President Paul Kagame termed releasing of Genocide convicts before serving out their full sentences as ‘dubious’ as due procedure is not adhered to.

Judge Theodor Meron, the current president of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals – which replaced International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) – this week granted early release to two convicts of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The convicts, Ferdinand Nahimana and Emmanuel Rukundo, are serving jail terms in a Mali prison following conviction for their role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

President Kagame, however, said that due procedure for their release was not followed as steps such as consulting Rwanda were not adhered to.

President Kagame was speaking at a news conference at the end of the two-day National Dialogue (Umushykirano), which closed yesterday at Kigali Convention Centre.

"For them to be released without completing their sentences, three things had to be considered, including consulting Rwanda where they are from,” Kagame said.

He said there was proof that the convicts had not met the necessary steps required to secure an early release making the exercise dubious.

"The information that we have is that they are being released without all the three things required to secure a release. It means that this whole thing adds up as dubious,” he said.

"This is not justice, it’s politics,” Kagame added.

Nahimana is the founder of the hate speech oriented radio RTLM and was serving 30 years after conviction in November 2007.

Nahimana had previously been sentenced to life in prison, but appealed before Judge Meron and had his sentence reduced.

Rukundo, a priest, was a military Chaplain during the Genocide and was found guilty for genocide, murder and extermination. During the Genocide, he was accused of the murder of Tutsi who had sought refuge at Saint Joseph’s College and Saint Leon Minor Seminary.

Kagame on patriotism

The President also reiterated the need for patriotism as the country pursues various interests going forward, saying it goes a long way in the achievement of aspirations of the country.

"It means identifying yourself with the interest of your country, your society and standing up for those values and interest any nation may be identified with and can be expanded beyond borders,” Kagame said.

He added that principles of patriotism can transcend national borders to take a continental context which feeds Pan-Africanism.

"It is common interest that people identify with, once you have that well defined, it helps in achieving many aspirations and achieving results or policies and programmes put forward by the people or the country,” Kagame said.

On independence from aid

The President said, going forward, Rwanda was keen to wean itself off dependence on foreign aid and donation terming it as the equivalent of living on life support.

"We are doing our best to build our economy and develop our investments to make sure that we are standing on solid ground where we do not have a situation where when somebody is not happy with you for completely unrelated things, they switch on and off. If you are living on life support, you are not living,” he said.

"We want to live our own air, by our own accord. That is the ultimate goal.”

Although there are some externalities involved to realise the ambition, he said that the ability to achieve the ambition was well within the reach of the Rwandan people.

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