War Criminal Behavior
Rwanda's genocidal leaders are being brought to justice by a groundbreaking international tribunal
By CLIVE MUTISO/ARUSHA

When Hutu death squads crept into the Rwandan commune of Taba in central Rwanda at the height of the 1994 genocide, the Hutu mayor, Jean-Paul Akayesu, was all that stood between the killers and the Tutsi civilians they had come to hunt. At first, the former teacher and school inspector resisted the death squads, arresting their leaders and urging them to disperse. But the killers, known as the Interahamwe, began persuading Akayesu with tribal supremacy arguments which caused compassion to give way to violence. Finally the mayor gave in, and according to testimony at his genocide trial in Tanzania he turned into one of the most notorious and implacable executioners of the genocide. Before it was over, Akayesu had left behind a trail of more than 2,000 dead--men, women, children and unborn fetuses. It was part of a three-month orgy of mass killings sparked by the death of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana when his plane was shot down by rocket fire over the capital Kigali in April 1994. Roughly 1 million Tutsi and some moderate Hutu were killed and 300,000 became homeless refugees.

Last week came the first international verdict on those crimes. For his part in the killings three black-robed judges of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, found ex-mayor Akayesu guilty on nine counts of genocide, torture, rape, murder and crimes against humanity, acquitting him on six others. Akayesu had pleaded not guilty to all 15 counts and can appeal the verdict, but meanwhile he faces a maximum of life imprisonment at a sentencing hearing on Sept. 28. Whatever the sentence, he became the first defendant ever to be convicted of the crime of genocide by an international court in a case that sets legal precedents which are also binding on the U.N.'s war crimes tribunal in the Hague.

The tribunal's Senegalese president, Judge Laity Kama, took more than an hour to recite a summary of the 300-page judgement. Among the court's landmark decisions was the first definition in international law of the crime of rape. "Sexual violence, including rape, is not limited to physical invasion of the human body and may include acts which do not involve penetration or even physical contact," the court said. "Threats, intimidation, extortion and other forms of duress which prey on fear or desperation could be coercion." The court further declared that rape and sexual violence constitute genocide if they are intended to destroy a particular targeted group. In the case of the Rwanda violence, it said, "The rape of Tutsi women was systematic and was perpetrated against all Tutsi women and solely against them."

Assistant prosecutor Pierre-Richard Prosper said of the verdict: "Today is important because finally the international community is fulfilling its obligations under the Genocide Convention of 1948." That convention was adopted in the wake of the Nazi Holocaust but Akayesu is the first person to be convicted under the half-forgotten statute in the 50 years of its existence.

After the high-profile 15-month Akayesu trial, another decision last week passed almost unnoticed. Former Rwanda Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, the first person in history to plead guilty to genocide charges before an international court, was sentenced to life imprisonment. Kambanda had cut a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty and give vital information against other suspects in return for protection for his family against would-be vigilantes while he is in jail. The tribunal is still to decide where Kambanda, 42, will serve his sentence. Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland and Norway have offered jail space but the court would prefer to find a prison in Africa. That is proving difficult because few African prisons meet U.N. standards on human rights. The Rwandan government would like the convicts to serve their time in Rwanda but the country's prisons are overflowing with more than 120,000 suspects awaiting trial on genocide charges. Another fear is that prisons holding kingpin genocide convicts could become targets for the Interahamwe bands still roaming Rwanda. Several prisons holding suspects have already been attacked and their inmates freed by the militias. Still awaiting trial before the court in Tanzania are 28 defendants housed in the United Nations Detention Facility located in a government prison at Arusha but run by U.N. guards.