Justice4Survivors

Making survivors’ voices count

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  • Justice at last: Two ”genocidaires” convicted for life today.

    Octavier Ngenzi Tito barahira
    Genocide criminals Octavier Ngenzi and Tito Barahira. Photo/Rushyashya.

    A French court on Friday upheld life sentences for two former Rwandan mayors for taking part in the massacre of hundreds of ethnic Tutsis during the country’s 1994 genocide.

    Octavien Ngenzi, 60, and Tito Barahira, 67, had launched an appeal after they were found guilty in 2016 of crimes against humanity, genocide and summary executions in their village of Kabarondo.

    Relatives of the pair sobbed quietly as the ruling was read out in court, while Ngenzi and Barahira listened in silence.

    They will have five days to decide whether they will appeal the ruling again to a higher court.

    “This decision is just and sends a message: no to impunity for all those who took part in the genocide and who thought they could find refuge in France,” said Alain Gauthier, head of a group which has pushed for French investigations into the genocide.

    Some 2,000 people seeking refuge in a church were hacked to death in Kabarondo during seven hours of carnage, among some 800,000 people killed during the genocide by Hutu extremists.

    Ngenzi and Barahira’s were the stiffest genocide sentences ever handed down by a French court, after former Rwandan army captain Pascal Simbikangwa received 25 years in solitary confinement in 2014.

    All three were arrested in France and judged under universal jurisdiction which permits states to rule on serious crimes regardless of the suspect’s nationality or where the wrongdoing was committed.

    Ngenzi and Barahira had denied the charges that they acted as “supervisors” and “executioners” in the massacre.

    Ngenzi has been in custody since 2010 when he was captured in the French overseas department of Mayotte off the east coast of Africa, where he had been living under a false name.

    Barahira was arrested in 2013 in the southwestern French city of Toulouse where he was living.

    The genocide has been a source of tension between France and Rwanda for decades.

    Rwanda has long accused France of complicity in the mass killings through its support of ethnic Hutu forces who carried out most of the slaughter.

    France has admitted it made mistakes but insists it never had a role in the massacre. It had previously also been accused of dragging its feet over prosecuting cases.
    © 2018 AFP

  • Bernard Kouchner’ statement: Empty words.

    Bernard Kouchner’ statement: Empty words.

    Foreign Ministers Meeting at NATO Headquarters in Brussels- Press Point Bernard Kouchner (Minister of Foreign Affairs, France)
    Photo/Nato. Bernard Kouchner ( Ex.Minister of Foreign Affairs, France)

    When I opened up my social media feed yesterday, the news about Bernard Kouchner, the French ex- Foreign Minister was a headline. In an interview with a French daily newspaper, La Croix, Kouchner said on Sunday 7/1/2018 that  in 1994 France had “committed a very heavy political mistake” in Rwanda. The “French decision makers did not want to see” at the time that they “were friends with the ‘genocidaires’ in this country” he said.  While many people seem to have praised  this statement as a step forward in uncovering the role of France in the extermination of Rwanda’s Tutsis by French-backed Hutus, I have to confess that I received this statement with mixed feelings.

    First, the statement seems to be a sharp U-Turn from his own statement on Al Jazeera back in 2014 in which he called France to apologize for its role in the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. It is unclear whether yesterday’s statement is actually a self-contradiction or whether it reflects Kouchner’s current version of the events of 1994.

    Second, Reducing French’s involvement to just ‘’ a political mistake’’ is an understatement and a deliberate aberration to common knowledge. This was a genocide Co-authored by France as a political tool to maintain French influence in Rwanda at the cost of over one million Tutsis men, women and children. We, the survivors, saw this with our own eyes: we saw French soldiers hand in hand with Hutu Killers, training them, manning check points with them to prevent us from escaping. As we were being hunted down like wild animals in 1994, France is perhaps the only country in the world that rolled red caped for the genocidal government right in the midst of genocide. If France did not shy away from shaking hands with those devils then, why is it dragging its feet when it comes to do the right thing now?

    Today, thanks to ordinary French people themselves, writers, journalists and students, the role of France during the Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda is crystal clear than ever:  France had not made just  ‘’  a political mistake’’.  France made a criminal and well calculated political choice to be accomplice at the highest level in the last genocide of the 20th century. Any statement different from this fact is simply a nonsense that should not be insinuated by a respectable statesman and activist like Bernard Kouchner whose organization—Doctors Without Borders won a Nobel peace prize.

    Finally, having been trained in French-based law myself, I remember a provision in French text laws that reads’’ le complice est puni comme auteur de l’infraction’’ which translates, the accomplice shall be punished as the perpetrator of the crime.  This is exactly what should be done sooner or later. As we approach the 25th anniversary of genocide against the Tutsi, It is high time for current and former French officials like Bernard Kouchner to own their shameful responsibility by arresting genocide suspects still roaming free in France then apologize and ultimately pay reparations to the survivors. That’s the right thing France should be doing instead of playing with politically correct but empty words.

    Al.G

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  • Uwafunguwe na Gacaca yatemye inka ebyiri z’uwarokotse Jenoside (Photo)

    Karerangabo stanslas
    Photo: Karerangabo Stanislas ukekwaho gutema inka y’uwarokotse Jenoside.

    Karerangabo Stanislas wo mu Murenge wa Rweru mu Karere ka Bugesera afunzwe nyuma yo gutema inka ebyiri z’umuturage warokotse Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi mu 1994. Uyu mugabo w’imyaka 52 wiyemerera icyo cyaha, yatemye izo nka azisanze mu kiraro mu rugo rwa Kigabo Francois, mu gitondo cyo kuri uyu wa Gatatu tariki 11 Mata 2018.

    Ubu atuye mu nzu y’ubakiwe muri gahunda y’ubumwe n’ubwiyunge yo kubanisha abakoze Jenoside n’abayikorewe.

    Karerangabo yanafungiwe uruhare yagize muri Jenoside yakorewe Abatutsi mu 1994, ariko aza gufungurwa nyuma yo kwirega akanemera icyaha.

    Inkuru yanditswe Kigali Today.04/12/2018.

    Posted here by Al.G.