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What next as Kigali-Paris diplomatic row deepens?

Saturday April 12 2014
holgame

A French court refuses to extradite a genocide suspect, spawning fears that the pursuit of closure for victims could suffer from souring relations. AFP

The latest diplomatic row between Rwanda and France is likely to roll back the progress Paris was making in pursuing genocide suspects on its soil.

On April 10, a French court refused to extradite a Rwandan accused of killing 349 people during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

The latest decision by a French court comes just days after Paris and Kigali disagreed over remarks made by President Paul Kagame alluding to France’s alleged role in the genocide.

The remarks riled Paris, prompting the French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira, who was supposed to lead a government delegation to the 20th Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi to call off the trip in protest.

Rwanda retaliated by barring the French ambassador Michel Flesh from attending the official events. Kigali maintained that the country’s diplomatic ties cannot be built on a false foundation where facts have to be omitted for the sake of friendship.

But more than put a damper on the otherwise thriving bilateral relations, the falling out, it is feared, could also derail the pursuit of genocide suspects.

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The Thursday ruling by a court in the southern city of Aix-en-Provence that put a freeze on the extradition of Pierre Tegera, who worked with the National Programme for Potato Improvement in Kinigi, Northern Province, is seen as one of the far-reaching consequences of the diplomatic standoff.

The court cited a ruling by a higher court in February that stated that a case could not be judged on the basis of laws passed after the alleged offences were committed.

According to court records, Mr Tegera participated in the first “trial killings” in Kibilira between 1992 and 1993 yet the current genocide laws punish crimes carried out from 1994 onwards. However, the judge, Nicole Besset, said that it does not mean Mr Tegera has been cleared.

“That does not mean that the court is convinced that you were not implicated in the crimes you are accused of,” the judge told the 62-year old, according to French government media.

Mr Tegera, an ambulance driver in the Riviera city of Nice, killed, according to Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda (CCPR), hundreds of people in the trial killings. CCPR is a campaign group which fights for justice for genocide survivors.

According Alain and Dafroza Gauthier, who have been at the forefront of genocide cases in France, Tegera “took part and provided significant support” to the militias who spearheaded the first killings that preceded the genocide.

He was named in an international report published in 1993 on rights violations for killing 349 people. Mr Tegera was arrested in Nice in July 2013 on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by Rwanda. France revoked his political asylum status in 2008.

Rwanda says France should not let the recent political differences undo its recent progress. The trial and conviction of Pascal Simbikangwa, a former intelligence head sentenced to 25 years in jail in March, had brought hope that France was eventually going to act on pending genocide cases.

Jean Pierre Dusingizemungu, the president of the umbrella association of genocide survivors Ibuka, says that France should not use the current situation as an excuse to backtrack on its efforts to bring genocide suspects to book.
“We have always said if they cannot extradite them, they should try them. What is clear is that Tegera committed the crimes, so there should be other laws on which to charge him. The more France continues to show indifference, the more it will appear that they have something to hide. They should not relent because they don’t agree on certain political convictions. What we want to see is justice,” says Dusingizemungu.

Efforts to reach the Prosecutor General Richard Muhumuza were futile by press time. It is not clear what Rwanda’s next step will be.

However, according to Jean Bosco Mutangana, the head of the International Crimes Unit at the National Public Prosecution Authority, of the 193 case files Rwanda has sent out, France has the highest number with 26 files remaining in Paris.

Save for Mr Simbikangwa’s case, Kigali has over the past 20 years accused Paris of dragging its feet on case files which are gathering dust in the French justice system.

The 26 dossiers are accompanied with international arrest warrants. When the two countries had a diplomatic rapprochement in 2009, justice for genocide suspects was one of the most urgent issues to be addressed.

After Simbikangwa’s trial, France also resumed to hear the case of Dr Sosthene Munyemana, who has been under investigation for his role in the Genocide against the Tutsi. Since 2006, Dr Munyemana has been serving as an emergency doctor at a  hospital in Villeneuve -sur- Lot, France.

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