Rwanda genocide court’s stranded men

ARUSHA, Tanzania — In a large house on a hill near the center of Arusha, in the East African nation of Tanzania, live 11 Rwandan men. From the outside, the building is nondescript, with white walls, a tiled roof and a black-gated entrance. The exact location of the building, which is known in this safari town as the safehouse, is a secret. For among the men there are leading figures of Rwanda’s interim government of 1994, which ruled during the genocide, when 800,000 to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.

They include Justin Mugenzi, a former minister of commerce; Casimir Bizimungu, a former minister of health; Jerome Bicamumpaka, a former minister of foreign affairs; Prospere Mugiraneza, a former minister of civil service; and André Ntagerura, a former minister of transport. Eight of the men were accused — and later acquitted — by the Arusha-based genocide tribunal of playing leading roles in the massacres. Three were convicted of war crimes and have served their sentences. All of them are in limbo, marooned by an international community that wants little to do with them.

Casimir Bizimungu stood in his small bedroom down the hall from the dining room, where the men were quietly sipping a lunch of chicken soup. Bizimungu, a former minister of health, was arrested in 1999 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity. After a lengthy trial, he was acquitted in 2011. Since then he has been trying to join his family in Canada. 

Near his bed, a framed picture of Bizimungu’s wife was propped up on a shelf. On a desk next to his Bible was a copy of a recently typed letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, asking him to become involved in the issue of their relocation. “I am waiting, I am hoping,” he said. “And I just keep patient. I am very patient.”

But the patience of many of the men is wearing thin. Relations between them are cordial, Bizimungu said, but frictions about mundane issues, like what to eat and what channel to watch, occasionally erupt. When not working on relocation, many of the men stick to a cycle of routine visits to the tribunal’s library and neighborhood barbershop, daily exercise and watching French television. Life at the safehouse could be summed up in one word — “boring” — Bizimungu said.

While many of the men have been living in the safehouse for years, they cannot remain in Tanzania indefinitely. According to an agreement signed between the ICTR and Tanzania, anyone acquitted by the court cannot seek residency in the court’s host country.

But returning to their homeland is not an option either. Many of the men fear that if they returned, they would be subject once again to war crimes charges. Rwandan government officials consider the acquitted guilty, despite the court’s verdict. Most recently, Rwanda’s ambassador to the United Nations, Eugene-Richard Gasana, called the acquitted men “masterminds of the genocide” who were acquitted “despite substantive evidence against them.” 

The court is therefore looking further afield for new homes. In 1994 many of the indicted men fled Rwanda with their families and scattered across various African and Western countries, where they were eventually be arrested. Court officials have traveled to many of these locations, hoping that family connections could provide a legal gateway for the men.

But lobbying countries to open their doors to a group of men stained with accusations of having committed the worst of crimes is an uphill battle that so far appears to have had little success.