Rwanda Appeals for Criminalization of the Tutsi Genocide

The Rwandan government has appealed to world governments to enact legislation that criminalizes the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, just as many countries have done for the Jewish holocaust.

The appeal was made during a press briefing on Sunday in Kigali by Rwanda’s Justice Minister and Attorney General, Tharcisse Karugarama. The minister was commenting on his recent trip from the 3rd conference of the International Association for Court Administrators (IACA) in Dublin, Ireland, where he called for serious measures against genocide and its accomplices in the world.

“As a country, we have suffered enough of the effects of the 1994 genocide and the government must ensure that it doesn’t occur again. There is a need for world governments to enact legislation that criminalizes the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda as the Jewish holocaust has been criminalized in many countries,” Karugarama, said, adding that the measure should also be intended against those denying genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda.

Karugarama also took a swipe at foreign judges who have forged alliances with genocide perpetrators and deniers. He said, during his meeting with world court administrators, “to hold in utter contempt any attempts by judges or judicial officers to sell or compromise their judicial oaths for other individual interests.”

The minister was referring to the recent indictments issued by both French and Spanish judges against some high ranking Rwandan military officers. The indictments have since attracted widespread condemnations from Rwandan leaders and a cross section of the population, describing the judges as arrogant foreign agents in bed with those denying the genocide in Rwanda.

“Our biggest problem is how to deal with foreign judges who have been compromised to join a network of genocide revisionists and deniers,” he noted, adding that the judges are hiding behind the principle of judicial independence and the notion of universal jurisdiction to frustrate Rwanda’s unity and reconciliation trend.

Source African Press Agency

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