The New York Times

Monday, November 15, 1999

Rwandans Protest U.N.'s Release of Genocide Suspect

By Reuters

KIGALI (Reuters) - About 5,000 people demonstrated in Kigali on Monday to protest the recent release of a key suspect in the country's 1994 genocide, witnesses said.

Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, a former Rwandan official is alleged to have used radio and television to incite the slaughter of an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

The U.N. appeals court at The Hague earlier this month dismissed charges against Barayagwiza and ordered him returned to Cameroon, where he was arrested in 1996 and held for more than 18 months before being delivered to the U.N. Rwanda war crimes tribunal at Arusha, Tanzania.

The appeals court said the prosecutor's office had failed to inform Barayagwiza of the charges against him and had not insisted on his prompt transfer from Cameroon.

His release infuriated survivors of the slaughter and Rwanda's government suspended cooperation with the tribunal.

Not punishing Barayagwiza is to favor impunity,'' said one placard at Monday's rally outside the tribunal's office in Kigali. Speakers said Barayagwiza's release made a mockery of justice and some said it would encourage people to take the law into their own hands.

``To release Barayagwiza is to authorize the revenge we have so far avoided,'' said Frederic Mutagwera, president of the genocide survivors group ``Ibuka,'' which means ``Remember'' in the national language Kinyarwanda.

Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor of the twin U.N. tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, has said she took the appellate judges' criticism seriously and regretted the mistakes made by prosecutors in the Barayagwiza case.