International Tribunal Issues First Indictments for Rwandan Genocide

After months of fitful work and delay, an international tribunal on Tuesday announced its first indictments against suspects in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide of 500,000 or more people.

The indictments were sent to various countries where the eight suspects are believed to have fled into exile, the court said. The names of the defendants were withheld until they can be taken into international custody.

The U.N. tribunal’s announcement, made from makeshift new headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, was the first, albeit small, step toward justice in one of the 20th century’s most horrifying crimes against humanity.

But even as the international court inched ahead, 20 months after genocide burned across Central Africa, current conditions in Rwanda and its even more troubled neighbor, Burundi, turned graver.

Intensified fighting has engulfed Burundi. Minority Tutsis and majority Hutus--the same combatants who left Rwanda an epic graveyard--have split the country into enclaves and appear to be pursuing each other’s extermination.

The relief organization Doctors Without Borders issued a report this week saying that recent clashes between the Tutsi-dominated army and Hutu rebels have resulted in hundreds of deaths. The precise numbers and circumstances of the massacres are unknown, since no neutral parties now venture far into Burundi.

In parts of the countryside, half the population is malnourished, according to Lucas Van Den Brock, manager of the aid agency’s Burundi operations.

Violence has consumed Burundi for two years, but Van Den Brock said recent events represent “a step up, an important one” in the tragic cycle of ethnic hatred, fear and revenge.

In Rwanda, meanwhile, the Tutsi-dominated coalition government has sounded a new hard line against relief agencies, perhaps complicating delicate efforts to repatriate about 2 million Hutu refugees who refuse to leave camps outside the country’s borders.

The government plans to expel 38 relief agencies, including some that provided important medical care--and credible international watchdogs--for the remote countryside. Among those to be ejected is Doctors Without Borders, long a linchpin in Rwandan relief efforts. The government also said it will confiscate all the equipment and supplies belonging to the groups.

The agencies were to have been out of the country by today, but on Tuesday the government postponed the exit date.

Rwanda’s ethnic rivalries, which stretch back generations, came to a tragic head between April and July of last year, when extremists among the majority Hutus fueled a frenzy of hatred that drove neighbor against neighbor, husband against wife, priest against parish. At least 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed. Some observers put the number of victims closer to 1 million.

At the time, a civil war had the Hutu government crumbling and Tutsi rebels advancing to seize control. Since then, the new government has demanded international action in bringing the ringleaders of the slaughter to justice.

The indictments announced Tuesday evoked dismay among some Rwandan officials.

“For a genocide of 1 million people, only eight indicted? This isn’t enough. The tribunal could have done more,” Information Minister Jean Pierre Bizimana said.

The eight suspects have been charged with genocide and crimes against humanity. The question now is whether they can be tracked down, arrested and extradited. Some of those thought to be potential suspects live openly in other African nations, and some have fled to Europe and the Americas.

Chief Prosecutor Richard Goldstone, a South African judge, told a news conference in Arusha that the eight are “middle- and upper-level” suspects--but not those at the very top of the genocide campaign. He said the trials of these first suspects will provide the “building bricks” to enable prosecutors to go after higher-ups.

The eight are alleged to have been involved in massacres of men, women and children in the western province of Kibuye. In an earlier report on the tragic events in Rwanda, the human rights organization Africa Rights said “tens of thousands of people, mainly Tutsis, were killed in the stadium in the town of Kibuye and in churches where they had sought sanctuary.”

The International Tribunal for Rwanda said the first trials could begin two months after defendants are arrested. Eventually, the court expects to charge about 400 people. The court’s work is expected to continue for up to four years.