Category: Rwanda

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UN/AU general fingered for Rwandan genocide

The general who is slated to lead the joint UN/AU peacekeeping forces in Sudan has recently come under scrutiny for his alleged involvement in the Rwandan genocide. General Karenzi Karake was approved by the African Union to become the deputy commander of the African forces.

A Belgium-based Rwandan exile group has accused General Karake of supervising the killings of civilians during the genocide in Rwanda and the DR Congo.

“We are taking the allegations very seriously and we have invited the groups to forward them so that we can do an independent background check,” Mr Sorokobi told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed the claims as a mere fabrication and an attempt to tarnish Rwanda’s image.

“Major-General Karake is a well-trained and experienced senior officer who has ably served in various senior command staff roles in the Rwanda Defence Forces and rightly deserves the post,” the statement said.

Meanwhile, the government of Khartoum is claiming that this is a smear campaign to give the participating members of the African Union a black eye. According to a spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, Karake has yet to be placed under contract with the peacekeeping forces.

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French culpability in Rwanda

Last week, the French newspaper Le Monde published an account that claimed the Office of the French President was privy to the planning of the Rwandan Genocide. In the documents, it becomes increasingly clear that [then] French President François Mitterrand supported the perpetrators of the genocide.

The documents, obtained by lawyers for six Tutsi survivors who are bringing a case against France for “complicity with genocide” at the Paris Army Tribunal, suggest the late President Mitterrand’s support for the Hutus was informed by an obsession with maintaining a French foothold in the region. One of the lawyers, Antoine Compte, said France was aware of the potential danger of its support for the pre-genocide Rwandan government. “Massacres on an ethnic basis were going on and we have evidence that France knew this from at least January 1993. The French military executed the orders of French politicians. The motivation was an obsession with the idea of an Anglo-Saxon plot to oust France from the region.”

Mr Compte said the file of diplomatic messages and initialled presidential memos, obtained from the François Mitterrand Foundation, provided evidence that the French military in Rwanda were under direct instruction from the Elysée Palace. The lawyer yesterday called on the investigating judge at the Paris Army Tribunal to interview senior French political figures, including military figures, diplomats, the former defence minister, Pierre Joxe and former prime minister, Alain Juppé.

It’s been long reported that the French shipped arms to Rwanda at the beginning of the genocide, an allegation that has been continually denied by the French government. As further evidence comes to light, it becomes increasingly difficult to cover up how much the French government knew about the Rwandan genocide, and the latest reports are casting them as allies to the genocidaires.

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EU criticized for genocidaires policies

Two human rights groups – REDRESS and International Federation for Human Rights – have accused major European countries of harboring and giving safe haven to Rwandan genocidaires.

“Thirteen years after the Rwandan genocide, it is unacceptable that perpetrators continue to live freely in Europe,” they said.

Suspects were living in Belgium, France, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Norway, the groups said.

Alain Gauthier, a human rights campaigner representing Rwandans in France, said there were “political brakes” in France to putting suspects on trial, while lawyer Jeanne Sulzer said the judiciary lacked resources in Belgium.

With the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda working on a deadline of 2008, it is unlikely they will finish prosecuting those responsible.

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First trial in Canada

Desiré Munyaneza, a 40 year old Rwandan, is the first man to be charged and tried in Canada for war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was in court this week, as an unnamed woman [to protect her identity] testified:

The woman, one of 13 witnesses brought from Rwanda to testify, took the stand March 26, the first day of the trial.

But she fainted from the trauma of recounting the horrific details of the genocide and had to be hospitalized.

Her voice was forceful on Tuesday and the interpreter told the judge the woman “was strong.”

The witness said she saw Munyaneza at a motel owned by someone named Maheng.

It was a place where women were taken and raped repeatedly by the Interahamwe, the extremist Hutu militia.

In her earlier testimony, she said she was raped by 10 men on one day. “There were about five young men there in one room,” she said. “Desire had a gun.”

As I wrote last month, the United States has recently passed the Genocide Accountability Act, which would allow US courts to try accused genocidaires for their crimes.

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Four accused genocidaires lose appeal

Four accused Rwanda genocidaires — Vincent Bajinya, Celestin Ugirashebuja, Emmanuel Nteziryayo and Charles Munyaneza — lost an appeal to grant them release based on John Reid’s extension of their detainment. This will prevent the four men from seeking an over-ruling in the House of Lords but they can still attempt to overturn the decision with the Law Lords.