Last year in November, Amnesty International—a human rights group, called on all governments not to transfer suspects of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi to Rwanda for trial. Amnesty’s fear was centred on the credibility, fairness and impartiality of the justice system in Rwanda.

But on December 12, 2008, the United Nations Security Council commissioned the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to fast track the transfer of genocide suspects to Rwanda for trial.

The UN- mandated and Tanzania-based ICTR began its work in 1997 with the decree to try the key masterminds of the genocide where more than a million Tutsi’s were slaughtered.

The court’s Lower chamber will wind up its work at the end of next year before the Upper chamber closes its cases in 2010.
However, there is some degree of dissatisfaction emanating from the pace at which these top cases have been handled.

Fourteen years down the road, the tribunal has completed fewer than four cases a year on average. Records from Arusha show that 37 cases so far have been handled while a number of the ringleaders are still at large, roaming around free, including the slippery Felicien Kabuga, the key financier of the genocide.

The transfer of suspects for trial back home is what Rwanda has been appealing for over the past decade and last week’s UN Security Council’s resolution is a sign of progress.

Therefore amnesty’s recommendations not to transfer cases to Rwanda until the government demonstrates that trials would be conducted in accordance with international standards have been rested.

International standards require that over two judges handle cases of such magnitude. They got it wrong. Hundreds of thousands are accused involved in murder and the survivors are the witnesses who all live in Rwanda.

Doubts that Rwanda’s justice system is not independent are also neutralised by the fact that the Rwanda has tried more genocide suspects than any other country—and thousands have been acquitted in its own 12,000 local Gacaca courts.

Also in June, Rwanda abolished the death penalty, which it hoped would enable countries that object to capital punishment to extradite suspects. This was replaced by ordinary life imprisonment or imprisonment in isolation.

The Appeal Chamber objects to the latter on the basis that it does not conform to international standards. However, there was a twist in events after the consultations between Martin Ngoga, Prosecutor General of Rwanda and Hassan Bubacar Jallow,the Prosecutor of the ICTR, at a meeting that took place in Arusha Tanzania on November 19 last month.

After focusing on the strategies for the transfer of ICTR cases to Rwanda for trial, recognition by the ICTR that the Rwandan courts are independent and impartial was a step ahead.

With witness and victim protection as a mandate, just as the Ministry of Justice, Tharcisse Karugarama said in one senate session this month, all requirements technical, medical and psychological are in place for the suspects to serve their sentence in Rwanda.

By compelling different nations and organs to cooperate and collaborate with Rwanda as the primary jurisdiction, furthering the time period as regards transfer of genocide suspects is unnecessary.

Contact: anyglorian@yahoo.com