Gahima haunted by his Role In the Rwanda Genocide?
By
December 6, 2014
The former Rwandan Prosecutor in the Post Genocide Government of the RPF
Dr Gerald Gahima has strongly criticized the Two American Professors
who participated in the BBC Documentary that exposed the role of RPF as
an institution and Kagame as its leader in Genocide and the shooting the
presidential jet of Kagame’s predecessor Juvenal Habyarimana.
The contentious issue in the documentary is the number of
Tutsis that are reported by the Two American Researchers and probably according
to Gerald Gahima the shooting was not the precursor of genocide.
Indeed, does Dr Gelard Gahima acknowledge that the lighting of the match on the dry season will burn the glass? Or pouring oil on the hot flame, what would you expect? This is what the Professors and other academics are talking about?
Under the International law, Article II of 1948 Convention on Genocide:
“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy…”
The definition of genocide requires that the perpetrator have a
specific state of mind: the “intent to destroy” a group. The intent to
destroy is distinct from a perpetrator’s particular motive for the
crime, like counter-insurgency. In the absence of explicit evidence,
intent can be inferred from facts and circumstances that take into
account the general context of the crime, such as: preparation of other
culpable acts systematically and exclusively directed against the same
group; scale of atrocities committed; weapons employed; the extent of
bodily injury; and/or the repetition of destructive and discriminatory
acts.
Does the above Convention talk of any number? Why then many people
are embroiled in the number of the people who were killed? For example
under the international law, if the number of Hutus which was killed by
RPF was greater than the Tutsis but where killed in the war or as the
collateral not targeted would it deny the Tutsis Genocide? The answer
is no, Dr Gahima as an academic and a lawyer, he should be aware that
the genocide definition has gone broader to include even rape, torture,
or killing even a single person.
For instance, the tribunals have elaborated on the act of “causing
serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” In the Akayesu case,
the ICTR decided that the harm need not be permanent or irremediable
and can include torture, be it “bodily or mental, inhumane or degrading
treatment, persecution.” The judgment in this case allowed rape to be
considered an act of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy a
protected group. The tribunals further confirmed that the harm also
includes sexual violence that falls short of killing.
If then we take the augment of Mr Gahima that the American Professors
were wrong on the number of the Tutsis who were killed, but we take the
UN Mapping report or Report of other experts on the number of Hutus
that have been killed, will it fit the purpose of Gahima’s definition?
Why and how should saying that Hutus died be a crime in Rwanda?
This is the same scenario in the Kenyan case were the charges were
dropped because the government of Kenya failed to cooperate, should the
Kenyan President celebrate? The answer is no, why?
Because he has not
been made innocent by the court, instead the case is shelved, any time
he will be recalled to answer those charges, why? Because a crime of
international law is not committed by abstract entities but by
individuals, and by trying individuals, then justice is served.
Why Gahima wants to wash himself white? The answer is simple; Mr.
Gahima had a role in all the mess in Rwanda which he does not want to
accept the responsibility like his colleagues, namely Gen. Kayumba
Nyamwasa, and Dr Théogene Rudasingwa. For instance, the Human Rights
Watch in 1994 reported many killings by RPF but were never investigated
or prosecuted, this is what it said “Because this report focused on the
genocide itself, we collected only limited data on crimes committed by
the RPF. The information is sufficient, however, to demonstrate that
certain kinds of RPF abuses occurred so often and in such similar ways
that they must have been directed by officers at a high level of
responsibility. It is likely that these patterns of abuse were known to
and tolerated by the highest levels of command of the RPF forces”.
If Gahima does not have the Data of the number of the Tutsis who were
killed, does he have the Data for the Hutus? It’s because of the
objective of the RPF and Kagame to capture the State power, he never
cared for the many Tutsis who were slaughtered by the Interahamwe and
other EX-FARforces, and RPF was busy killing innocent civilians. Mr.
Gahima with his colleagues under the orders of Kagame said that they did
not need UN Intervention force to either help or protect the Tutsis who
were being slaughtered, On April 30, Gerald Gahima and Claude Dusaidi
of the RPF political bureau made a statement which declared:
“The time for U.N. intervention is long past. The genocide is almost
completed. Most of the potential victims of the regime have either been
killed or have since fled”
This was at the time when the Security Council was discussing sending
a larger peacekeeping force to Rwanda with a broader mandate to protect
civilians, according to many political analysts, the RPF feared that
the force might interfere with its goal of military victory.
Mr. Gerlad Gahima therefore is not only counter arguing, but is
defending his collective role and ugly past in the Genocide against the
Tutsis and his abuse of power after the genocide in the Rwanda legal
system. For Instance he ordered all the Ministry of Justice (MINIJUST)
vehicles to be taken to one of the Garages owned by Muhamed near
Kinamba, could he tell the Rwandan people and clear on this matter?
Again, the fall of BAKAR Bank and the subsequent fleeing of its Managing
Director, Mr Valence Kajeguhakwa, was the work of Mr. Gahima Gerald.
Similarly, the storey magnificent building, adjacent to his former
office as the prosecutor general, how did he own it? The loans from
many Banks were he even assigned his mother an old woman for more than
70 FRW Million, was unearthed by the Rwanda authorities. The abuse of
power extended to the judiciary, he once went to the High Court single
handedly with cuffs arresting judges, and many flying through windows.
Why can’t Mr. Gahima be realistic, if the figures are wrong, and lets
us assume that they are wrong why, can’t the Rwandan government come up
with the real figures? Or with immediate effect create a commission of
Inquiry as it had done, on the BBC, or Habyarimana Shooting, or the
French Role in the Rwandan Genocide respectively?
Where would the American Professors get the accuracy that Mr. Gahima
wants us to believe if they are now blocked to go back to Rwanda and are
now Persona no grata in Rwanda? The Dr Alison Des Forges he
is referring to, was also made Persona no grata before she died, why?
He is telling people to read his book? Is he an authority on genocide of
Rwanda, in which he has an interest? As a lawyer, he knows the maxim of
not being a judge in your own cause, indeed, that’s why we have never
had an independent inquiry in the death of two heads of state in the
political and legal history of the international community.
Therefore, Mr. Gahima should tell the Rwandans his role in the
Genocide against the Tutsis and the reckless massacre of many Hutus, he
has a responsibility in all the mess of the Rwanda politics since RPF
took power, it is his confession and ability to make himself a new man
that many Rwandans want, not his rhetoric that he is a saint and Kagame
is the devil.
Related Story:
posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 4:40 PM
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