Former Rwandan Prime Minister Admits to Genocide

The prime minister who led Rwanda’s government during the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 Tutsis pleaded guilty Friday and promised to testify against other alleged ringleaders of the slaughter.

The United Nations said Jean Kambanda was the first person in history to plead guilty to such charges before an international tribunal, including the one at Nuremberg.

It also marked the first verdict for the tribunal, which was set up in November 1994 and has been criticized for being slow and bumbling.

His voice clear and steady, Kambanda, 42, admitted to four genocide charges and two charges of crimes against humanity, the Swiss-based Hirondelle Press Agency reported.

After each plea, murmurs rippled through the packed courtroom in the northern Tanzania town of Arusha.

Many Rwandans, their memories of the massacre still fresh, welcomed the confession and hoped it would unleash more convictions. U.N. prosecutors hoped it would foster reconciliation in Rwanda, where Hutu rebels and the Tutsi-led army continue to fight.

In the Arusha court, tribunal president Judge Laity Kama asked Kambanda if he understood the charges and whether he had made his plea under threat or pressure.

Kambanda replied that he made his plea “consciously and voluntarily,” and assured the court: “My plea is not equivocal, I have understood,” Hirondelle reported.

Kama then pronounced him guilty.

The gravest penalty the tribunal can impose is life in prison. A pre-sentencing hearing was scheduled for Aug. 31.

Deputy Prosecutor Bernard Muna said Kambanda was willing to testify against others accused of genocide. The tribunal has another 22 people in custody, and has indicted 35 in all.

The tribunal has agreed to give Kambanda’s wife and two children special protection, but has not guaranteed him a reduced sentence in exchange for his cooperation, Muna told Hirondelle.

But under the tribunal’s rules, he cannot be tried again in Rwandan courts for the same crime. On April 24, the Rwandan government executed 22 genocide convicts by firing squad, the first executions for the slaughter.

Hirondelle, a Swiss charity, is reporting on the genocide trials in an effort to provide Rwandans and others with unbiased information from this remote town.

Louise Arbour, chief prosecutor of the U.N. tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, said Kambanda’s plea could help heal the genocide’s wounds.

“I hope that this admission of guilt will begin to bring some solace to the survivors,” Arbour said at her headquarters in the Netherlands.

The tribunal has been severely criticized for its slow progress. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan plans to visit it next week, and on Thursday, the Security Council approved a third courtroom to try to speed up trials.

Kambanda is the highest-ranking former political leader in the tribunal’s custody.

He led a hard-line Hutu government after the assassination of Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana on April 7, 1994. She was among the first killed in a bloodbath sparked by the shooting down of President Juvenal Habyarimana’s plane the day before.

The killing stopped only when Tutsi rebels seized power in July 1994.