The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) must prosecute those officers of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) allegedly responsible for war crimes taking place during the 1994 genocide, says Human Rights Watch (HRW).
The advocacy organization argues in a series of letters that the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) has enough evidence to prosecute senior RPF members responsible for the Kabgayi killings, where 13 clergy members and 2 other civilians were killed by RPF soldiers. HRW attests that instead the OTP referred the cases to local Rwandan officials, where only low-level soldiers were prosecuted when there was “evidence suggesting a planned military operation ordered by more senior level commanders.”
HRW asserts that if the Rwandan government will not pursue these leaders, the ICTR should.
Thus far all trials before the ICTR have been of Hutu government, militia and business leaders – with regard to acts performed in furtherance of the 1994 genocide that killed over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The mass violence was sparked when, in April 1994, Hutu President Habyarimana’s plane was shot down. No one has yet been held responsible for the assassination.
But Hutu leaders blamed the incident on the RPF, a militia composed of Tutsis exiled in Uganda, who had for years been fighting with Rwanda’s Hutu-led government. The RPF and its leaders, including now-President Paul Kagame blamed the incident on Hutu Power extremists who needed a scapegoat in order to begin the genocide.
In any case, soon after the killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus began, the Tutsi-led RPF rebels launched a full conventional war against Hutu government forces and eventually brought an end to the genocide by taking Kigali in July 1994.
It is during this military action, in which the UN estimates 25,000 to 45,000 civilians were killed, that Human Rights Watch alleges unresolved RPF war crimes occurred. However, since many former RPF leaders are now in government, HRW argues that domestic Rwandan trials are not being fairly carried out.
And thus it states, whether or not to bring an indictment before the ICTR is not simply a choice between international justice and local justice, but is rather a choice between “international justice and impunity”.