ICTR to embark on fund-raising for Trust Fund

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) hopes to start fund-raising for its voluntary Trust Fund in the course of this year, according to the Tribunal's spokesman, Kingsley Moghalu.

He told IRIN on Thursday that the fund had received US $8 million since its inception in 1995 (when the ICTR was established) and "these funds are almost finished". "The Trust Fund is different from the regular contributions," he said, adding that the contributions for the fund were made on a voluntary basis.

He explained that the funds were to be used for the outreach programme to Rwanda and for certain programme activities for the Tribunal. The Tribunal hopes to get involved in the sensitisation of organisations and individuals to let them know that they can contribute to the fund.

He noted that whereas the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, based at The Hague, in the Netherlands, had received US $30 million so far for its Trust Fund, the Arusha, Tanzania-based ICTR was lagging behind.

Meanwhile, Simon Bikindi, a well-known Rwandan composer and singer of popular music and director of the performance group Irindiro Ballet, was on Wednesday transferred from The Netherlands to the Tribunal in Arusha to answer charges linking him with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, a statement from ICTR said.

Bikindi is charged with six counts of conspiracy to commit genocide, genocide or in the alternative, complicity in genocide, direct and public incitement to commit genocide and crimes against humanity for murder and persecution, the ICTR said on Thursday.

The accused, who was also an official in the Ministry of Youth and Sports and a member of the ruling political party in 1994, is alleged, inter alia, to have composed and performed songs which mobilised and incited the Interahamwe militia and civilians to kill and destroy Tutsis.

He is also alleged to have participated with others in planning, instigating and preparing the killing of Tutsis, apart from playing a major role in recruiting and training the Interahamwe to commit the crimes, the statement added.

On Wednesday, the former organiser of the youth movement in southern Rwanda commune of Ngoma, in Butare prefecture, Joseph Nzabirinda, pleaded not guilty to four counts charging him with crimes of genocide he allegedly committed in Rwanda in 1994, an ICTR statement said.

Nzabirinda is alleged to have invited Tutsi refugees and others from Ngoma commune to seek refuge at Kabakobwa hill, telling them their safety would be assured there, the statement said. Soon thereafter, soldiers and Interahamwe arrived and launched a massive attack on the Tutsis, resulting in thousands of deaths.

He is also alleged to have hunted down the survivors and killed them, the statement said, adding that the girls and women amongst the survivors were raped before being killed. Nzabirinda himself is accused of raping several Tutsi girls in Sahera sector before they were killed.

Nzabirinda was transferred to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha on 20 March from Brussels, Belgium, where he was arrested on 21 December 2001.