The UN genocide tribunal should pursue crimes committed by Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) officers before it closes its doors. That’s what Human Rights Watch says in a letter to the court’s prosecutor.  

The Tutsi-dominated RPF, led by current President Paul Kagame, ended the 1994 genocide of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus after a military campaign. In the same period, RPF forces killed between 25,000 and 45,000 civilians.

The RPF crimes have been well documented. A UN Commission of Experts in 1994 concluded that the group perpetrated crimes against humanity.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was set up in 1994 to try suspected génocidaires and human rights abusers.

The tribunal has investigated allegations of RPF crimes, and gathered witness testimony and physical evidence supporting those allegations. But to date, the tribunal, which has to finish its work by the end of the year, has only prosecuted leading Hutus."

That's a poor legacy for this historic effort at international justice," said Kenneth Roth, executive director at Human Rights Watch. "The tribunal's failure to address the RPF crimes risks leaving the impression that it is delivering only victor's justice."

Instead of pursuing indictments of RPF officers at the ICTR in Arusha, Chief Prosecutor Hassan Jallow transferred the RPF files to Rwanda in 2008. At the time however, the tribunal’s judges had refused to transfer genocide suspects to Kigali where fair trials could not be guaranteed.

"Given the tribunal's decision not to transfer genocide cases to Rwanda for fear of political interference by the Rwandan authorities, it is hard to understand why the prosecutor sent those same authorities a sensitive Rwandan Patriotic Front case for trial," says Roth.

Human Rights Watch says the RPF trials in Rwanda proved to be a political whitewash. Four military officers were tried for the 1994 killings of 15 civilians, including 13 clergy and a 9-year-old boy. Two of the officers confessed and were sentenced to eight years in prison (later reduced to five years on appeal). Two more senior officers were acquitted.

Jallow made commitments to monitor the Rwandan RPF trial and to recall the case if the proceedings failed to meet international standards. But the tribunal sent an observer for one trial day and Jallow has yet to release a statement on the trial.

Human Rights Watch urges Jallow to provide his assessment when he briefs the Security Council this month and make a commitment to seek indictments for other RPF cases.