RIGHTS-RWANDA: UN Tries to Speed Up Tribunal Work

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 30 1998 (IPS) - Stung by charges that its war crimes court on Rwanda has been moving too slowly, the United Nations is planning to create a third trial chamber of the Arusha- based tribunal to process genocide accusations more efficiently.

The 15-nation U.N. Security Council unanimously approved Thursday, the creation of the third trial chamber – which, like two chambers already in existence, will consist of three elected judges. The Council explicitly called for the judges to be appointed and to take their posts as quickly as possible in order “to try without delay the large number of accused awaiting trial.”

One week after Rwanda took matters into its own hands by publicly executing 22 accused perpetrators of war crimes, the Council diplomats took pains to show their willingness to speed up the U.N. tribunal process of other suspects linked to the country’s 1994 genocide, when as many as one million people died.

“The International Tribunal for Rwanda must carry out its mission more efficiently and more productively,” argued U.S. Ambassador Nancy Soderberg. “Trials must be completed and judgments rendered in a timely fashion.”

Nor do U.N. diplomats believe that creating another trial chamber is all that is needed for the tribunal to pick up its pace.

Currently, the two trial chambers based in Arusha, Tanzania, are both at work, but so far, since the court was set up in late 1994, only three genocide suspects have come to trial. No final verdict has been reached in any case. “Concerned by reports that standard judicial procedures have not necessarily been observed in Rwanda, we in the Council today feel more strongly than ever that the (U.N.) tribunal must provide a model mechanism for bringing criminals to justice,” added Council President Hisashi Owada of Japan.

“We must admit frankly that, during the three and a half years of its existence, the tribunal has not always been successful in performing the functions expected of it in an exemplary manner,” Owada contended. “There are problems of an administrative and managerial nature that have been adversely affecting its effective functioning…Simply to create a third trial chamber will not be enough to cure the tribunal of its present deficiencies.”

The beleaguered tribunal has stepped up its work considerably since Secretary-General Kofi Annan replaced its original deputy prosecutor and registrar one year ago amid reports of inefficinecy, corruption and nepotism. Almost two dozen of the major former Rwandan government officials connected to the 1994 massacres have been seized worldwide and brought to the tribunal, and several major indictments have been handed down over the past year.

Four years after the killings began, however, the current Rwandan government – which includes many members of the Tutsi minority who faced some of the worst atrocities in 1994 – has run out of patience. More than 70,000 suspects languish in overcrowded Rwandan prisons awaiting trial in a country which has lost most of its trained judges.

Meanwhile, the execution by firing squad of 22 people convicted in Rwandan courts for genocide last Friday – and its attendance by a cheering public – has underscored to the United Nations how badly many Rwandans want justice.

“This will show people that justice is really working,” Rwandan Justice Minister Faustin Ntezilyayo said last week in announcing the executions. “Justice must be seen to be done.”

Human rights activists worry, however, that the suspects tried in Rwandan courts have not received due process. As Peter Takirambudde pointed out recently, the U.N. tribunal, although it moves slowly, has instituted checks — including an appeals process and time for defense motions — in its work.

U.N. officials also are concerned that, if Rwanda takes responsibility for trying war crimes in its own hands, the fragile rapprochement between the Tutsi minority and Hutu majority might unravel.

U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Mary Robinson warned that the executions could have a “brutalising effect” on Rwanda. “Such public killings could promote feelings of revenge rather than contribute to the process of national reconciliation,” she argued.

Robinson added that many of the trials of the suspects who were executed “involved substantive and procedural irregularities and violations of various provisions of international and domestic law.”

“The secretary-general is concerned that justice be done in accordance with due process, and in a way that will advance the process of healing that is needed to ensure lasting peace in Rwanda,” U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said of Annan’s worries about the executions.