The International Crimes Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is in the process of winding up its activities that have spanned a period of almost 20 years in pursuit of justice.The tribunal has adjudicated over 70 cases related to the suspects’ involvement in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi – the worst crime against humanity.At least nine other notorious persons whose suspected role in the Genocide has a significant level of evidence are on the run; their whereabouts are unknown although some might be dead. But it remains a mystery how these men have evaded justice over the years given their status during the Genocide – some were military leaders while others were the crème de la crème of business class. Not ordinary men, at least.In Arusha, a residual mechanism shall remain in place to continue tracking such fugitives, among other things.Over the years, the Rwandan government worked tirelessly to convince the UN court and other countries holding Genocide suspects that the country’s criminal justice was capable of trying them.Rwanda’s argument has been that transferring the Genocide architects for trial to the land where the crime was committed would have helped in the unity and reconciliation process. One suspect, former pastor Jean Bosco Uwinkindi, was finally transferred to Kigali earlier this year, a development that offered a fundamental lesson: Through the Rule of Precedence, it addresses fears by some western countries holding Genocide suspects about the viability and competence of Rwandan courts in trying them.However, one aspect that remains unresolved is where the archives of the Tribunal would be hosted? This question remains a sore spot in relations between the UN court and Kigali. In Rwanda, the archives are considered a part of the country’s heritage that deserve to be kept where the Genocide took place.For years, Arusha-based UN court maintained one key office in Kigali that has received little coverage: ICTR Umusanzu, an information and documentation centre housed in a small residential house in Kiyovu, an upscale suburb of Kigali. Umusanzu is a Kinyarwanda word that translates to ‘contribution’.Opened in 2000, the centre has been involved in outreach campaigns aimed to fight impunity by collecting and filming documentaries of proceedings of the Genocide trials in Arusha to school going youth, prisoners and other people of all walks of life. “People have seen former mayors being tried in Arusha and got shocked. They used to hear (this) from radio and could not believe,” the centre’s coordinator Innocent Kamanzi told The New Times in an interview.Kamanzi says that with a collection of more than 5,000 books on criminal justice, Umusanzu has the highest number of reading materials on the subject. Umusanzu offers free library services to students of criminal law and other persons interested in the subject matter like researchers.He adds that the centre has access to vital data bases like Westlaw, an online law library and database that provides legal research solutions to law professionals and allows free access to interested parties.“On average, 80 persons use this resource centre per day to acquaint themselves with knowledge about Rwanda, the Genocide, international criminal justice,” he says.With the termination of the ICTR, what is the fate of its affiliate organs like Umusanzu?“We do not know what will happen of this centre,” Kamanzi told The New Times when it sought his views over the matter, but hastened to add that since ICTR is winding up in 2014 and wants to leave a legacy, the court’s archives may be relocated to Rwanda and the centre expanded to hold them.He says that other options at hand include the possibility of setting up of a UN Genocide centre in Africa with its headquarters in Rwanda. He further recommends that the UN information centre and Umusanzu could be incorporated at the Genocide centre.
