The Rwanda Hit List: The Debate Rages Pt II

Published on 26th April 2010

Before I agree with those who think that Keith Snow is a genocide denier, it is necessary to find authoritative alternative or contrary evidence to contradict or controvert his version. In academic research ethics, when a scholar personally interviews respondents and presents his field results, another scholar who disagrees is forced to equally cross examine the same respondents or produce evidence from other witness testimonies which reveal different accounts of the alleged facts. As it stands, however unpalatable or biased Snow's story may be, he is at least very specific and detailed in his evidence. If you simply reject his research findings then you may be accused of simply not WANTING to believe or accept scientific facts for personal, subjective rather than scientific, objective reasons.

Rwandan Ethnic Justice...continued

The systematic colonial class stratification underpinned by irrational ethnic discrimination generated social resentment inevitably resulting in a 1959 revolution culminating in Hutu victory at the inaugural independence elections. 

Furthermore, when Colonel Juvenal Habyarimana forcibly took over power from President Gregorie Kayibanda through a 1973 military coup d’etat, his exclusive agenda was to defend and protect Hutu interests. Hutu extremists wanted exiled Tutsis to seek foreign citizenship. However, by signing a  1992 Peace Accord brokered by former US President Jimmy Carter, Habyarimana appeared to backslide on his Hutuist extremism. He yielded instead to permit the Tutsi reintegration into their motherland. On 6 April 1994 the plane carrying the Rwandan president alongside his Burundian counterpart Cyprien Ntaryamira was shot down while returning from Arusha. That incident triggered the 100-day planned and organized executions of ordinary Tustis by their Hutu neighbours. Ethnic cleansing was fuelled by hate speech, particularly by Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean Bosco Barayaguiza, through the national broadcasting radio station. The UN intelligence was aware of the impending holocaust but abrogated responsibility. Similarly, Belgians pulled their troops out after 10 soldiers were killed during the opening week. Fatefully albeit belatedly, France sent in a peace-keeping army to establish a safe zone in the south which ironically facilitated escape by some genocide perpetrators into neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo. It was the united Rwandese youth under Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Army, which stopped Interahamwe.  

Paradoxically while president Kagame is considered Tutsi his very own first cousin the vice president is Hutu! This puzzle is not attributable to mistaken DNA tests. The blame falls squarely upon the Belgian colonial administration which relied on unscientific economic disparities to invent divisive ethnic differences. And to Hutu post-independence regimes which perpetuated retaliatory-discriminatory ethnic-based programmes. If post-genocide societies are haunted by historical experiences, then contemporary Rwandan politics is still scarred by traumatic holocaust memories. How can various responses taken to reverse the impact of social violence and cultural hemorrhage inflicted by the ethnic divide be evaluated? 

At the international level the ICTR represents efforts to reinforce ordinary criminal courts’ attempts to punish genocide orchestrators in order to re-introduce a culture of accountability and remove impunity of public office holders. In 2003 Athanas Seromba a Catholic parish priest was tried and jailed for 15 years for luring 2000 refugees into his church, preventing escape with an AK47 rifle before bulldozing the building thus turning it into a giant mass coffin. According to Syaka Kanuma (East African 12-18 April 2010, 17) in defence to criticism from local Rwandese of shielding suspects against prosecution of crimes against humanity, the church denies responsibility for a few isolated incidents and refuses to apologize. Njoki Chege (East African Standard, 12 April 2010, 18) interviews William Babtiste, curator of the Kigali Memorial centre, a genocidal memorial where 258, 000 bodies lie in mass graves including his parents and 7 siblings. 

More than a hundred thousand low-ranking suspects who implemented actual executions are being dealt with through traditional Gacaca (grass) courts. The procedure requires all participants to sit down on the grass symbolizing their equality. An open discourse provides informal testimonies of victims, suspects and witnesses. Overnight arguments are not uncommon. Finally to avoid intimidating glares, the umpire–face raised skyward–contemplates and pronounces a neutral verdict. The jurisdiction is limited by customary laws whose criminal theory is collective-based whereby victims are able to forgive upon an offender’s confession, genuine apology and undertaking to make amends. Hence extra-mural sentences–albeit onerous–such as rebuilding destroyed homesteads, or looking after victims families, are often enforced by an offender’s own conscience and community supervision. 

Foreign journalist Keith Harmon Snow (“The Rwanda Hit List” in Conscious Being 12 March 2010) dismisses the Kagame regime’s approach to transitional justice as “revisionism, denial and a genocide conspiracy.” Snow’s scathing attack reveals why, among other critics, he is dubbed a “genocide denier” and branded persona non grata in Rwanda. His conspiracy theory accuses Western leaders of conspiring to facilitate Kagame’s installation of Tutsis as a trade-off for access to and control of mineral resources in neighbouring DRC. Snow supports his view since “human rights experts have criticized the Gacaca system as a mechanism of terror used to silence critics.” He accuses Kagame of persecuting Hutus because “many innocent people have been tried and retried until they were found guilty.” Another journalist Geoffrey York (“The Politics of Genocide” in Globe and Mail 9 March 2010) attributes Kagame’s intolerance towards opposition parties and dissenting views to Rwanda’s approaching August 2010 general elections. Indeed Kagame’s 2003 re-election by a 95% majority was not free and fair. Jean Paul Kimonyo puts forward Kagame’s positivist theory that democracy leads to genocide. Instead, Kagame presents himself as a benevolent dictator. 

In conclusion, local critics of ICTR processes are dissatisfied with slow action by the adversarial criminal justice system which confers robust fair trial rights thus appearing to privilege suspects above victim’s quest for justice. Escape from punishment validates the extermination orders issued by genocidaires. On the other hand foreign criticism of traditional criminal justice appears predicated upon Western notions of “universal” or natural rights of victims. Victims demand correctness of content in trial procedures so as to include the rule against double jeopardy or the presumption of innocence. Yet African customary criminal law instead assumes that offenders are moral individuals who are able to confess to wrongdoing and reconcile with victims upon forgiveness and penance.

Pre-colonial Rwandan society was peaceful. Contemporary tensions were introduced by colonial dismantling of traditional governance institutions. The Rwandan peoples must break the cycle of Hutu-Tutsi counter-revenge. Suggestions that the incumbent regime is seeking revenge for 1994 genocide by inflicting Hutu genocide are unsubstantiated and incomparable given the vastly different proportions of these two events, if the latter is believed. Genocide does not end with mass killing. Perpetrators seek to erase even the memory of the event from history and deny that it ever occurred. Therefore the national interest may favour restoration of harmony among warring “ethnic” groups in order to spare further loss of lives albeit at the expense of some individual rights to fair trials from past grievances.

By Charles A. Khamala

Charles Khamala is an Advocate.

 

 


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