Ex justice minister calls for an en to war crimes impunity

Sudan must be taught that it is vulnerable

by GEORGE KAGAME

Canada’s former minister of Justice and current Member of Parliament of Mount Royal Quebec, Irwin Cotler has called on the international community to arrest people suspected to have perpetuated war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever they maybe.

Cotler was speaking at the University of Toronto while presenting a paper titled; “Rwandan Genocide: Lessons to be Learned, Actions to be undertaken” at a conference organized by the Canadian Centre for Genocide Education. Referring to the fugitives of the Rwandan genocide who are living in many powerful countries including Canada while evading justice at home, Cotler said; “The wheels of justice don’t stop, if there’s anybody that perpetuated crimes in Rwanda, they will be brought to justice.”

The conference, titled “Remembering Rwanda15, Lessons Learned/ Not learned” is part of a long running series of activities organized internationally to commemorate 15 years since the genocide was stopped in July 1994.
Referring to the current arrest warrants against Sudanese President Hassan El Bashir, Cotler said African countries should stop giving the excuse that the warrants were a ploy by ‘colonialists’ against Africans because there are 30 African nations that signed to the treat creating the ICC’s 108 membership and therefore should stop portraying the warrants as ‘selective justice.’

Cotler also said that Bashir was helping in enforcing the culture of impunity by promoting his minister Ahmed Haroun whom the ICC initially targeted for his role in the killings in Darfur by appointing him into a senior position directly responsible for efforts to save the native black Sudanese in Darfur who are allegedly targeted by Arabic militias supported by Bashir’s government. Cotler suggested that as a way to force Sudan to change its policy on Darfur or arrest Bashir, telephone networks in Sudan should be jammed, establishing a millitary presence at Sudan port to show the vulnerability of Sudan and enforcing a no fly zone over the country.

The Conference was attended by Canada’s leading academicians and activists on genocide who debated the causes, the implementation of the genocide, how to stop future genocides and the reconstruction that Rwanda has gone through since 1994. Beginning on Friday and ending on Sunday 22, it brought together such experienced figures Professor James Orbinski who as head of the Doctors’ Without Boarders was present when massive killings erupted in Rwanda in April 1994 and after 100 days, the killings had claimed close to one million Rwandans.

Orbinski who also won a Nobel Peace prize with his organization in 1999 gave a moving account of events in Rwanda’s capital Kigali as a witness to the genocide, others included academicians from leading universities in Canada including Professors Marie Eve Desrosiers, University of Ottawa Villia Jefremovas Queen’s University Adam Jones, British Columbia and many more.
The conference also paid homage to Allison Des Forges a researcher and human rights activist who first drew attention to the Rwandan genocide in the international community as early as 1993, later chronicling it in her book “Leave None to Tell the Story”, Des Forges died last month in a plane crash in Buffalo USA.

The activists also discussed on efforts currently underway in the Sudanese region of Darfur where over 250,000 people have been killed in a government insurgency instigated by an Arabic militia, the recent arrest warrant and its implications issued by the International Criminal Court against Sudanese current president Hassan Bashir. Gerry Caplan an influential academic on the Rwandan genocide said that the killings in Rwanda were precipitated by negotiations by politicians who were engaged in talks in neighbouring Tanzania known as Arusha Accords.

Desrosiers argued that contrary to what is known in Rwanda today, the governments of Gregoire Kayibanda and Juvenal Habyarimana which created a fertile ground for the Rwandan genocide were very intelligent and calculating politicians; “They shaped behavior in order to control the behavior of Rwandan.” Jefremovas an economist with wide expereince from Rwanda said that the current Rwandan leadership needs to listen more to the views of its citizenry; “Rwanda is a country that needs its people to speak truthfully to the administration.”