The latest Human Rights Watch report on Rwanda, published earlier this month, has come as no surprise to those familiar with its history of criticism of the Rwandan government. The research that HRW conducts is poorly regarded in Rwanda and is questioned by international experts with knowledge of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It should not be forgotten that HRW advocacy contributed to the UK High Court decision not to extradite five genocide suspects living in the UK. When the five men walked from the courtroom in London and were greeted by a jubilant crowd of supporters, a disappointed lawyer with the Crown Prosecution Service described as unfortunate the HRW submissions describing the impossibility of a fair trial in Rwanda. The High Court decision not to extradite the men in 2016 came at a time when the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) was sending detainees for trial in Rwanda, as were the governments of Sweden and Norway. The HRW research was initially dismissed in UK courts. In the first extradition hearing in 2008 at Westminster Magistrates’ Court Judge Anthony Evans had concluded that HRW reports lacked factual scientific basis and relied on anecdotal evidence. The process had seen weeks of testimony. Among those who came to court to try to stop the extradition was Paul Rusesabagina, the supposed hero of the film Hotel Rwanda. He told Judge Evans there was no systematic government-led state-sponsored genocide against the Tutsi in 1994. Evans decided the Rusesabagina testimony was worthless, and his claims about Rwandan justice were wild and exaggerated. HRW has steadfastly supported Rusesabagina over the years, seemingly unaware of a September 19, 2021 story in Le Soir in Brussels by Colette Braeckman. Writing about a police raid on Rusesabagina’s house in Brussels she had described how mobile phones, a computer, and documents were seized. Downloading the material, police found regular amounts of money sent to armed operatives conducting raids into Rwanda, terrorizing and killing citizens. In the French daily Libération, Maria Malagardis wrote of an email in which Rusesabagina had urged the intensification of attacks into Rwanda. HRW is not without its critics. Roelof Haveman, a policy adviser in the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, once accused the organisation as incapable of distinguishing between opinion and fact; it was unaccountable to anyone and more importantly to the people of Rwanda. Professor William Schabas has said that HRW was not neutral. It took positions at a political or policy level, then marshalled the evidence, such as it existed, in order to support its views. Schabas noted how the organization seemed more concerned to prove supposed RPF guilt for human rights abuses, rather than to chase recalcitrant governments who had genocide suspects on their soil. A concern for HRW in this latest report is that Rwanda’s improvements in laws and administrative structures have not been matched in judicial independence and respect for the right to a fair trial. Not everyone agrees. In a speech to the UN Security Council on June 12, 2023, the President of the United Nations International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (UNMICT), Graciela Gatti Santana, assured Council members of Rwanda’s advancements in handling court cases efficiently and effectively, so much so that the ICTR had transferred genocide cases to Rwandan courts along with numerous countries who have also transferred genocide suspects. As in previous reports, there is no mention of the hundreds of genocide suspects at large, some of them wielding an ongoing campaign of genocide denial and an information war against Rwanda. The HRW section on the Rwandan diaspora makes no reference to this. HRW ignores the Hutu Power movement as though it no longer exists, is naively unaware of its fake news and disinformation, and is likely susceptible to influence. The Hutu Power forces were defeated, not destroyed. There is scant information in this report about the leadership of the Forces Démocratiques pour la Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), the remnants of the genocidal forces in the DRC who are committed to completing the genocide and extending it to communities of Rwandans across the region. The anti-Tutsi ideology is broadcast freely in the neighbouring DRC as these Hutu Power military forces sow misery and terror. “The FDLR have become weakened militarily in recent years and are only able to conduct rare attacks into Rwanda”, the HRW report states. There has been thirty years of research, reports, and studies yet HRW finds it impossible to provide a verifiable death toll for the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. It suggests a figure of “more than half a million” victims without any explanation of how this figure is arrived at and simply provides a footnote to explain that an exact figure may never be known. The report claims the killing was triggered by the presidential assassination and was “orchestrated”, betraying no understanding of the racism that had underpinned the genocide, nor the crucial role of hate speech, or its present dangers. Since 1994, Rwanda has passed several laws intended to prevent and punish hate speech of the kind that led to the genocide. HRW has determined these laws are vague and are used to restrict free speech and limit how people talk about the genocide. In its report, HRW uses the words, “divisionism” and “genocide ideology” in inverted commas as though doubting their existence. No examples are provided of how these laws have been supposedly misapplied. One could argue that the criticism of the work of HRW by Judge Evans still applies. The latest report should raise concerns, even among supporters. Basic information is missing from the anonymous informants -- times, dates, and places. Even though the witnesses remain anonymous, there is supporting evidence HRW could have provided. There is an unfortunate history of misunderstanding. The organisation was slow to respond in 1994. Its first letter to the Security Council about an on-going genocide was sent on April 19, nearly two weeks after the genocide against the Tutsi began. Some of the early advocacy was on the predicament of Monique Mujawamariya, a human rights activist with strong ties to HRW. A series of declassified US cables show the US government's concerns for her safety as she tried to escape Rwanda. A memo dated April 20 from the US National Security Council suggests that the newly rescued Mujawamariya might usefully meet with President Bill Clinton. This was to “keep the tragedy in the public eye....and give us the opportunity to make public our continuing concern over the killings”. This myopic focus seems to have set a pattern for HRW work in Rwanda. An attempt to explain a genocide through one individual may have been misplaced when 10,000 people were being killed every day. The story of the failure of HRW over genocide in Rwanda is yet to be told. The author is a seasoned British investigative journalist and researcher. She extensively covered the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi and has written three books on the subject: A People Betrayed, Conspiracy to Murder and her latest one, Conspiracy to Deceive.
