The unveiling of the memorial stone in Paris by Presidents Paul Kagame and Emmanuel Macron was more than a moment of remembrance. It was a reminder that memory without justice is incomplete. ALSO READ: When the teachers fail the test: The crisis of Western human rights credibility In one hundred days in 1994, more than a million men, women and children were killed in Rwanda for who they were. The world watched. That failure produced a promise, repeated in capitals across the globe: never again would the perpetrators of such a crime find rest. ALSO READ: From reconciliation to partnership: The new chapter in Rwanda–France relations Over the past three decades, several countries have honoured that promise. France, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Canada, Finland and Switzerland have investigated, prosecuted, convicted or extradited suspects of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi found within their borders. The pace has often been slow and the processes imperfect, but the message has been clear: genocide is not a crime that time should erase. ALSO READ: Kagame’s speech at inauguration of Genocide memorial in Paris The United Kingdom remains the exception. The first arrests on British soil date back to 2006. Extradition was refused in 2009. A renewed request, concerning five men, was refused again by the High Court in 2017. In each instance, the court's concern was not that the allegations lacked seriousness, but that the men might not receive a fair trial if returned to Rwanda. That distinction matters. It means the United Kingdom accepted the gravity of the allegations. And having refused extradition, it assumed the responsibility to act itself. It has not. Thirty-two years after the genocide, and 20 years after those first arrests, the result is unchanged: no extradition to Rwanda, and no prosecution in the United Kingdom. The five men, who deny the allegations against them, remain in Britain, living ordinary lives at liberty, in towns and cities that are also home to survivors of the very crime they are accused of. And every survivor already knows the answer the authorities will give this year, and the next: the prosecution is still preparing the cases. Some will point to further arrests by British police, in 2024 and again in 2026, a sign that the number of suspects on British soil extends well beyond the original five. But arrests are not charges, and investigations are not trials. In all these years, not one person in Britain has been charged with a single offence relating to the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Activity is not accountability. Prime Minister Starmer, what is the UK's position? How do you tell genocide survivors in Rwanda, in Britain and across the world that their thirty-two-year cry for justice has been heard? What message does the United Kingdom send to the suspects on its soil, who can now imagine a real possibility of permanent impunity? Does partnership with Rwanda stop at trade and investment, or does it extend to accountability, mutual respect and the rule of law? And there is a harder question Britain must confront. If arrest warrants and extradition requests originating from African states can remain unresolved for decades, what standing do they truly have in the eyes of Western justice? The United Kingdom cannot claim these cases are beyond its legal imagination. It was London that arrested Augusto Pinochet in 1998, and Britain's highest court that ruled a former head of state enjoys no immunity for crimes of this gravity. Britain has gone further and tried such crimes itself: Anthony Sawoniuk for Second World War atrocities, Faryadi Zardad for torture committed in Afghanistan. The Metropolitan Police maintains a specialist war crimes team mandated to investigate genocide. A country once willing to detain a former head of state cannot credibly say it lacks the means to deal with five private residents. Nor can it claim the law stands in the way. Parliament itself removed that obstacle in 2009, extending the jurisdiction of British courts over genocide back to 1991, precisely so that suspects residing in the United Kingdom could be tried. The law was changed seventeen years ago. It has yet to produce a single trial. So, the question is not whether Britain has the institutions or the law. It is whether they will act with urgency when the victims are Rwandan. No one is asking the United Kingdom to abandon due process, or British courts to presume guilt. Allegations must be tested properly, independently and lawfully. But due process cannot become a permanent waiting room, and legal complexity cannot become a shield for inaction, while the accused grow old in comfort. This question carries particular weight under Prime Minister Starmer, who served as Director of Public Prosecutions before entering politics. He understands better than most that delay erodes evidence, exhausts witnesses, corrodes public confidence and wounds the dignity of victims. Nor is the issue new, or politically invented: Linda Melvern and others have documented Britain's relationship with this genocide for decades. The United Kingdom cannot claim ignorance. France's own history with Rwanda has been painful and contested. Yet this very month, Eugène Rwamucyo is back before the Paris court of appeal, the eighth genocide suspect France has put on trial. And that did not happen by itself. For years, survivors and civil society, led by Alain and Dafroza Gauthier's Collectif des Parties Civiles pour le Rwanda, kept lawful, disciplined pressure on courts, politicians and public opinion, and refused to let suspected perpetrators disappear into ordinary life. That example should speak to Rwandans everywhere. Communities in the United Kingdom, Europe, North America and beyond must organise lawfully, engage their elected representatives, support survivor organisations and keep these cases in the public eye. Silence benefits the accused. Delay benefits the accused. Forgetfulness benefits the accused. Rwanda does not raise this question as an adversary. Britain is a partner, in trade, in investment, in development, in the Commonwealth family to which both nations belong. It is precisely because the relationship is strong that this silence is so difficult to understand. Partnership worthy of the name cannot stop at the courtroom door. And let it be said plainly: none of this failure happened on Prime Minister Starmer's watch. The delays span successive British governments of both parties. But all of it can end on his watch. The path forward is one of cooperation, not confrontation. The Prime Minister can make Britain's position clear with three steps, none of which requires new law: a statement to Parliament setting out the status of these cases and a timeline for decisions; proper resourcing for the Metropolitan Police war crimes team; and formal cooperation with Rwanda's Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit, whose work has already supported successful prosecutions in France and Germany. The same partnership that moves goods, capital and students between Kigali and London can move evidence, testimony and justice. The memorial unveiled in Paris honours the victims. The pursuit of justice honours their memory. If the evidence is sufficient, prosecute. If lawful cooperation with Rwanda is possible, pursue it. If genuine obstacles remain, explain them publicly and honestly. What is no longer acceptable is endless delay disguised as process. The time for action was yesterday. The next best time is now. The writer is a political and diplomatic analyst specialising on Africa and countries of the Great Lakes Region.
