Two Genocide Suspects Arrested, Cause of Justice is Advanced

In the complicated and still-nascent field of justice for genocide and mass atrocity crimes, there is no such thing as a small victory. Each degree of progress is not only a measure of recompense for millions of victims, but also a chip away at the global culture of impunity that perpetuates the crimes in the first place. This week, the arrests of suspected Rwandan and Bosnian genocidaires give us two reasons to celebrate.

First, and featured on this blog just a month ago, Agathe Habyarimana was arrested in Paris on Tuesday. The wife of former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, who led the country in the years leading up to the 1994 genocide and whose assassination kicked off the mass killing, "Madame Agathe" is accused of playing an integral part in orchestrating the genocide, from her and her family's powerful position among the country's hard-line "Hutu Power" extremists. France has been accused of being a "haven" for fugitive war criminals, adding insult to the injury of the country's controversial involvement in the genocide, but the high-profile arrest and the creation of special genocide courts are likely part of a recent diplomatic thaw between France and Rwanda.

The day before, Spanish police apprehended an alleged Bosnian war criminal known as the "Monster of Grbavica." Veselin Vlahovic is accused of committing rape, torture, and genocide during the Bosnian War in the mid-1990s, but apparently it was his rap sheet of more ordinary crimes that led to his arrest in a small Spanish tourist resort this week.

Both arrests are products of international cooperation aimed at closing in on fugitive war criminals and eliminating their potential hiding places and safe havens. Ultimately, the hope is that the steady pursuit of justice will build a credible deterrent for potential future abusers -- we aren't there yet, but there's something to be said for the popular rumor that Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe is obsessed with the trial of Liberian war criminal Charles Taylor.

For now, it means that Mugabe clings to power at all costs, but perhaps someday it will mean that others like him will not be in power in the first place, or that other more rational individuals will be more willing to throw their violent leaders under the bus in order to save their own skin.

Photo credit: Emir Kotromanić.