Criminalise Rwanda Genocide, Karugarama

DUBLIN - Justice Minister, Tharcisse Karugarama has urged world governments to enact legislation that criminalises the Rwanda Genocide just as many countries have done for the Jewish holocaust. He made the call Wednesday while addressing the 3rd conference of the International Association for Court Administrators (IACA) in Dublin, Ireland. “I strongly urge you to encourage your governments to enact legislation that criminalizes the genocide in Rwanda as the Jewish holocaust has been criminalized in many countries,” Karugarama, who is also Rwanda’s Attorney General said. Karugarama also took a swipe at foreign judges who have forged alliances with genocide perpetrators and deniers. He urged conference participants “to hold in utter contempt any attempts by judges or judicial officers to sell or compromise their judicial oaths for compromise or other gains.” In obvious reference to the recent indictments issued against some high ranking army officers, Karugarama captured the attention of judicial scholars. “Our biggest problem is how to deal with foreign judges who have been compromised to join a network of genocide revisionists and deniers,” he said, adding that the judges are hiding behind the principle of judicial independence and the notion of universal jurisdiction to frustrate Rwanda’s reconciliation trend. He said that judicial independence cannot include the right to sit with known genocide fugitives and revisionists and base on their testimonies to issue warrants to those who stopped the Genocide. Karugarama told participants that some judges in France and Spain have adopted a bizarre procedure unknown in international legal practice and called it “shocking and paradoxical.” He challenged participants to examine how domestic national legislation can have universal application over independent sovereign states without being subjected to checks and balances by competent international bodies. The minister called on judicial experts at the conference to encourage their governments not to give political platforms to mass killers, genocide deniers and revisionists to spread their hate campaign but rather actively participate in the tracking down and apprehension of those responsible for the genocide. Through the Interpol, the Office of Prosecutor issued International Arrest Warrants to about 100 Genocide fugitives scattered in different countries. Discussing a theme on how states that have been torn by war and turmoil can achieve justice, Karugarama elaborated Rwanda’s innovative reforms in the judicial sector which gave rise to the Gacaca quasi-traditional courts that have boosted efforts to try a backlog of genocide cases. “Conventional courts have tried about 15,000 cases since 1995 while Gacaca courts have tried about 1,200,000 cases,” noted the justice minister. He added that in the same period, the Arusha-based International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) had tried 31 cases with 5 acquittals yet it had more facilities and resources. Karugarama lashed out at genocide perpetrators whom he said “still have blood on their hands” and still say that the 1994 genocide was an unfinished agenda. The justice minister listed some of the challenges facing the judiciary among them being “the existence of an armed pro-genocide rebel group in Eastern Congo (DRC) linked and networking with genocide fugitives and revisionists based particularly in Europe and North America bent on destabilizing Rwanda and stopping her reconciliation process.” These fugitives, he said, have managed, under the notion of freedom of expression, to gain a platform in the public, the media and the internet to distribute their hate literature and completely deny that genocide took place in Rwanda. He further remarked that they have also teamed up with famous foreign personalities whose historical roots in Rwanda and their subsequent role in the genocide makes them natural revisionists and genocide deniers to cover up their shame. Karugarama saluted a number of countries that have responded to Rwanda’s call for justice on these fugitives. These include Belgium, Canada, USA, UK, Netherlands, New Zealand, Finland and recently France. Emphasizing Rwanda’s judicial credibility, especially in the Commercial Courts, Karugarama said, “our law allows foreign judges to sit on our bench. So far we have a few from Mauritius and we are negotiating with Canada for more.” Other innovations that brought about progress in Rwanda’s justice dispensation path include the prison decongestion initiative. As part of this initiative, 69,857 prisoners were released on parole between 2003 and 2006. The 2 day conference that started Tuesday is a forum attended by high profile judicial experts and officials with a view of sharing tested experiences on innovations that bring about the smooth running of court administration. Ends