[allAfrica.com]  [Africare]


Reyntjens's Absence Should Not Affect UN Court, Says Rwandan Attorney General

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
NEWS
January 12, 2005
Posted to the web January 13, 2005
Kigali
The recent announcement by Belgian professor and historian Filip Reyntjens that
he will severe cooperation with the UN court for Rwanda until it indicts
soldiers in the current Rwandan government shouldn't have any impact on the
court, Rwanda's Attorney General, Jean de Dieu Mucyo told Hirondelle News
Agency on Wednesday.
Prof. Reyntjens said on Tuesday that failure by the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute alleged perpetrators of the abuses in
the current Rwandan government was meting out victors' justice and risked
becoming part of the problem and not the solution.
"It is his right to stop cooperating with the ICTR", said Mucyo. "But I don't
think it should impact the work of the tribunal.
"He is a witness like others. Some witnesses are available, others are not. But
this never stops the court from continuing its work", he added.
The Belgian professor has published many books on the political upheavals that
have marked the African Great Lakes region in past, especially Rwanda, and has
been called on many occasions to testify at the ICTR as an expert witness for
the prosecution.

   

  ===============================================================================
  Copyright © 2005 Hirondelle News Agency. All rights reserved. Distributed by
                     AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
  ===============================================================================