Professor Filip Reyntjens
Chair, Institute of Development
Policy
and Management, University of Antwerp
Venusstraat 35
2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
tel. office: +32-3-220.49.15
fax office: +32-3-220.44.81
tel. home: +32-3-231.75.80
mobile: +32-473-98.14.90
email: filip.reyntjens@ua.ac.be
Mr. Hassan B. Jallow
Prosecutor,
ICTR
P.O.
Box 6016
Arusha, Tanzania
Antwerp, 11 January 2005
Dear Mr. Jallow,
When discussing the need to prosecute RPF suspects during a conversation
we had in September 2004, you told me you were about to review the evidence and
make a determination on this issue. With the ICTR’s
completion strategy in mind, I contacted you again around the end of the year
to inquire about progress. On 6 January 2005 you informed me that you were
unable to disclose whether you had come to a decision or what that decision
would be. Of course, I accept and respect your position.
However, having co-operated with the ICTR and your office since 1995,
the failure to prosecute RPF suspects puts me before a grave moral dilemma.
During a previous visit to Arusha in April 2003, I
met with the “Special Investigations” team, which has gathered compelling
evidence on a number of massacres committed by the RPF in 1994. These crimes
fall squarely within the mandate of the ICTR, they are well documented,
testimonial and material proof is available, and the identity of RPF suspects
is known. If they are left unprosecuted, the ICTR
will have failed to eliminate one of the root causes of genocide and other
crimes – impunity. Indeed, it is precisely because the regime in Kigali has
been given a sense of impunity that, during the years following 1994, it has
committed massive internationally recognised crimes
in both Rwanda and the DRC. Article 6(2) of the Statute explicitly rules out
immunity, including for Heads of state or government or for responsible
government officials. This principle is contravened when, as is currently the
case, a message is sent out that those in power need not fear prosecution. In
addition, by meting out victor’s justice, the ICTR fails to meet another stated
objective, namely to “contribute to the process of national reconciliation and
the restoration and maintenance of peace”.
Under these circumstances, the ICTR risks being part of the problem
rather than of the solution. While I remain committed to the cause which is at
the heart of the mandate of the ICTR, on ethical grounds I cannot any longer be
involved in this process. I shall, therefore, not be able to co-operate with
the OTP unless and until the first RPF suspect is indicted.
In order to avoid possible misunderstanding, there is one point I must
make clear. I do not intend with this position to exert pressure on you or your
office. Not only would such an attempt be futile, but it would also run counter
to my own conviction, as I have in the past denounced the pressures, and indeed
the blackmail, exerted on the Prosecutor by the Rwandan government. Your office
must function in total independence and not be influenced by my personal moral
considerations.
Allow me to wish you a prosperous and productive new year.
Yours sincerely,
Professor Filip Reyntjens