Rwandan Government Suspected of War Crimes

One of the darlings of the West in Central Africa, Rwandas Defence Minister, risks indictment for crimes against humanity.

By Gunnar Willum and Bjørn Willum

THE HAGUE - The Chief Prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal in the Hague reveals in an exclusive interview with Aktuelt, that she has started an investigation into war crimes committed by the Rwandan government.

It is estimated that almost a million people were killed during the Genocide in Rwanda in 1994 when Hutu extremist politicians used militias to try and exterminate all their political Hutu opponents and the Tutsi ethnic minority.

The massacres first stopped when the Tutsi-dominated exile-movement the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) defeated the extremists. But during the last couple of years it has emerged that the RPF massacred tens of thousands of innocent Hutus while seizing power in Rwanda.

It is those crimes which the Tribunal has now begun investigating.

Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte says that she two weeks ago received material from human rights organizations to be used in the investigation, which commenced in December of last year.

While dozens of suspected top-people among the Hutu extremists have so far been arrested and indicted for Genocide or other crimes against humanity, the UN Tribunal has still not prosecuted the responsible persons from the RPF-led government.

But this will happen, Del Ponte assures Aktuelt, though she declines to say when and who she will indict as the first suspects. "How could we indict anyone, if we made our inquiries in the press," she says.

But observers agree that the extremely well disciplined RPF army as well as the extent of the massacres indicate that they could not have happened without the knowledge or consent of the army leadership.

Carla Del Ponte's decision therefore resembles stepping into a political hornets' nest.

This is so as it is the duty of the Tribunal to go after the chief responsible. "The summit of the pyramid first," as a former senior official of the Tribunal explains.

And this means that the leader of the RPF forces, Major General Paul Kagame, Rwanda's current Minister of Defence and Rwandan strongman, will be among the prime suspects.

But since the Genocide Paul Kagame has become somewhat of a darling of the West and in particular the United States, which has made him one of her most important allies in Central Africa.

Investigators at the Tribunal have told Aktuelt that an investigation of the RPF can be extremely dangerous.

A source told Aktuelt in February that the team working on the RPF-massacres was "completely sealed off from the other investigators in Kigali. The meassures they take to keep this under wraps bear witness to how scared they are. The other investigators are not even supposed to know about it," the person said.

But Del Ponte denies that the investigation of the RPF is taking place secretly, and says that she already in December informed the Rwandan government about the decision.

"[But] none of our investigation teams work in the open. "How could we indict anyone, if we made our inquiries in the press," she says.

Del Ponte, who took office in September, says that she has not been threatened by the RPF and denies being afraid of the consequences of the prosecution.

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE WAS ALSO PUBLISHED ON APRIL 17:

The Rwanda Genocide Seen in a New Light: New Critical Investigation of Rwanda Massacres