Government condemns OAU genocide report

The Rwandan government last week described as “biased” the recently released report by the International Panel of Eminent Personalities (IPEP) on the country’s 1994 genocide. ‘The EastAfrican’ weekly reported on Monday that Rwanda had condemned the report, which accused its army of “systematic abuse of human rights”, arguing that the findings were biased and that the IPEP did not carry out an independent investigation. “Of serious concern is the fact that the panel did not, apparently, carry out any investigations of its own into the alleged abuses of human rights in Rwanda,” the paper quoted a government statement as saying. The statement accused the IPEP of ignoring UN and Organisation of African Unity (OAU) human rights bodies, whose independence was not “questionable”. IPEP was set up by the OAU in 1998 to investigate the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The body was headed by of former Botswanan President Ketumile Masire.