The former Rwandan Prosecutor in the Post Genocide Government of the RPF Dr Gerald Gahima has strongly criticized the Two American Professors who participated in the BBC Documentary that exposed the role of RPF as an institution and Kagame as its leader in Genocide and the shooting the presidential jet of Kagame’s predecessor Juvenal Habyarimana.

The contentious issue in the documentary is the number of Tutsis that are reported by the Two American Researchers and probably according to Gerald Gahima the shooting was not the precursor of genocide.

Gahima Gerald

The question still remains, if the presidential jet was not shot, would the Tutsi have died on the same pace and gravity? The answer to any sounding sober mind will argue that Tutsis had been killed before because they were Tutsis, this means that by definition, of genocide, it was there, but the scale and gravity at which the Tutsis were killed is the contentious issue and whether Kagame or Gahima have failed to convincingly answer.

Indeed, does Dr Gelard Gahima acknowledge that the lighting of the match on the dry season will burn the glass? Or pouring oil on the hot flame, what would you expect? This is what the Professors and other academics are talking about?

Under the International law, Article II of 1948 Convention on Genocide:

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with the intent to destroy…”

The definition of genocide requires that the perpetrator have a specific state of mind: the “intent to destroy” a group. The intent to destroy is distinct from a perpetrator’s particular motive for the crime, like counter-insurgency. In the absence of explicit evidence, intent can be inferred from facts and circumstances that take into account the general context of the crime, such as: preparation of other culpable acts systematically and exclusively directed against the same group; scale of atrocities committed; weapons employed; the extent of bodily injury; and/or the repetition of destructive and discriminatory acts.

Does the above Convention talk of any number? Why then many people are embroiled in the number of the people who were killed? For example under the international law, if the number of Hutus which was killed by RPF was greater than the Tutsis but where killed in the war  or as the collateral not targeted  would it  deny the Tutsis Genocide? The answer is no, Dr Gahima as an academic and a lawyer, he should be aware that the genocide definition has gone broader to include even rape, torture, or killing even a single person.

For instance, the tribunals have elaborated on the act of “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group.” In the Akayesu case, the ICTR decided that the harm need not be permanent or irremediable and can include torture, be it “bodily or mental, inhumane or degrading treatment, persecution.” The judgment in this case allowed rape to be considered an act of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy a protected group. The tribunals further confirmed that the harm also includes sexual violence that falls short of killing.

If then we take the augment of Mr Gahima that the American Professors were wrong on the number of the Tutsis who were killed, but we take the UN Mapping report or Report of other experts on the number of Hutus that have been killed, will it fit the purpose of Gahima’s definition? Why and how should saying that Hutus died be a crime in Rwanda?

This is the same scenario in the Kenyan case were the charges were dropped because the government of Kenya failed to cooperate, should the Kenyan President celebrate? The answer is no, why? Because he has not been made innocent by the court, instead the case is shelved, any time he will be recalled to answer those charges, why? Because a crime of international law is not committed by abstract entities but by individuals, and by trying individuals, then justice is served.

Why Gahima wants to wash himself white? The answer is simple; Mr. Gahima had a role in all the mess in Rwanda which he does not want to accept the responsibility like his colleagues, namely Gen. Kayumba Nyamwasa, and Dr Théogene Rudasingwa. For instance, the Human Rights Watch in 1994 reported many killings by RPF but were never investigated or prosecuted, this is what it said “Because this report focused on the genocide itself, we collected only limited data on crimes committed by the RPF. The information is sufficient, however, to demonstrate that certain kinds of RPF abuses occurred so often and in such similar ways that they must have been directed by officers at a high level of responsibility. It is likely that these patterns of abuse were known to and tolerated by the highest levels of command of the RPF forces”.

If Gahima does not have the Data of the number of the Tutsis who were killed, does he have the Data for the Hutus?  It’s because of the objective of the RPF and Kagame to capture the State power, he never cared for the many Tutsis who were slaughtered by the Interahamwe and other EX-FARforces, and RPF was busy killing innocent civilians. Mr. Gahima with his colleagues under the orders of Kagame said that they did not need UN Intervention force to either help or protect the Tutsis who were being slaughtered, On April 30, Gerald Gahima and Claude Dusaidi of the RPF political bureau made a statement which declared:

“The time for U.N. intervention is long past. The genocide is almost completed. Most of the potential victims of the regime have either been killed or have since fled”

This was at the time when the Security Council was discussing sending a larger peacekeeping force to Rwanda with a broader mandate to protect civilians, according to many political analysts, the RPF feared that the force might interfere with its goal of military victory.

Mr. Gerlad Gahima therefore is not only counter arguing, but is defending his collective role and ugly past in the Genocide against the Tutsis and his abuse of power after the genocide in the Rwanda legal system. For Instance he ordered all the Ministry of Justice (MINIJUST) vehicles to be taken to one of the Garages owned by  Muhamed near Kinamba,  could he tell the Rwandan people and clear on this matter? Again, the fall of BAKAR Bank and the subsequent fleeing of its Managing Director, Mr Valence Kajeguhakwa, was the work of Mr. Gahima Gerald

Similarly, the storey magnificent building, adjacent to his former office as the prosecutor general, how did he own it?  The loans from many Banks were he even assigned his mother an old woman for more than 70 FRW Million, was unearthed by the Rwanda authorities. The abuse of power extended to the judiciary, he once went to the High Court single handedly with cuffs   arresting judges, and many flying through windows.

Why can’t Mr. Gahima be realistic, if the figures are wrong, and lets us assume that they are wrong why, can’t the Rwandan government come up with the real figures? Or with immediate effect create a commission of Inquiry as it had done, on the BBC, or Habyarimana Shooting, or the French Role in the Rwandan Genocide respectively?

Where would the American Professors get the accuracy that Mr. Gahima wants us to believe if they are now blocked to go back to Rwanda and are now Persona no grata in Rwanda?  The Dr Alison Des Forges he is referring to, was also made Persona no grata before she died, why? He is telling people to read his book? Is he an authority on genocide of Rwanda, in which he has an interest? As a lawyer, he knows the maxim of not being a judge in your own cause, indeed, that’s why we have never had an independent inquiry in the death of two heads of state in the political and legal history of the international community.

Therefore, Mr. Gahima should tell the Rwandans his role in the Genocide against the Tutsis and the reckless massacre of many Hutus, he has a responsibility in all the mess of the Rwanda politics since RPF took power, it is his confession and ability to make himself a new man that many Rwandans want, not his rhetoric that he is a saint and Kagame is the devil.