Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access originally published online on August 12, 2005
Journal of International Criminal Justice 2005 3(4):944-949; doi:10.1093/jicj/mqi066
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III. Appraising the Role of the ICTR |
The ICTR Contribution to National Reconciliation
* Legal Officer, Appeals Section, ICTR; Former Prosecutor of the Republic in Rwanda, Former Secretary General of the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l'Homme (FIDH). The views expressed herein are those of the author. Translation from French by Elsa Gopala. [nsanzuwera{at}un.org]
Over a decade after the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), an assessment of its achievements with regard to its role in fostering reconciliation among Rwandans must be undertaken. The ICTR's activities have provided a setting for witnesses and victims of the genocide to testify before judicial authorities. However, persisting obstacles involving the nature of the conflict and ongoing instability in the country have hindered progress in efforts at national reconciliation, and addressing the issue of compensation for victims remains inadequate. The ICTR continues to play a crucial role in shedding light on the atrocities and endeavouring to raise awareness for victims’ issues at the international level.
1 Unofficial translation.
2 Every time Rwanda was attacked from the outside, leaders would retaliate against Tutsis. In 1963 and 1964, Tutsis were massacred in the prefectures of Gikongoro and Kigali (Bugesera region). Certain historians had already referred to this as genocide at the time. On 1 October 1990, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front attacked Rwanda from Uganda, over 10,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were arrested on the pretext of ‘complicity’ with the attacker. For further details, see F.-X. Nsanzuwera, La Magistrature rwandaise dans l’étau du pouvoir exécutif: La peur et le silence, complices de l'arbitraire (Kigali: CLADHO, 1993).
3 Adama Dieng, speech on 8 May 2003 in Kigali, unpublished, unofficial translation.
4 Since the trials of alleged perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide have begun, over 283 witnesses have presented testimony before the Judges of this international criminal tribunal, seated in the small town of Arusha, symbol of the Peace Accords signed on 4 August 1994 between the Rwandan warring factions. These witnesses come from Rwanda and abroad and testify on behalf of the prosecution or defence. Given the difficult circumstances of certain witnesses, the substantial figures attest to the interest Rwandans have expressed with regard to this mission of justice. It is difficult for genocide survivors to testify against alleged perpetrators when they are neighbours who share their lives: their children attend school together, and during harvesting, farmers need their neighbours. A number of survivors have been intimidated, even threatened. As for witnesses who found refuge in Europe, mostly Hutus, the pressure within the Rwandan diaspora is so great that Hutus who testify as prosecution witnesses are considered as traitors by their community.
5 Referring to victims of the Nazi regime, the French judge, Antoine Garapon, observed: ‘Victims do not only expect their share of justice—restitution of their rights, compensation, even punishment of the perpetrators—but also, and indeed first and foremost, to be acknowledged’, A. Garapon, Des crimes qu'on ne peut ni punir ni pardonner (Odile Jacob: Paris, 2002), at 160. Quoting Maurice-David Matisson, he continues: ‘For victims, nothing can replace the mission of justice. It places survivors back among the living. It restores their dignity and reinserts them in a society which had organized their social death for fifty years’, ibid., at 164.
6 J. Hatzfeld, Dans le nu de la vie: Récits des marais rwandais (Paris: Seuil, 2000), quoted by Garapon, supra note 5, at 165.
7 It is encouraging that most suspects were arrested in African states: Cameroon, Kenya, Togo, Mali, Benin, Namibia, Angola, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of Congo, South Africa, Zambia and Ivory Coast. Other countries, such as Mali, agreed to have convicted perpetrators carry out sentences in their prisons. But one cannot ignore the fact that the main architects of the genocide continue to live and do business across the very continent that should be at the forefront of the battle against impunity.