EuropaWorld 20/4/2001 First Rwandan Genocide Trial in Belgium Marks New Era in International Justice

Four Rwandans will come before a Belgian court this week to answer charges of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide that claimed the lives of at least half a million of the Tutsi minority. Their trial - the first to use a jury to judge people of another country who have been accused of crimes of such gravity - marks a major development in international justice, says the human rights organisation, Human Rights Watch.

Although an International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was established by the United Nations to hear cases from the genocide, the different languages and legal traditions involved make international justice a slow and expensive process. Human Rights Watch warn that the tribunal will never judge more than a relatively small number of the perpetrators. Likewise, the Rwandan courts face an enormous task of dealing with more than 100,000 persons who are currently awaiting trial, some of them having spent nearly seven years in detention without being judged. The eventuality of all those responsible for the Rwandan genocide being brought to account are therefore slim, particularly for those parties who have escaped the country and are now living in exile. This is especially true in cases where governments may refuse to extradite accused persons to Rwanda because of concerns about the fairness of the proceedings or about the possible imposition of the death penalty.

For these reasons, the intervention of governments who find suspected perpetrators within their jurisdiction is imperative, claim the human rights organisation. As Alison Des Forges, Senior Advisor to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch, warned, "some of those who committed genocide in Rwanda will never come before either the International Tribunal or Rwandan courts. Unless the judicial systems of other nations try the accused who end up on their territory some persons guilty of the most heinous crime known to humankind may escape punishment."

The trial in Belgium, of two men - Alphonse Higaniro, the head of a match factory and Vincent Ntezimana, a professor at the National University of Rwanda, and two women - Consolata Mukangango (Sister Gertrude) and Julienne Mukabutera (Sister Marie Kisito) , members of a religious congregation, - is expected to last for six weeks.