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Genocide survivors may boycott UN court
Survivor groups from Rwanda’s 1994 genocide say they may stop sending witnesses to the UN tribunal in Tanzania, in protest at the court’s recent acquittals of two genocide suspects.
The groups, who provide many of the witnesses for the trials, say they will not cooperate unless the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) reverses its decision to release Hormisdas Nsengimana and Protais Zigiranyirazo.
“The ICTR should sit down and revise their decision... if there are no other positive decisions taken, the relationship is cut off,” Freddy Mutanguha, general secretary of IBUKA, an umbrella group for survivor organisations said at a protest in Kigali.
The ICTR has convicted 39 of 47 cases heard. It released Nsengimana this week, saying it did not have enough evidence to convict the Catholic pastor of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Tanzania-based court also freed Zigiranyirazo citing serious factual and legal errors.
Egide Kayinamura, 21, whose whole family was killed during Rwanda’s 100-day massacre in 1994, was one of around 200 protestors who marched to the ICTR branch in Rwanda’s capital late on Friday.
“Personally I feel very very sad because of the results. We don’t accept the decisions. We feel very sad that they let those people free,” Kayinamura said.
Reuters
Published on: Saturday, 21st November, 2009
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