTR. Kabuga, who was indicted in 1997, is doing most of his business in Kenya, says the prosecutor. In Rwanda, his initially frozen assets were passed on to one of his daughters who notably continue to oversee the many buildings her father owns in the capital. The businessman, who, starting from scratch, built the biggest fortune of the country in his time, has solid friendships in certain African governments. After the ex president of Kenya Daniel Arap Moi exit from power, the days of Kabuga as a free man seemed to be numbered. But the “ big fish” still hasn’t got caught in the net despite the beefing up of the prosecutor’s investigation team. “He still has important support, even within the new regime”, an anonymous source within the prosecutor’s office has declared. According to Rapp, the defendant travels freely thanks to forged ID papers, not only in Kenya but across the islands of the Indian Ocean and several countries of Central and Western Africa as well. Since it is apparently impossible to put Kabuga under arrest, the prosecutor tries, without much success, to clip his wings. “We’ve managed to freeze $ 6 to 8 millions on open accounts opened under the names of members of his family; there is no doubt for us that the money belongs to him but we know also that, further away, he owns much more than that”, Mr. Rapp confides. The difficulties in capturing Kabuga were touched upon last Monday at the United Nations by the ICTR president, Judge Erik Mose (Norway) who presented his yearly report. Considering the exit strategy of the ICTR, The president of the ICTR declared, it is important that he is arrested and transferred to Arusha as soon as possible so that his culpability or his innocence can be determined”. The leaders of the tribunal have repeatedly stated that transferring the Kabuga case to a national jurisdiction was out of the question. The ICTR, already criticized for having judged only leaders of the former regime while its mandate encompasses war crimes that the winners would have committed, wishes it would at least close on a conspicuous achievement that would tip the balance and improve its image.
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