EDITORIAL: Action is needed against genocidaires, not empty rhetoric

DURING THE annual session of the General Assembly of the Africa Prosecutors’ Association (APA), that took place in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo mid this week, old ghosts were raised again. Rwanda’s Prosecutor General Richard Muhumuza brought back the issue of non-cooperation by African states in bringing to justice fugitives holed up in their countries, nearly all of them for their participation in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The Prosecutor General said that 244 international arrest warrants, indictments and extradition requests had been sent to 30 countries, but the results were disappointing. While many western countries had shown some measures of cooperation by extraditing or trying the suspects in their own courts, of the 109 indictments sent to African countries, only Uganda responded positively by extraditing two suspects. What is most perplexing is that some of the indictments were sent to neighbouring countries that we share much in common, who saw the full extent and horrors of the Genocide, and in some cases absorbed some of the fallout. Every year AP meets in different African capitals and each time the question of Genocide suspects is raised. The answer is the same old stonewalling and empty pledges to look into the matter. As long as African organisations not change tact and cease making their annual meetings rendezvous for unproductive banter, where eloquent and flowery speeches take the day, their very existence will cease to be relevant. If African countries cannot deal with their judicial shortcomings, they will continue to be fair game for international jurisdictions and later cry foul when they come under the spotlight.

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EDITORIAL: Action is needed against genocidaires, not empty rhetoric