This week in the corridors of the ICTR the major event in an otherwise normal routine was ‘the military trial’. This trial brings together four senior military officers during pre and during the1994 terror of the genocide. I codenamed them as ‘Bad Cop’, and their ‘Top Dog’, Captain McCaskey, (I made that up) was appearing as his own witness in his defense. During cases like this, there is nothing definite about the course of the case, it can be so near completion, then one little dimension and the things swings 100 directions. McCaskey’s appearance could have been just a little step in a long pull and push game, but all the same interesting because it had all the markings of the otherwise secretive military world and the ‘coolness’ it carries with it. Capt McCaskey was appearing on behalf of the Bad Cop, and the prosecution (Good Cop) was watching with keen interest. It was like a set for a Hollywood thriller. Capt was classic inspiration for movies like ‘Rules of Engagement’ featuring Samuel L Jackson and Tom Lee Jones. Everything about the trial was military, so lawyers and witnesses traded military terms leaving many of us in the public gallery scratching our heads. Capt McCaskey spoke of military loyalty, personal discipline, his witnesses, some of whom were Belgium senior military officers talked of gunfire like it was Saturday Sports Live on Contact FM. So the appearance of Top Dog does not have any bearing to which stage the trial is at currently, however, what is interesting is that cases like these, you get both the best of the military and legal minds. While the lawyers are reasoning out each other, the men of action would go for each other’s throats and beat the hell out of one another. It is action movie stuff. In one scene, dark blue and green curtains are dropped in front of our faces. It’s a closed session, go out for 15 minutes and comeback. After 15 minutes you comeback and everything is the way you left it, Top Dog in his chair looking very ‘smooth’ in a dark coloured suit with a bright white shit and powerful red tie. Behind him are other Top Dogs following events with disguised interest. As a rule everyone inside these proceedings is in a serious suit. Wearing a suit is one of the climatic privileges that Arusha can provide to any corporate fashion class. The temperatures of this flat land are so cool that on any given day, fashion is never subjected high or low temperatures. The lawyers that wear the business suits are fighters in all definitions of the word, they hustle, play any trick, tactic, strategy and any imaginable means to get someone to the point they want. As the Top Dog talked you could imagine that any communication inside the courtroom is a battle, the lawyers manipulate every move they make, chits pass from behind to the front advising a team member on which questions to ask, which pictures to show and how many seconds to let a particular sentence sink in the mind of anyone listening. The streetwise interaction between lawyers and soldiers hustling each other on such days makes one reminisce on the innocence of certain professions. Ends
