Rwanda's Most Wanted

He may be the most wanted man in the world. For a decade Rwanda's alleged genocide financier, Félicien Kabuga, has evaded trial for crimes against humanity and genocide. According to an indictment from the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Kabuga secured weapons and transport for extremist Hutu militias in 1994, as his RTLM radio station was inciting mass violence. So when the U.S. launched a 2002 campaign to bring the génocidaires to justice, it started with a $5 million reward on Kabuga.

Nobody's collected yet. Kabuga, now in his 70s, is rumored to be alive and prosperous in Kenya: ICTR prosecutors met Kenyan officials last year to discuss reports of his continued presence. And the U.S. has extended its $5 million offer against all the other fugitives who elude the U.N.-backed ICTR. Despite arrests in September in both France and Germany, 15 are still at large.

No one could ever bring all Rwanda's killers to justice. The stark facts of genocide — more than 800,000 killed, most with farm tools — suggest tens of thousands of murderers at least. But the ICTR fugitives were supposed to be different. They are not just murderers, ICTR prosecutors allege, but mass-murder masterminds: the former army officers and government officials who built a genocidal regime. "There cannot be true unity and reconciliation in Rwanda unless the fugitives, most of whom are the actual planners of the genocide, are brought to book," says Rwandan Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama.

Will it happen? U.N. Security Council resolutions force the ICTR to complete its cases by the end of 2008, and then shut down. (Appeals can be heard through 2010.) To date, however, the ICTR legacy is uncertain. In 13 years, the Tanzania-based international court has spent more than $1 billion and completed just 33 cases. Those figures rankle the Rwandans, who believe they could have accomplished more at home, more quickly and with less cash. But finding the suspects — even for such a tiny fraction of the country's likely killers — is a challenge. "International justice does not come cheap," says Roland Amoussouga, spokesman for the ICTR. Tribunal funds have had to cover everything from locating and indicting the suspects to negotiating their transfer — from countries as far-flung as Cameroon and Zambia, Switzerland and the U.S. — and then hosting long and complicated trials. More than 2,000 witnesses have been flown in to the trial site in Arusha, says Amoussouga. One trial is now in its sixth year.

With the clock ticking, officials are stepping up efforts to close the cases. Interpol appealed this summer to law-enforcement authorities worldwide, urging them to capture ICTR fugitives within their borders. Rwanda maintains it would be best to try all suspects there; the death penalty was formally abolished in July, eliminating a major obstacle in extradition negotiations. And the ICTR has begun shifting jurisdiction over the accused to individual countries, entrusting them to try those fugitives found after the ICTR's deadline. "There will always be a framework in place to ensure these people can be tried. We are confident that nobody will escape justice," Amoussouga says. Rwanda's Justice Minister Karugarama agrees; otherwise, he says, the "never again" dogma will be rendered meaningless.