UN tribunal official in first visit to Kigali

The new prosecutor for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Hassan Jallow, arrived in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, on Monday for a week-long visit during which he will try to mend relations with the government, which has criticised the UN court as slow and inefficient.

"Jallow is in Rwanda on a courtesy visit on the country's leadership and victims of the [1994] genocide," Zouleka Godji, an ICTR official, told IRIN on Tuesday.

In August, the UN Security Council appointed Jallow, a Gambian, to the UN court based in Arusha, Tanzania. The tribunal was established in 1995 to try the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, which claimed at least 800,000 lives.

Rwandan political analysts described Jallow’s visit as a significant step in mending relations between the tribunal and the Kigali government.

"It looks like he wants to do away with all the trouble that has been existing between government and the tribunal," Emmanuel Kamasa, a political analyst in Kigali, told IRIN on Tuesday. "I think he does not want to be a stranger to the victims of genocide like his predecessor was."

Jallow is scheduled to hold talks with Rwandan President Paul Kagame as well as other senior government officials. He will also hold meetings with genocide survivor organisations and visit genocide memorial sites across the country.

Godji said Jallow would also meet ICTR prosecution investigators. Jallow has already urged ICTR staff to help expedite trials of the alleged masterminds of the genocide. The Rwandan government and human rights organisation have criticised the tribunal's slow pace of trials.

Representatives of genocide survivor organisations welcomed Jallow’s visit saying it would lay the ground for a renewal of cooperation between the tribunal and genocide survivors.

"We will tell him openly about the negatives things that ICTR has been doing," a member of Avega Agahozo, a genocide umbrella organisation that groups together widows of the genocide who requested anonymity, said. "We need to have fair and timely justice — there’s need for the tribunal to understand our queries."

Genocide survivor organisations in Kigali have accused the tribunal of mistreating prosecution witnesses, employing genocide suspects as defence investigations and denounced fee-splitting between the defence lawyers and their clients.

Despite having a total of 16 judges, at least 800 staff members and a budget of nearly $100 million a year, the tribunal has completed only 12 cases so far, with dozens still awaiting trial.

Jallow replaced Swiss-Italian lawyer Carla del Ponte whom Kigali had accused of not cooperating with the government after she decided to pursue the prosecution of war crimes allegedly committed by the current Rwandan army before, during and after the genocide.