Differing Approaches to the Search for Justice in Rwanda
| Author | Trevor Redmond |
| Position | Junior Sophister Law student and Scholar, Trinity College, Dublin |
| Pages | 46-72 |
DIFFERING
APPROACHES
To
THE
SEARCH
FOR
JUSTICE IN
RWANDA
TREVOR
REDMOND*
During
the
90
days
that
began
on
April
6
in
1994,
Rwanda
experienced
the
most extensive
slaughter
in
this
blood-filled
century
we
are
about
to
leave.
Families
murdered
in
their
homes,
people
hunted
down
as
they
fled
by
soldiers
and
militia,
through
farmland
and
woods
as
if
they
were
animals....'
Introduction
The international
community had
prior
warning
of
the
Rwandan
genocide
and
could
have prevented
it.
2
Instead
it
did
virtually
nothing
to
stop
the
systematic
and
brutal
killing
of
between
500,000
and one million
people
during
a
hundred
days
of
the
summer
of
1994.
As
soon
as
the
killings
began
the
United
Nations
reduced
its
mainly
symbolic,
lightly
armed,
peacekeeping
force
from
2,500 to 270 men.3
The
United
States
refused
to
recognise
the
genocide
for what
it
was,
fearing
that
to
do
so
would invoke
its
obligations under
the
Genocide
Convention, while
President
Mitterand
infamously
remarked
that
"[i]n
those countries,
a
genocide
is
not really
important";
the
bereaved
survivors
of
naked
genocidal
hate would
disagree.
4
Perhaps
then
it
was to
ease
the
collective
guilt
of
the
international
community
that
an
ad
hoc
international
tribunal
was
quickly
established
by
the
UN
-Security Council.
However, resting
uneasily
with
the
world's
.
Junior
Sophister
Law
student
and
Scholar, Trinity College,
Dublin.
I
am
indebted
to
Ms.
Rosemary
Byrne for
her
valuable
comments
and
encouragement.
Any
errors, however,
are
my
own.
Remarks
by
President
Bill
Clinton
to
genocide
survivors
at
Kigali
Airport,
25
March
1998.
See
2
International Federation
of
Human
Rights Leagues
and
Human
Rights
Watch,
Leave
None
to
Tell
the
Story,
/9903/3
l/rwanda.01>.
3
Davies,
"Annan
says
UN
failed
Rwanda"
Associated
Press
050898/0508.a4rwanda.htm>.
4
Brueggemann,
Rwanda:
The
French
Connection.
htm>.
©
2000
Trevor Redmond
and
Dublin
University
Law
Society
The
Search
for
Justice
in
Rwanda
expressions
of
abhorrence
at
the events
in
Rwanda
is
the
undeniable
fact
that
the
same
world
took
a
step backwards,
raised
its
hands
in
the air
and
let
it
happen.
Later rhetorical
statements
calling
for
all
those
who
committed
"serious
violations
of
international
humanitarian
law"
to
be
brought
to
justice
can
ring desperately hollow.
5
Arguably, Rwanda
can
be
seen
as
yet
another
example
of
the
road
to
hell
being
paved
with
good
conventions.
6
Prevention
is
always
better
than cure
and
guilt
is
never
the
noblest
of
motivations
for
one's
actions.
By
its
abject idleness
the
international
community
could
be
accused
of
complicity
in
crimes
of
genocide, crimes
it
now
seeks
to
prosecute.
It
is the aim
of
this
article
to
examine the
two
judicial
processes
currently operating
to
bring
to
justice
those
responsible
for
the
Rwandan
genocide. This
will
first involve
a
discussion
regarding
the
need
for
prosecutions
and more
crucially,
the
preferable
scope
of
any such
prosecutions.
Secondly,
the
merits
and
demerits
of
a
national,
as
opposed
to
an
international
approach will
be
examined.
A
critical
analysis
of
the
national
trials in
Rwanda
in
the
light
of
internationally accepted
standards,
as
represented
by
the
International Covenant
on
Civil
and
Political
Rights
(ICCPR)
-
which
Rwanda
itself
has
ratified
-
will
be
followed
by
an
assessment
of
the
performance
to
date
of
the
International
Criminal
Tribunal
for
Rwanda
(ICTR).
As
a
case
study
of
the
national
proceedings,
the
trial
of
Deogratias Bizimana,
the
first
person
to
be
prosecuted
in
Rwanda, will
be examined
in detail.
The overall
aim
of
such
an
analysis
will
be
to
search
for
a
justification
for
the
ICTR's
existence.
It
is
the
author's
view
that,
by
its
failure
to
attempt
to
prevent
the
massacre
of
Tutsis
and
moderate
Hutus
in the
worst
incident
of
genocide
since
the
Holocaust,
the international community
has
deprived
itself
of
the moral
authority
to
establish
such
a
tribunal.
If
it
is
to
be
justified
therefore,
it
must have
an
intrinsic
value,
the
optimum
being
that
it
is
the
most
effective
means
of
fairly prosecuting
genocidaires.
This
article
aims
to
go
some
way
towards
answering
that
question.
The Need
to
Prosecute
To make
a
genocide you
need
lots
of different kinds
of
people.
The
ones
who
give
the
orders;
the ones who
do the
killing;
the
ones
who
ignore
the
evidence
of
their
eyes;
the
powerful
countries
who
could
5
Security
Council Resolution
935
(1994),
UN
SCOR,
49
th Sess.,
UN
Doc.
S/INF/50
(1996).
6
Rolling,
The
Law
of
War
and
National Jurisdiction
since
1945
(Hague
Academy,
1960), at
445.
2000]
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