PRESS CONFERENCE ON RWANDA TRIBUNAL

Gerald Gahima, the Prosecutor of the Supreme Court of Rwanda, told correspondents today that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its current form had been ineffective and had failed to achieve the goals for which it was established, and he had, thus, called on the Security Council to support Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s proposal to name a separate Prosecutor for that body.

Speaking at a Headquarters press conference, as the Council met to discuss the Secretary-General’s proposal, he said the Government and people of Rwanda had a legitimate stake in the decision the Council would make on the matter.  Rwanda had concerns about the failure of the Tribunal to indict many genocide suspects who were at large, while, at the same time, deciding to conclude its investigations by the end of next year without making any provisions as to what would be done to bring at-large suspects to justice.

But most importantly, he said, the Government had always been concerned that the Tribunal was not achieving the objectives for which it was established -– namely, the promotion of stability and reconciliation in the country.  Because it was so ineffective, the Tribunal was not having the effect it was intended to have on Rwandan society.  As an example, he said, although it was supposed to deter those that had taken up arms to commit genocide, tens of thousands of such people remained at large around the country’s borders.

“To most people in Rwanda, the Tribunal is deemed almost irrelevant and we believe this is a perception that the Tribunal needs to change”, he said.  One of the reasons for the ineffectiveness of the Tribunal was the poor performance of the Office of the Prosecutor.  The greatest hindrance to the effective performance of that office was the way it was organized and structured, including the fact that a single prosecutor handed both the Rwandan and the former Yugoslavia Tribunals.

The people of Rwanda took “very, very strong exception” to the fact that the investigation and prosecution of the more than 1 million deaths of innocent people that occurred in Rwanda had been made by the international community the part-time job of a prosecutor based on another continent, he continued.  He believed that the failure to appoint a prosecutor who was dedicated exclusively to the investigation and prosecution of offences committed against the victims of the genocide of Rwanda of 1994 was an insult to the victims of that genocide.  “It’s an insult that we feel it was high time it was rectified”, he said.

Quite apart from that, the fact that there had been a single prosecutor for the two Tribunals had adversely affected the performance of the Rwanda Tribunal.  The branches of the Rwanda Office of the Prosecutor were based in three places:  in Kigali; in Arusha, United Republic of Tanzania; and at The Hague.  None of the three prosecutors to date had lived or worked in Africa to supervise and oversee the work of the Office.  Over the years, that had resulted in the existence of an institution without leadership, vision or sound management.  The current prosecutor, being based at The Hague, spent most of her time dealing with Yugoslav Tribunal matters and rarely stayed long enough in Rwanda or Arusha.  In any one year for the last four years, the Prosecutor spent an average of 35 days in

Africa, most of which she spent dealing mainly with “symbolic work”, such as meeting diplomats.

Mr. Gahima told correspondents that, in the absence of her physical presence in Rwanda, one would have expected the Tribunal to appoint a Deputy Prosecutor, a Chief of Prosecutions, and a Chief of Investigations who were empowered.  Instead, for a long time, the Prosecutor was unable to fill any of those positions.  For a long time, there was no Deputy Prosecutor, because it was said that there was no competent African able to take over that job.  Similarly, for a long time there was no Chief of Prosecutions, although there was an acting chief for some time, “but that was a person who had no command of either French or English and was, therefore, unable to effectively perform those duties”, he said.

Even after those assistants had been appointed recently, as a result of pressure following a review, those that had been appointed had not been empowered and had no direct line of communication with the Prosecutor.  “So, we have a Prosecutor who is unavailable and is not accessible to her deputies and has not empowered them or delegated any authority, so that all decisions have to be made at The Hague and this has resulted in gross mismanagement”, he said.  Because of such mismanagement, there had never really been an effective strategy for the investigation and prosecution of the offences within the mandate of the Prosecutor’s Office, many resources have been wasted in pursuing low-ranking suspects that should never have been a priority, and there had even been cases where tremendous resources had spent investigating cases against people who were known to be dead.

Thus, he said it was his Government’s strong view that the Secretary-General’s proposal to the Security Council was appropriate, and he called on the Council members not only to give it their support, but to go further and look to reforms in other aspects of the Tribunal to make it more effective.

He added that the Prosecutor, on the eve of the Secretary-General’s recommendation, had carried out a media campaign accusing the Rwandan Government of being behind the proposal to bring about that change by exerting pressure on Council members.  That was apparently done, it was said, because the Government feared she intended to investigate and prosecute some members of the Rwandan military.  “Rwanda is a small country”, he said.  “It’s absurd to suggest that we can apply any kind of pressure against the Members of the Security Council.  Secondly, for the last four months we have not had any disagreement with the Prosecutor on the aspect of investigations and prosecution of offences which may have been committed by members of the RPA.”

Asked by a correspondent to identify specifically who he referred to when he said there were suspects who had not been indicted who should be prosecuted, he said the bulk of the leadership who organized the genocide was still at large, mostly in French-speaking Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Belgium, France and a few other countries.

He said the genocide had been organized centrally by a combination of the political leadership, the military, civil society -– non-governmental organizations, political parties and the churches.  Rwanda acknowledged that it was not feasible for the Tribunal to indict and prosecute all of those cases.  It still believed, however, that before the Tribunal and the Security Council decided to close the Tribunal, a determination should be made as to how those who sought

asylum outside Rwanda would be made to pay for their crimes.  “Hundreds, possibly thousands”, of such people were still at large.  Further, he also acknowledged that some of the crimes may have been committed by the military.

To another correspondent’s question, he denied there was any symbolism to the Prosecutor being an African or that his Government was after a Prosecutor who came from a particular country or continent.  “We do not care what the colour of the skin of the Prosecutor is, or indeed the judges and the Registrar”, he said.  “All that we have cared about is that the Tribunal be effective and fulfil the mandate for which it had been established.”

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