Rwanda’s application to the ICJ
Today Rwanda applied to the ICJ (BBC news on it here) in a dispute with France over the issuance by French judicial authorities of international arrest warrants against three Rwandan officials (described by the BBC here) and a request to the United Nations Secretary-General that Kagame stand trial at the ICTR. Rwanda contends that the underlying dispute is a report on the 1994 downing of the plane carrying both the Rwandan President Habyarimana and Burundian President Ntaryamira and which was the immediate trigger to the genocide.
This case is part of an ongoing dispute between Kagame’s government in Rwanda and France on the responsibility for complex events surrounding the genocide (and at least in part for the genocide itself). A taste of this debate, which included Rwanda’s cutting of diplomatic ties with France, can be found in this Telegraph article and an IWPR post.
It should be interesting to see how France reponds.
Daniel Graeber
April 26, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
There is a great debate over where the missile came from that downed that airplane. Some reports state it was from a “foreign” source, and allegations range from the CIA to god knows who. This would fit into some sort of branch of containment a la Pinochet and the French response certainly makes the cheese more binding.