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The Rwandan government has denounced a report by Human Rights Watch, issued in December 2001, which it alleges is biased in favour of Rwandan rebel groups, The Rwanda News Agency reported.
Rwandan Foreign Affairs Minister Andre Bumaya said it was regrettable that the Human Rights Watch had clearly displayed an intention to legitimise the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALiR), the collective name for rebel forces fighting against the Rwandese government.
The report entitled "Rwanda: Observing the Rules of War?" states that while many commanding officers in ALiR did serve in the former Rwandan army (Forces armees Rwandaises, FAR), the majority of the commanding officers were, in fact, neither part of the FAR nor the Interahamwe militia, and were therefore not implicated in the 1994 genocide which saw the deaths of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
Bumaya, in contrast, maintained that all of the ALiR commanders were on the genocide suspects wanted list of both the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the government of Rwanda. "ALiR is just the ex-FAR and Interahamwe who have cleverly resorted to a new name in order to camouflage their notorious genocidal infamy," RNA quoted him as saying.
Complete HRW item is on www.hrw.org/reports/2001/rwanda2
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions
