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TRAVAIL ET DIALOGUE

Rwanda: Lawyer At the ICTR Bangs the Drum for Criminal Charges Against Kagame

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)

April 8, 2006
Posted to the web April 10, 2006

Arusha

A lawyer at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Peter Erlinder, asserted Friday that given the amount of evidence and testimonies at the tribunal against President of Rwanda Paul Kagame, the latter should be indicted.

This vigorous challenge happens as Rwanda is commemorating the 12th anniversary of the 1994 genocide. The ICTR endeavours to judge and bring charges against the alleged authors of the genocide, but has laid no charges against those now in power for alleged war crimes.

And yet this court, created a few months after the genocide, is entitled to do so. Its mandate comprises not only the authors of the genocide, but the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in 1994 by all parties.

Erlinder is an American lawyer pleading for former major Aloys Ntabakuze, who commanded the elite paratrooper battalion.

Acknowledged among the hundred lawyers of the American bar, Erlinder used the announcement of an official visit of President of Rwanda Paul Kagame to Canada as an occasion to tell the Canadian government to beware.

According to him, the court has documents proving, should the Canadians ask for them, that the Patriotic Front of Rwanda (RPF, former rebel movement now in power in Kigali) was the only military force capable of putting an end to the genocide, but did not lift a finger.

Several testimonies and documents of the United Nations that Erlinder has mentioned, state that the regular army in Rwanda did not have the means to stop the genocide because it had been struggling and losing ground for 4 years against the rebel invasion.

He has quoted both General Roméo Dallaire, head of the United Nations armed forces in Rwanda at the time, and the former American ambassador in Kigali to further support his thesis.

Erlinder has also mentioned the testimony of a former RPF officer. Abdul Ruzibiza has accused the RPF and its commandant Paul Kagame of having shot two missiles at the plane of President Juvénal Habyarimana, thus giving the signal for the start of the genocide.

Kagame, has said the lawyer, gave his soldiers orders for the final assault before any retaliation acts in reaction to the attack against President Habyarimana's plane had been noticed in the country.

Moreover, when the Rwandese army repeatedly asked for a ceasefire to interrupt the ongoing massacres, the RPF turned down their request.

Kagame is alleged to have been in person in the stadium of Byumba, a city in the northern part of the country under control of the RPF, during one of these slaughter scenes. Thousands of civilians were supposedly murdered there, points out Erlinder.

For all these reasons, he has asserted that a motion will be filed to seek for indictment of Paul Kagame for murder, conspiracy to murder and several war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Erlinder has concluded that the proceedings against his client and other heads of the military forces currently facing trial could be launched against the winners of the 1994 war.