Rwanda genocide survivors appeal suspension of Kabuga's trial
Saturday April 22 2023
Photographs of victims of the 1994 Rwandan genocide against the Tutsi are displayed inside the Kigali Genocide Memorial in Gisozi. PHOTO | CYRIL NDEGEYA | NMG
Rwandan survivors of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi under their umbrella lobby group Ibuka, have petitioned the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) over a recent decision the court took to suspend Felicien Kabuga’s trial on grounds of suffering from dementia.
The UN court temporarily suspended his trial to allow examinations of independent medical reports on the suspect’s illness and fitness to stand trial, and that this would guide its decision on the future course of this trial.
By taking this path, Ibuka said the tribunal has fallen into the trap of agreeing to what Kabuga’s defence has always wanted right from the beginning of the trial, and that they fear he will use it to continue his evasion of justice even after being apprehended.
“We have serious objections to the recent decision by the court to suspend Kabuga’s case and how it was generally handled, his arrest came as important news for the survivors, but it ended up turning into bad news when we heard his trial has been postponed,” Ibuka said in a statement.
“The grounds on which his trial was postponed are the same pitfalls his defence team has always presented since the trial started,” the group added.
“The court president came to Rwanda for 29th genocide commemoration and we expressed our dissatisfaction. He understood our concerns and said they are waiting to hear from the doctors,” said Ahishakiye Naphtali, the executive secretary of Ibuka.
He added that since the trial began, the court has compromised a lot on the matter to the point of reducing the time of Kabuga’s hearing to two hours a day.
“They would have taken a decision to at least try him in absentia, but this wasn’t considered yet it was very possible in the interest of justice given the circumstances,” Naphtali added.
Kabuga, who is now 90, is accused of bankrolling the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, where it is alleged that he used his massive wealth to buy machetes that were used by Interehamwe militias to kill Tutsis.
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Stockpiles of weapons found
On January 11, 1994, former Canadian commander of Unamir in Rwanda Gen Romeo Dallaire received information that in one of Kabuga’s warehouses in Gikondo were stockpiles of weapons.
During his trial, one of the leaders of the Interahamwe, Jean Pierre Turatsinze, said the weapons had been estimated to kill 1,000 Tutsis every 20 minutes if put in the hands of militias.
In February 1994, a representative of a British tool manufacturing company Chillington which makes machetes among other things, was reported by the Sunday Times saying that the company sold more machetes in one month than it had sold throughout 1993.
Applications for import licenses examined by Human Rights Watch between January 1993 and March 1994 show that 581 tonnes of machetes were imported to Rwanda.
Jean Damascene Bizimana, the executive secretary of the National Commission for the fight against genocide, (CNLG) at the time of Kabuga’s arrest-and is now Rwanda’s Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, said those machetes were paid for by Kabuga.
In 1997, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha charged Kabuga with seven counts of genocide including complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide, attempt to commit genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
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Owned RTLM-hate radio station
According to Mr Kabuga’s ICTR charge sheet, he was alleged to have operated RTLM, a hate radio station he owned, in a manner to further ethnic hatred of the Tutsi through disseminating messages with a goal to commit genocide.
At an RTLM fundraising meeting in 1993, Kabuga is said to have publicly defined the purpose of the radio station, as ‘defence of Hutu power’.
It is reported that immediately after the genocide, he fled to Switzerland where he unsuccessfully applied for asylum. He also lived in some European countries before settling in Kenya, where he is alleged to have received protection through the political connections he had there.
He went off the radar for years but when his wife Josephine died in 2017, Kabuga sent a message which was read at the requiem mass. This reminded the world that he was still alive.
The $5 million bounty the US put on his head had not yielded any leads, but this funeral message alerted law enforcement who started trailing him.
French intelligence agents trailed his children, leading them to an apartment in a Paris suburb of Asnieres-Sur-Seine and ending a several-year manhunt spanning several countries.
Read: France to erect Rwanda genocide memorial
After 26 years of evading justice, Kabuga’s arrest was a big relief for survivors and a win for international justice, setting up a trial for one of the remaining genocide masterminds.
“It is unfair that the court has only been bent on giving Kabuga’s defence team what it wants, the fact that he is of advanced age should instead make the court expedite the case. There are many people who are also in Kabuga’s age that have been waiting for justice to be served, some have died before seeing it. We are concerned that from the pace the case is taking and with all these pitfalls, he might die before justice is served” said Ahishakiye.