Carla del Ponte, who was removed last month from her post as prosecutor for the Rwanda genocide court, yesterday blamed her dismissal on the country’s president, Paul Kagame.
She also revealed that — in a last-ditch effort to remain in the job — she had offered to step down from the trial of the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic.
In an interview with the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, Del Ponte also criticised Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary general, describing his position on the matter as ”inflexible”.
She was quoted as saying that she had fallen foul of President Kagame because she insisted on tackling not only the 1994 genocide but also the alleged war crimes of his followers in the former rebel army that put an end to the killings. In her first detailed account of events leading up to her dismissal, Del Ponte described a showdown last year in which, she said, Kagame screamed at her ”as if he was giving me an order”, telling her that it was up to the government to investigate the military and up to her to investigate the genocide.
”This work of yours is creating political problems for me,” she quoted him as saying. ”You are going to destabilise the country this way.”
Del Ponte, speaking in Kigali, said: ”Probably, if I had given in — if I had accepted his orders — I would still be here.”
The UN security council voted unanimously last month to relieve the Swiss-born lawyer of her duties in Africa while giving her a second four-year term as chief prosecutor at the Hague-based tribunal investigating war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The decision was taken despite a personal appeal by Del Ponte at the end of July.
She told La Repubblica she had set off to New York ”furious” over leaks that had begun to undermine her authority.
”I had grasped what the Rwandans were up to, but I wanted to explain to the secretary general that it was not the right moment to split the two tribunals. I had no doubt that Kofi Annan would back me as he had done on other occasions — spurring me ahead. Instead, everything had already been decided.”
She said the head of the secretary general’s legal office told her a majority of security council members wanted to divide the two posts.
”Annan dug in behind that attitude and I realised that there was no room for negotiation,” said Del Ponte. She asked him if she could choose between the Hague and Kigali. ”The secretary general was inflexible. [He said:] ‘No. The trial against Milosevic is too important to be left in the hands of someone else’.”
Kagame was sworn in as Rwanda’s president for a seven-year term yesterday after his landslide victory last month in his country’s first multi-party presidential poll since the 1994 genocide.
Kagame, of the Tutsi minority and leader of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front, has been in charge of Rwandan politics since leading the rebel army that ended the slaughter by militant Hutus. He became president in 2000.
Supporters say he has made Rwanda more secure, the economy is growing, education is on the rise and poverty is falling. Critics say his internal politics are too repressive and many people are too scared to voice support for anyone else. -Guardian Unlimited Â