The Aftermath: Prosecuting at the Speed of Molasses

by Michelle . · 2008-10-11 15:49:00 UTC
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The arrest and prosecution of suspected genocidaires can drag on for decades, as war criminals scatter six ways to the wind to evade capture. Bosnian Radovan Karadzic [right], indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia for war crimes and genocide for the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica, was arrested in July after living undercover since the end of the war. Proceedings against former members of the Khmer Rouge responsible for the Cambodian genocide in the 1970s are currently underway, though the trials continue to be delayed. Investigators continue to pursue the last remaining Nazi war criminals.

Investigations, arrests, and prosecutions continue in Rwanda as well, over 14 years after the genocide. Earlier this week, former Rwandan Minister of Planning Augustin Ngirabatware [left], who was arrested in Germany in 2007, entered a plea of "not guilty" to ten counts of genocide and war crimes before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). As the ICTR wraps up its work, extraditions and cases are increasingly being transfered to the national courts in Rwanda, though concerns over the impartiality of the Rwandan courts still trouble much of the international community.

Also in the news this week: The Rwandan Minister of Culture announced that the opulent house of former President Juvenal Habyarimana will made into a museum to document and memorialize the genocide. According to the project's director, "Everything will remain as it is and within that luxury we want to tell the history and culture of Rwanda." This represents a unique take on genocide commemoration--quite literally, bringing the story and images of genocide into the very realm of opulence and power it was designed to preserve.

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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