RIGHTS: U.N. Tribunal Upbeat on Progress of Rwanda Trials

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Dec 12 1997 (IPS) - After months of controversy, the tribunal established by the United Nations to try crimes committed during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide finally is moving ahead with the arrest and trial of key suspects, officials say.

Judge Laity Kama, the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), admitted here this week that the court, based in Arusha, Tanzania, has faced considerable trials of its own this year. Its reputation for tardiness and corruption became so embarrassing that U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan ordered an internal investigation and replaced two top officials this spring.

“It’s true a negative report was handed out initially,” Kama said contended that now “we are a victim of our own success.” Indictments had been filed against 35 suspected war criminals, and 23 people in detention waiting for trial.

Even some of the suspected masterminds of the 1994 genocide, in which as many as one million Rwandans are believed to have been killed, are now in custody. The tribunal has been so successful in seizing genocide suspects, Kama argued, that the ICTR’s pace is outstripping that of the other U.N. war crimes tribunal, based in the Hague to try crimes linked with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia.

ICTR officials admit that, since its inception in 1995, it has often been charged with mismanagement. “The tribunal achieved a certain kind of notoriety,” confessed the body’s new registrar, Agwu Ukiwe Okali.

From charges that the previous registrar, Andronico Adede, had allowed nepotism and cronyism to influence staffing to rumours of racial animosity between the tribunal’s European and African members, the ICTR seemed in disarray. Meanwhile, Rwanda’s post- genocide government complained about the sluggish pace of the tribunal’s work and worried whether any trials would be held.

Annan shook up the tribunal shortly after he was appointed secretary-general, ordering an internal review of the body which faulted both Adede and deputy prosecutor Honore Rakotomanana for mismanagement. Okali, a Nigerian, replaced the Kenyan registrar Adede in February, while Bernard Acho Muna of Cameroon replaced Rakotomanana, a Madagascaran judge, in April. (The prosecutor for both the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals is Canadian Justice Louise Arbour.)

“Since the appointment of a new management … most observers have stated that they have seen significant improvements,” Okali said. “We are happy to say that things are back on track at this moment.”

Three trials are currently proceeding of war crimes suspects – all Rwandans associated with the government which took power for the bloody three months which followed the Apr. 6, 1994, death of President Juvenal Habyarimana. One of them, that of former Taba Mayor Jean-Paul Akayesu, began in January and is currently hearing testimony from defense witnesses; two other trials began in March and April and are still hearing prosecution testimony.

Kama admitted that, with cross-examinations and potential appeals, the trials can last for months or even years. As a result, he argued, even trying the 35 indicted suspects could easily stretch beyond 1999. But he added that the ICTR would have to pick up the pace to ensure that all the suspects currently in detention are processed efficiently, noting, “Everyone has the right to be tried within a reasonable time frame.”

To that extent, the ICTR’s recent success at obtaining suspects is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, some of the suspects in detention, including former Cabinet Director Col. Theoneste Bagosora and former Foreign Minister Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, are among the ‘big fish’ believed to have planned the genocide of minority Tutsis and moderate members of the Hutu majority.

On the other, Kama worried that the tribunal may soon have as many as 35 suspects in its cells, posing a problem over how quickly the suspects can be efficiently tried. The Rwandan government has drawn fire from rights groups for holding more than 70,000 people in extremely overcrowded prisons, most of them Hutus linked to the massacres. Those suspects are even less likely to win a speedy trial: the government in Kigali admits that, since the genocide, there are few active judges even capable of processing their cases.

Nevertheless, Okali said, the ICTR has made a few big strides in recent months to allow the court to work better. In September, the tribunal completed work on building a second courtroom, which has allowed the judges – two trial chambers of three judges each, as well as a five-justice appeals chamber – to conduct two trials simultaneously.

Concurrent trials may easily become standard practise for the ICTR until its caseload is resolved, Kama noted. “We cannot simply keep (the suspects) in detention,” he said.