Ministers face genocide charges
Four senior cabinet ministers from the former Rwandan government went on trial today before a UN tribunal for helping plan and instigate the 1994 genocide that left more than 500,000 people dead.
Prosecutors appearing before The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, said the four men “took part in the formulation and supported the adoption and implementation by the interim government of decisions, policies and directives for the perpetration of the killing of Tutsis”.
The Hutu extremist government orchestrated the slaughter of Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus over 100 days. The killing ended when Tutsi-led rebels took control of the Central African country.
The four men who went on trial were Casmir Bizimungu, former minister for Health, Justin Mugenzi, former minister for Trade, Prosper Mugiraneza, former minister for Civil Service and Jerome Bicamumpaka, former minister for Foreign Affairs.
All four have pleaded not guilty to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.
Attorney Paul Ng’ama told the court the prosecution would prove that wherever the ministers went in Rwanda during the genocide, “they were soon followed by acts of genocide and displacement of the Tutsi population”.
“They blazed throughout Rwanda a path that can only be described as the path of hell,” he said.
The tribunal, set up in 1994 by the UN Security Council, has convicted 12 people and acquitted one. There are 56 defendants in detention.
