FIFTEEN YEARS after the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) referred the Genocide case of Laurent Bucyibaruta to France, and two months after his trial finally commenced at the Cour d’assises de Paris, justice has been served. The former prefet of Gikongoro prefecture during the genocidal regimes of Juvenal Habyarimana and Théodore Sindikubwabo was this week jailed for 20 years after he was found guilty of complicity in genocide and complicity in crimes against genocide. This is the fourth Genocide case to be heard in a French court despite France hosting many indicted Genocide suspects, including another of ICTR referral, Wenceslas Munyeshyaka, the former vicar at Kigali’s Sainte-Famille Catholic Parish. The latest development has fuelled hope that more genocidaires could soon be put to trial in France nearly three decades after the Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Rwanda and France, a close ally of the regimes that planned and carried out the Genocide against the Tutsi, have in recent past moved to mend diplomatic ties, and Bucyibaruta’s trial is seen as part of efforts by former to confront its ugly past in Rwanda. Bucyibaruta’s trial and ruling follow the high profile arrest in France, in May 2020, of Félicien Kabuga, one of the suspected key architects of the Genocide against the Tutsi, 23 years after the ICTR issued his arrest warrant. While some of the key fugitives like Augustin Bizimana, Protais Mpiranya and Phénéas Munyarugarama have been confirmed to have died before facing justice, mostly under false identities, the case of Bucyibaruta and indeed Kabuga’s serve as a reminder to any genocidaire out there that, no matter how long it takes, justice will finally take its course. Genocide is an imprescriptible crime, meaning it does not expire and justice can catch up with perpetrators any time, even in their ripe old age. Regardless of how hard they try to hide, or how much their allies or fellow ideologues try to sanitise them and absolve them of their heinous crimes, they’ll not cheat justice. It’s just a question of when – and as Kabuga and Bucyibaruta’s cases have shown, that day is not far off.
