Keneth Roth who led Human Rights Watch for 29 years until last year is a persona-non-grata at Harvard University. Reason being the anti-Israel campaign he oversaw, which has been seen as sanitizing terrorism. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that Kenneth Roth and HRW paper trail on Rwanda for the last 29 years has an agenda. As a self-proclaimed human rights campaigners, one would naturally be inclined to think that HRW conducts its operations in an impartial manner. The contrary however emerges when it comes the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi and its aftermath. The cases of outright genocide denial are numerous. For the past decades, Roth oversaw constant reports that called judicial proceedings against suspects who themselves admitted to massacring thousands, as “victor’s justice”. As a former legal officer, more or so in the American system, Roth should be aware that prosecuting genocide crimes, remains one of the most challenging endeavors in the current century. There are many socially sensitive options that the authorities in Rwanda have had to weigh; find ways to build a new society or keep vengeance at forefront which would eventually sow future conflict. For many years, Rwandan prisons were crammed full with thousands of people involved in genocide machinery. The survivors, right so, wanted justice. At the same time, millions need a functioning economy to survive. Post Genocide Rwanda had to juggle competing but compelling cases of either delivering retributive or restorative justice. Instead, Kenneth Roth and HRW, in virtually all postings about Rwanda, claimed the Government of Rwanda plays on the psychology of the West by revoking their guilt over their inability to stop the Genocide, in order to get away with state “excesses”. Kenneth Roth promoted a notion called ‘facade of occasional elections’ in Rwanda, telling the world that the country was being run as a one-party state. Roth, a feat he continues even after leaving HRW, is that ‘it is the genocide that has provided the government with a cover for repression’. As if that wasn’t worse enough, Roth did petition the UN court trying known genocide architects, to also prosecute some Rwandan military officers supposedly on account of having committed crimes during the Genocide. The court’s chief prosecutor at the time, Hassan Boubacar Jallow, would have none of it. He wrote a powerful rebuttal, telling HRW that the essence of the struggle against impunity is to ensure accountability, wherever it can be delivered. However, not in the way HRW was advocating. To grow HRW from a small office to a large operation running on hundred-million-dollar budget, Roth ran a sophisticated modus operandi. However, a critique of Henry Kissinger’s treatise on the concept of universal jurisdictions by Roth gives us a clue as to what motivates him. In ‘The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction’ former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger catalogues a list of grievances against this judicial concept. Kissinger talks about the loopholes existent in the system, which Roth trashed. A case in point are hundreds, if not thousands of genocide fugitives still roaming free globally. Their actions, that left a nation almost wiped off the map, have turned into a matter for debate, thanks to people like Roth. Roth and HRW never, at any single point, campaigned for tracking of these people. In disputing Kissinger’s outline of some of the “best approaches” the world can use to battle impunity, Roth’s appears to argue for free reign by the fugitives. While exploiting the loopholes in the international order, at the same time provided cover by the likes of Kenneth Roth, the Genocide fugitives have mutated into political activists and oppositions. The choice of language used by Roth and HRW, is the exact replica used by the FDLR militia on their internet statements. The FDU-Inkingi group operating from Europe, whose public position is that there was double genocide in Rwanda, like all other similar groups, republishes Roth and HRW statements and reports like bible verses. If indeed HRW was a neutral human rights advocate, it would have issued statements distancing itself from the actions of the FDU and so many others. Yet, Harvard University’s world-renowned Kennedy Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School, couldn’t allow Kenneth Roth for a fellowship on credible account of his anti-Semitic action over the years. But has been in no mood to raise the issue of the Genocide against the Tutsi. The Harvard University institution cannot claim not be aware of the literature denouncing Roth and HRW, pointing out the dangerous nature of their narrative on Rwanda. It is laudable that Harvard took a stand against Roth for his anti-Semitic rhetoric. The same should be done by the University of Pennsylvania, which gave Roth a fellowship following the Harvard University refusal. Negation, questioning and denying genocide anywhere should not be tolerated anywhere. The outrage should be universal, not selective.
