GODFREY MUTIZWA, Nairobi | Monday
THREE Rwandan journalists accused of inciting the genocide of up to 800 000 people in Rwanda in 1994 go on trial in a UN court this week on charges of conspiracy and incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity.
Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza was director of public affairs in the Rwandan Foreign Affairs ministry in 1994, Hassan Ngeze was editor of Kangura, a Hutu extremist newspaper while Ferdinand Nahimana was the director of the ”hate-radio”, Radio Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM).
But their lawyers said the case should be postponed to settle various issues, including Barayagwiza’s demand that two of the judges exclude themselves from the case after recently visiting Rwanda, where they were received by President Paul Kagame.
Barayagwiza is also contesting the decision to try him together with Ngeze and Nahimana.
Rwanda’s media played a large part in the 100-day killing orgy that stunned the world between April and June 1994.
RTLM journalists preached hatred and exhorted Hutus, who make up about 85% of the population, to kill Tutsis, the minority who ruled Rwanda for centuries before independence in 1962.
The court in June jailed Belgian journalist Georges Ruggiu for 12 years after he pleaded guilty to direct and public incitement to commit genocide.
Ruggiu worked for RTLM – which Barayagwiza helped establish – at the time of the genocide and became an infamous voice behind what came to be known as ”hate radio”. He is expected to testify against the three men.
Some 120 000 genocide suspects are rotting in Rwanda’s overcrowded jails, many in appalling conditions, a recent Organisation of African Unity report said. It estimated that it would take up to four centuries to try them all at the present rate of prosecutions.
In Rwanda itself, rights groups say 3 000 suspects have been tried since genocide trials began there in late 1996. About 400 people have been sentenced to death while 500 others have been acquitted. Twenty-two were executed in 1998. – Reuters