Theme:” The Rwandan Genocide: what went wrong and how to ensure ‘never again.’”
by Mr. Segun Jegede, Special Prosecutor, Federal Republic of Nigeria, and former United Nations Prosecutor.
April 11, 2018
Covenant University, Ota, Ogun State.
The Vice Chancellor
Your Excellency, High Commissioner of Rwanda in Nigeria
Representative of the Secretary General of the UN
Distinguished Faculty Members
Students
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am most delighted and honoured to be invited by the organisers of this event and be permitted to give a Keynote Speech to commemorate the International Day of Reflection on Genocide in the search for the elusive facilitating environment for the enjoyment of freedom, equality, justice and dignity by all the people of our great continent of Africa. I am inspired by your presence and have no doubt, whatsoever, that you share a common concern for the creation of a world in which – the crime of crimes – Genocide, racial discrimination, ethnicism, xenophobia and related abhorrent intolerance play no part either in our personal lives or in our international relations.
This gathering could not have been held at a more auspicious moment in our collective history, coming at the end of arguably the most conflict prone century in human history. There is no doubt that the perennial chaos and human rights abuses of the gravest kinds have left indelible marks on all sectors of the human race. On the African regional level, in addition to the debilitating effect of internecine wars and self-inflicted human rights abuses, the people of Africa continue to suffer incalculable harm from the prolonged effects of hunger, poverty and disease, while the nurturing of ethnicism has snowballed into genocide and large scale atrocities. As we continue our march into this new Century, it is not only timely but expedient to conscientiously begin to find lasting solutions to our multifarious afflictions and finally make a clean break from our unhappy past.
With the foregoing as an introduction, let me invite you to follow me as we reflect on the very loaded theme: “The Rwandan Genocide: what went wrong and how to ensure ‘never again’ ”. The human tragedy commonly referred to as the ‘Rwandan genocide’ arose from a complex web of historical events not easily comprehended by persons unfamiliar with the early history of the modern State of Rwanda.
The Rwandan Genocide was triggered by the killing of President Juvenal Habyarimana when his plane was shot down by a pair of surface-to-air missiles by yet unknown assailants on April 6 1994. Moments after the President’s plane crashed, roadblocks manned by Hutu militiamen appeared all over the streets of the capital city of Kigali while the Presidential Guards spilled out of their barracks and started a house-to-house search for Tutsis or any known sympathizers for the Tutsi cause and began to kill them.
The main actors in the genocide consisted of soldiers of the Hutu-dominated national army, members of the national police force alongside the ubiquitous extremist Hutu militias, and ordinary Hutu peasants. They killed, maimed and raped their Tutsi relatives, neighbours, colleagues and friends, oftentimes adopting the most gruesome methods to achieve their objectives. Significantly, despite the explicit protection for women by the by the Rwandan penal code and the Geneva Conventions, acts of rape and sexual assault were flagrantly committed by soldiers and militias in all parts of Rwanda.
From the urban quarters of Kiyovu in Kigali where the Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, was sexually assaulted and murdered, to the backstreets and hills of Gitarama and Gisenyi in the hinterland where government soldiers and the interahamwe militia raped with impunity, it was a gory tale for the women of Rwanda.
When the dust of the mindless carnage began to settle, following the military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), on 4 July 1994, approximately 800,000 persons had been slaughtered in only a period of 100 days. The human catastrophe also included the uprooting of about two million within Rwanda and the flight of over two million, mostly Hutu civilians, to the neighbouring countries of Zaire, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.
Curiously, during the 100 days of the genocide in which the print and electronic media treated the world to heart rendering details of the massacres in newspapers and international television, no serious attempts were made to stop the carnage either by government or powerful individuals who were in a position to negotiate with the known masterminds.
Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen in order to understand how Genocide unavoidably arrived at the doorstep of Rwanda – a people with one language and one culture – we must delve a bit into Rwandan colonial history under Belgium. The Germans were the first to set up a colonial administration when they arrived in Rwanda in 1899. But after the Germans were defeated in the First World War, Rwanda was transferred to Belgium by the League of Nations (now United Nations).
One significant historical fact that I want you all to always remember about Rwanda is that the three ethnic groups in that country – Tutsi, Hutu and Twa had not always existed as such in the history of Rwanda but were mere occupational groups. Those who reared cattle were known as ‘Tutsi’, farmers were known as ‘Hutu’ and hunters as ‘Twa’. However, when the Belgians came, for economic and administrative purposes they turned these hitherto occupational and mobile groups into ethnic groups. To the Belgians, the Tutsi who had reportedly migrated from Ethiopia were closest to them in physical features, and for that sole reason, found it reasonable to suppose that they would be more competent than the Hutu and Twa in terms of ability. On the assumption that they were far superior to the three groups, the Belgians also assumed that the group that was closest to them in ability should rule the Hutu and Twa. These questionable assumptions of the Belgians were given validity by incorporation in official documents and the first written histories of Rwanda.
Once the Belgians had created the three ethnic groups, they were faced with the problem of official identification of those belonging to each group. As a result, in the 1930’s, Rwandan citizens were obliged to register their identities, including their new ethnic affiliation. During the exercise, 84% of the population registered as Hutu, 15% as Tutsi and 1% as Twa. The information thus provided were copied into official records and also indicated on identity cards. From then until the events of 1994, every adult Rwandan was by law obliged to carry an identity card stating his or her ethnic group.
The preferential treatment accorded the Tutsis by the Belgians from their arrival continued into the 1950’s and did not abate until colonial powers were pressured by the United Nations to give up their colonies. Belgium, with pressure from the United Nations which supervised Rwanda under the trusteeship system began to make administrative changes by appointing Hutu to responsible positions in government and created more educational opportunities for Hutu children. The sudden reversal of support from Tutsi to Hutu unavoidably led to violence and what is known in Hutu circles as the ‘Hutu Revolution’ during which thousands of Tutsi officials and their families lost their lives while several hundreds of thousand Tutsis escaped to neighbouring countries of Uganda, Tanzania, DRC and Burundi.
In the wake of the violence that attended the ‘revolution’ the ranks of surviving Tutsi were broken in two: thousands of Tutsis who fled the violence to neighbouring countries of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania, and Tutsi who chose to remain in Rwanda. The situation of Tutsi in both categories was not much different; while the Tutsi who sought refuge abroad were derided in their host countries, Tutsi who remained in Rwanda were subjected to the worst kinds of discrimination and abuse. In a nutshell, the master-servant relationship between Tutsi and Hutu prior to the revolution was now reversed and given the demographic majority of the Hutu the woes of the Tutsi were doubly compounded.
What eventually led to the 1994 genocide itself may be attributed to a chain of events directly related to the refugee problem. From 1960 to 1990 on the pretext that Rwanda was a small overpopulated country that could not accommodate Rwandan refugees if they were to return, successive Hutu governments of President Kayibanda and Major General Habyarimana refused to allow Tutsi refugees return to Rwanda. Attempts by the refugees to return by force on many occasions proved futile. Worst still, each time the refugees attempted to return by force and failed Tutsi living in Rwanda were set upon and massacred. For this reason, in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s massacres of Tutsi were common and taken for granted.
The attempts of the Tutsis to return continued with vigour until the armed attack of the RPF in 1990 compelled the Rwandan government to commence peace negotiations in Arusha, Tanzania. Unfortunately, the peace agreement signed pursuant to the negotiations by the government and RPF could not be implemented owing to a lack of will on the part of the Rwandan government to create the necessary environment and structures required for its implementation. As tensions between the government and the RPF spiralled downward in early 1994 as a result of several failed attempts to put into place the Broad Based Transitional Government proposed in the Arusha Accords, the stage was set for an explosion of unimaginable proportions in Rwanda on 6th April 1994 when President Habyarimana death in a plane crash triggered the genocide.
‘NEVER AGAIN’ OR ‘AGAIN AND AGAIN’
Scandalized by its unforgivable inaction in Rwanda, the international community was filled with revulsion and shame for looking the other way when over 800,000 defenceless civilians were murdered in cold blood in only a matter of 100 days. To demonstrate their revulsion and commitment to make certain genocide did not occur again world leaders adopted the platitude “never again”. Unfortunately, events since Rwanda has shown clearly that the International community merely pay lip service and no real commitment to ending mass crimes.
To everyone’s consternation, genocide has since occurred in epic proportions in Darfur and Central African Republic with no more than the usual pussy footing and unhelpful rhetoric on the part of the United States and major world powers. The international community has been reactive rather than proactive and confirmed again and again that only when the interest of a big power coincides with the interest of developing countries prone to genocide do they care to intervene.
Africans, particularly, from the Sub-Sahara should by now from all indications know that Africa has long been a low priority to the United States and Europe and will do well to begin to take their destinies in their own hands. Africa must learn to proffer African solution to African problems.
How then can Rwanda ensure never again?
Sub-Sahara Africa is not only one of the poorest regions in the world, it is also home to some of the world’s most corrupt and ethnically fragmented nations. A pattern discernible in previous cases of genocide is strong correlation between ethnicism and that genocide, there is consequently an ever present element to trigger the commission of genocide in Sub Saharan Africa than in any other region of the world. African countries should learn from the experience of Rwanda if the continent is to realise sustainable peace and security.
Rwanda has already taken the lead by legislating against ethnic classification in Rwanda and by so doing return the country to the pre-Belgian colonial era when there was no ethnic grouping or distinction. While it is relatively feasible in Rwanda on account of its unique homogeneity, it is highly recommended that other multi ethnic African countries equally take urgent action to de-emphasize the importance of ethnicism in national life.
Recognizing that legislation alone will not assuage the feelings of the aggrieved on both sides, the Rwandan government has reintegrated former combatants in the national army, while thousands of returnees had been reintegrated into the communities. To promote trust and build an enduring future for young people, over 600 associations for the youth and victims of genocide have been created and through them the ideals of unity and reconciliation is propagated.
The reconciliation process through the establishment of traditional Gacaca Courts – which helped establish dialogue between the victims of genocide and the families of the perpetrators -has turned over 1.5 million cases in which about 30 per cent were acquitted and others sentenced to different custodial sentences. Gacaca as a traditional model of dispute resolution became inevitable in the post-genocide era. With the judicial infrastructure destroyed and most prosecutors and judges killed in 1994, there was no chance that the national court system could prosecute over 100,000 genocide suspects. The gacaca is appreciated as a strategy to expedite trials and relieve congestion in prisons that would otherwise be the source of many human rights violations.
The ICC’s Deterrence Factor
The goal of the Rome Statute which created the ICC is to end impunity for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole and to contribute to their prevention. To achieve its goal of holding accountable the perpetrators of such crimes, the Statute created an interdependent, mutually reinforcing system of justice with a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) complementary to national criminal jurisdictions.
The principle of complementarity means that the primary responsibility to investigate and prosecute crimes within ICC jurisdiction lies with State Parties themselves, and the ICC is effectively a court of last resort which can only intervene when the relevant State is unable or unwilling to do so. Proceedings before the ICC should remain an exception to the norm. States must uphold their obligations to investigate and prosecute mass atrocities.
While we cannot categorically say that the establishment of the ICC has ended all inclinations by African leaders and politicians to perpetrate Genocide and other very serious crimes the existence of the court has no doubt slowed down their resolve as the events in Kenya and the Central African Republic illustrate. For all the flak it has drawn from some parts of Africa, if the Court saves at least some lives, it will have served the purpose of its establishment.
Thank you.
2 Responses
This is insightful.
Thank you.