Rwanda genocide: former army head Augustin Bizimungu jailed

One of the primary architects of the Rwandan genocide has been sentenced to 30 years in jail for his part in the killing of 800,000 people.

Augustin Bizimungu, a former head of the army, and Augustin Ndindiliyimana, an ex-military police leader, were found guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity by the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) on Tuesday.

Hutu militias carried out the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus between April and June 1994, triggered by the shooting down of a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana. Bizimungu and Ndindiliyimana are two of the most senior figures to be sentenced by the ICTR, set up in Arusha in neighbouring Tanzania to prosecute the ringleaders.

Bizimungu, 59, appeared unmoved when the judge ruled that, as army chief, he had complete control over the soldiers and militia who perpetrated the massacres.

The 56-page indictment said he prepared lists of Tutsis to be "exterminated", referring to them as "cockroaches" – a term notoriously used by those behind the genocide. He failed to stop the rape and sexual abuse of women and girls.

Bizimungu was a regular at the cocktail bar of the Mille Collines hotel when it gave refuge to hundreds of desperate people, a story told in the film Hotel Rwanda.

Its manager, Paul Rusesabagina, plied him with drinks to keep him in check.

"I was with General Bizimungu and got him a drink," Rusesabagina recalled in an interview with the Sunday Times in 2005. "He then told one of his bodyguards, 'Go up there and tell those boys that anyone who kills a person in this hotel, I will kill him – anyone who fires even one shot, I will shoot him.'

"I am not ashamed to say that I have shared a drink with General Bizimungu. If I had not, I could not have saved people. I had to."

The court on Tuesday dismissed Bizimungu's not guilty plea and sentenced him to 30 years in prison.

Martin Ngoga, Rwanda's chief prosecutor, told Reuters: "It is a welcome decision by the ICTR. In its own circumstances that is a big sentence, even if many people would think he deserved the highest."

The court ordered the release of Ndindiliyimana, given his command over the police was limited and because he had consistently supported reconciliation before 1994 and opposed the massacres. He had already spent 11 years in jail following his arrest in Belgium in 2000.

Two other senior army officers were also found guilty of crimes against humanity, in part for their role in an attack that led to the death of up to eight Belgian UN peacekeepers. They were each sentenced to 20 years behind bars.

Bizimungu managed to evade capture for eight years until he was caught with Unita rebels in Angola in 2002. He topped a list of wanted genocide suspects and the US had put a $5m (£3m) bounty on his head. His trial lasted another nine years.

There was a generally positive reaction to the verdicts.

Tim Murithi, head of the transitional justice in Africa programme at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation in Cape Town, said it was "a punitive rebuke to military leaders who are implicated in perpetrating mass atrocities.

"However, the prosecution of a small elite of political and military leaders does not address the immediate issue of how to promote nationwide healing and reconciliation. In some instances across Rwanda the foot-soldiers who were commanded by Bizimungu are still living in the same vicinity as their victims."

Murithi added: "While the prosecution of Bizimungu and other leaders in the security forces is a necessary step in the restoration of stability in Rwanda it must be coupled with a grassroots-driven process of national reconciliation."

Leslie Haskell, a researcher in the African division at Human Rights Watch, said: "We welcome these sentences because they involve two of the most senior figures that were before the ICTR accused of genocide."

A spokesman for Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire, who headed the UN peacekeeping mission during the genocide, said: "General Dallaire never comments on cases before the courts or on sentencing. However, he welcomes the evidence that no crimes against humanity go unpunished as there is no immunity for these crimes."

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