Sheltering Genocide fugitives: the greatest scandal of our time

Editor,Allow me to comment on the article, “Dutch court approves extradition of Genocide suspect” (The New Times, December 21).The Genocide suspects tracking unit in the National Public Prosecutions Authority, their Dutch counterparts, and their fellow professionals across law enforcement in both countries should be commended for doing an excellent job in this regard.It is nevertheless disheartening to see the snail’s pace at which these suspects, in a crime the world has so solemnly sworn to prevent and punish in such a way as to deter others from temptation to commit it, are being processed for extradition for trial among their peers where they allegedly committed the crimes.That suspects who consummated their crime (the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi) almost 20 years ago over a period of only 100 days have yet to be tried, with many walking free in Western countries unconcerned by the law in those countries, is a monumental scandal of our times.That those who have failed or refused to act are also the most sanctimonious lecturers to the rest of the world, including (or perhaps, especially) to Rwanda which is still working to heal and repair its social fabric shredded by the Genocide perpetrated by these suspects among others demonstrates the moral bankruptcy of many of these countries’ governing institutions and legal systems.It is not Rwanda’s legal system that should ever have been in the dock but rather many of these Western self-styled democracies and human rights lesson-givers which have become the favourite shelters and defenders of some of the worst Genocide suspects.That these countries have been able to get away with their failure to fulfill their obligations under the international covenant to prevent and punish the supreme crime of Genocide, even as they self-elect themselves arbiters on human rights, is in itself one of the greatest scandals of our time.Mwene Kalinda, Kigali

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Sheltering Genocide fugitives: the greatest scandal of our time