Tag Archives: genocide
8 April 2014
Following accusations by the Rwandan President Paul Kagame of French involvement in the Rwandan genocide, France did not attend the ceremony on 7 April 2014, marking the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. According to the French Foreign Ministry, Rwanda barred the ambassador from the commemoration.
Kagame told the magazine Jeune Afrique in an interview last month that both France and Belgium had a ‘direct role in the political preparation of genocide and participation in its execution.’ Kagame accused France of training and arming the Hutu armed groups who were the main perpetrators of the genocide and of involvement in the slaughter of Rwandans who attempted to escape through a French-controlled territory. (more…)
Source: Reuters | France to shun Rwanda genocide ceremony after Kagame accusations
Source: The New York Times | 20 Years After, Rwanda Pauses to Recall Carnage
Source: The Wall Street Journal | Rwanda, France Spar on Anniversary of Genocide
9 April 2013
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon honoured the memory of the more than 800.000 people who lost their lives during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and stressed that countries have a ‘shared responsibility’ to prevent mass atrocities from happening again. Mr. Ban said ‘Collectively, we must go beyond words and effectively safeguard people at risk. And individually, we must nurture the courage to care – and the resolve to act.’
He also stressed that since the Rwandan genocide occured, the United Nations has worked every day to prevent a recurrence of such horror, with the Responsibility to Protect having become a global principle.
Source: UN News Centre | On anniversary, Ban honours victims and survivors of Rwanda genocide
13 April 2012
On April 06, 2012, on the 18th Anniversary of the genocide in Rwanda, the President of the U.S. Barack Obama issued a statement in which he refers to the ‘haunting’ memory of the extermination of about 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. He further mentions a shared responsibility of all States to protect populations and to prevent the occurrence of genocide. More specifically, he affirms that the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide ‘reminds the nations of the world of our shared responsibility to do all we can to protect civilians and to ensure that evil of this magnitude never happens again’.
Source: The White House | Statement by the President on the 18th Anniversary of the Genocide in Rwanda
13 April 2012
Today, the Dutch Supreme Court affirmed the Hague Court of Appeal’s decision that it does not have jurisdiction to deal with the claim of the Mothers of Srebrenica against the United Nations. The Mothers of Srebrenica instigated proceedings before Dutch courts against both the Netherlands and the United Nations, claiming they had failed to prevent the genocide in Srebrenica.
The plaintiff’s submission that UN immunity should be set aside in order to ensure the right to a fair trial in Article 6 ECHR was rejected. The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal erred in relying on the criteria in the ECtHR cases Beer and Regan and Waite and Kennedy in order to evaluate whether UN immunity should be set aside for the right to a fair trial. The Supreme Court held that the immunity of the United Nations is absolute, and that obligations under the UN Charter should prevail over obligations arising from other international agreements according to Article 103 UN Charter. In this context, the Supreme Court followed the ECtHR’s decision in Behrami and Saramati.
The plaintiff’s submission that in case of breaches of peremptory norms the UN is not entitled to immunity was also rejected. In order to support its decision that rules of ius cogens do not set aside rules on immunity, the Supreme Court referred to the ICJ’s recent judgment in the case Germany v. Italy.
The Mothers’ claim against the Netherlands is yet to be considered in first instance.
Source: Washington Post | Dutch court rules United Nations has immunity in Srebrenica massacre case
2012
Julia Hoffmann and André Nollkaemper
The tragic events in the 1990s in Rwanda, Srebrenica and Kosovo, and the crisis in Libya in 2011 have triggered a fundamental rethinking of the role and responsibility of the international community. It is now accepted that while individual states … Read more