ICTR puts Hollywood to shame

One of the first things a new comer discovers at the ICTR is the existence of a covert network of spies. The spies are allegedly working for or against the prosecution and defense sides of detained suspects of the Rwandan Genocide. According to one veteran Arusha journalist the agents of these networks collect their information from chit chats in bars, restaurants, and any other social place or events in or around Arusha. After a few days in these highly protected premises of the ICTR, I was disappointed by the limited interaction among ICTR employees. Josh Kron, the Kigali based freelance journalist from New York, called it the effects of bad first impressions that change with time. The first impressions have unfortunately not changed, all the people that work here socialise along carefully chosen lines. That is where the ‘agents’ come in. This seems to be a problem only with the Rwandan community here. For the 1000 employees of the ICTR from 99 different countries, the spies are not a worry. I arrived in Arusha when Manchester United was playing Chelsea in the 2008 final of the European Champions league. Dressed in sports camouflage, I headed to a bar and with flawless Swahili interlaced with well calculated English words, I posed as a Tanzanian university student from Dar es Salaam heading to Mwanza for holidays. All other football enthusiasts present claimed to be Tanzanians from Arusha. The rest is mere details but after several weeks I crossed paths with one of the football fellows, he was speaking fluent Kinyarwanda, We have never exchanged another word. Apparently at the ICTR, normal professional suspicion goes deeper than the episodes John Grisham, the American novelists, pictures in his famous books. People working for the defense really dislike the ones in prosecution. These antagonistic feelings however are not limited to the lawyers and their clients. They are also common among the technical staff of both sides and even support sectors like the media. Within hours of arriving I was pigeon holed in one of these spy networks. Journalists are trained to be in the middle of any story they follow and to take no side. I have discovered that for many those principles do not apply here. Such state of affairs has ensured characterised by mistrust has ensured that the ICTR employ a very sophisticated security system at all the premises of its employees, ICTR premises, UN detention facility and airport. The detainees themselves are given state of the art protection.However, even this security is a joke. Currently, there is a story from impeccable sources that a defense witness escaped last week after reaching Arusha, where he was supposed to testify in one high profile case. Reliable sources say the witness disappeared on the eve of his appearance in court. If that is not surprising then consider a recent scene in court. The incident was caused by a misspelled name, whereby a wrong person ended up appearing in the witness box and it took court 30 minutes to see their mistake. The witness appearing for the defense side had the prosecution team fuming for having the wrong person in cross examination. The name of the right witness was supposed to one whose name began with Habi. That day, proceedings stopped after those 30 minutes and the next day, the ICTR announced their mandate had been extended by the UN Security Council untill the end of 2009.The ICTR security is not just a joke, it is also dramatic. It is mandatory that all individuals connected to the ICTR in one way or another move around with special identity cards hanging around their necks like slave numbers. These cards have specialised codes, which ensure or deny entry to the different departments of the UN. Employees of the ICTR have electric gadgets placed in all rooms of their houses for rapid security response if the employee is attacked at home. And many of them live in top notch apartments built purposely for the UN market place. In such sophistication, it is amazing that a witness can disappear. It is also funny that amongst the entire espionage system employed at the ICTR, a suspect can infiltrate the system and find employment with the ICTR itself. That is exactly what happened in the case of Simeon Nshingamihigo. Nshingamihigo is classic movie material. Having been a participant in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, he escaped to DR Congo. Nshamihigo, who was deputy prosecutor during the genocide, was working at the international tribunal as an investigator for the defense team of a former military commander who was a close ally during the slaughter and is now convicted, Samuel Imanishimwe. Nshingamihigo was arrested in 2001 at the ICTR premises after he was discovered working at the United Nations court under a false name. He was detained after a witness at one of the trials recognised him and revealed his true identity. Nshamihigo was detained by tribunal security staff and then handed over to immigration officials in Tanzania, after it was discovered he was using an assumed name and a false passport. He was going by the name of Sammy Bahati Weza and claiming to be a Congolese citizen instead of a Rwandan. The judgment in his case is due before the end of 2008. Contact: donmuhinda@yahoo.com