by Lmor Jop
The Rwandan Genocide
Approximately 800,000 people: this is the estimated number of Rwandans massacred during one of the largest genocides the African continent has ever known. The murder of President Habiyarimana on April 6, 1994 was the event that set things in motion for the massacre aimed at Rwanda's Tutsi population.
The Criminal Tribunal
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is based in Arusha, in the north of Tanzania, a location chosen mainly for this country's political stability. The UN has deployed exceptional means to secure the site in order to minimize risk of terrorist attacks such as the incident that occurred in Dar es Salaam in 1998.
The Internship
I spent four months in the External Relations and Strategic Planning Division of the ICTR from June to October 2009. The first thing that caught my attention, besides the imposing white 4X4s parked in the courtyard, was the diversity of languages and nationalities of the people working at the Tribunal. Even in the Press Department, in addition to hearing English, which is one of the main languages spoken, you can often hear French, Swahili, Hindi, Wolof, making the work environment quite unique. During my stay in Arusha, I wrote press releases announcing the arrival of a Maltese or Russian judge or wrote up a biography of a magistrate hailing from the Federation of Saint Kitts and Nevis of the West Indies.
One of the events that affected me the most during my internship was the capture of two of the main accused. Over a period of eight weeks, a team of investigators managed to detain two major fugitives. The first one, Grégoire Ndahimana, was apprehended on August 11, 2009 in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; the second, Idelphonse Nizeyimana, fell into their hands on October 5, 2009 when he was about to board a flight at Kampala Airport in Uganda. These events happened one after the other, which kept us very busy for a few weeks while we toiled away dealing with these cases.
Nizeyimana, a former high-ranking officer, is one of the accused whose trial is a priority at the ICTR. The day following his arrest, he was transferred to the UN Detention Facility (UNDF) in Arusha and his trial began in the following weeks. A certain period of time elapsed between the time of Nizeyimana's arrest and when our office received information about his arrest and the publication of the press release. In fact, on the orders of the boss, we could not confirm the information to journalists from the international press given that the accused had not yet been placed under custody of the UNDF. You can imagine that the boss was not very pleased when he saw a BBC reporter recounting the information from his base in Nairobi.
Working for 16 weeks in the UN system was an experience of a lifetime. I learned more in three months than what you learn in a whole year at university.
My hope now is to see the remaining 11 fugitives in the hands of the law so their trials may serve as a lesson not only for leaders in Africa but also for those in the rest of the world as well.
This text does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Network or that of Rights & Democracy.
