Capt Innocent Sagahutu will forever be a convicted genocidaire

In 2015, British Scholar Andrew Wallis published an article in Open Democracy about the plan to deny the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi.

In his introduction, he stated that: “If one inherent certainty of life is that truth is the first casualty of war, another is that after genocide comes denial and revision. The killers, planners, organizers and supporters of genocide will seek to hide the crime, distort its statistics, deflect attention and even rebrand themselves as heroes not villains, saviours not savages.”

Genocide denial is the last phase of genocide. It intends to denounce the victims and sanitize the perpetrators. Recently, Genocide Convict Capt Innocent Sagahutu, one of the eight Rwandans expelled by Niger and who was sentenced to 20 years by the ICTR (a sentence later reduced to 15 years on appeal) was hosted by a new generation of genocide deniers on their social media platforms to twist the truth of what really happened during the 1994 Genocide.

This new breed of Genocide deniers comprises mainly children of perpetrators who fled to Europe and elsewhere around the world when they were young. They were raised with their mothers with a denial narrative about the crimes of their fathers.

In hosting Sagahutu, one of them, Freeman Bikorwa Singirankabo, called him a “hero” and Sagahutu acknowledged.

Bikorwa’s parents, Tangishaka David and Mariane Baziruwiha, are implicated in the of genocide against the Tutsi, in areas of Kigali and present day Rubavu. The involvement of Bikorwa in acts of genocide denial is meant to absolve his parents and others suspected of the crime of genocide.

While in ICTR detention in Arusha, Tanzania, Sagahutu testified that he met with President Juvenal Habyarimana after cutting short his visit in the USA following the RPA invasion on October 1, 1990. He briefed Habyarimana on the situation in the country after which he arranged the security convoy for the president. This shows that Sagahutu who was then second in command of military intelligence  had undisputable influence.

The show hosts ‘promoted’ Sagahutu from Capt to General after serving his sentence as a convicted genocidaire. As Wallis noted, Sagahutu and his descendants in ideology are trying to hide the crime, deflect attention and even rebrand themselves as heroes, not villains, saviours not savages” especially when he talks about his “operation” to evacuate the population to the former Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In Zaire, Sagahutu and his followers were implementing a genocidal plan.

The campaign of denial followed the Interim Government into exile as the genocidal forces fled to DRC. In their camps, a defense strategy was organized by fugitives, with the news of the first trial of Jean Paul Akayesu in 1997, in North Kivu, discussion took place with Belgian lawyers, Luc de Temmerman and Johan Scheers about a common defense.

According to the British Investigative Journalist Linda Melvin, documents later retrieved from the camps in the DRC show Luc de Temmerman warning them that they must not fall into the trap of accepting there had been Genocide against the Tutsi by the Hutu, otherwise it would be impossible for him to plead not guilty on their behalf. The Belgian lawyer recommended that “all Hutu had to understand that if the genocide was confirmed, then it was the end of them as a people”. That is how the genocide denial spread from the camps to the court-rooms of the ICTR.

During the trial of Bernard Ntuyahaga in Belgium, for killing 10 Belgian Peacekeepers, Luc de Temmerman interrupted the witnesses and told them “you are only here for the attention and the cameras".

All Rwandan friends of Luc de Temmerman are genocide fugitives. He is the counsel in Belgium of Agathe Kanziga, widow of President Habyarimana, and strong on his laurels, he was the lawyer for Col Théoneste Bagosora and George Rutaganda, until the Tribunal removed the right for him to litigate in Arusha. 

Even if Capt Sagahutu follows the plan of Luc de Temmerman, will the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) continue to watch Sagahutu committing the crime he was convicted for? Denial is the last stage of genocide.

The mission of IRMCT includes: providing support and protection to victims and witnesses; and supervising enforcement of sentences. The IRMCT is violating its own missions by allowing Sagahutu and others to deny the crime of genocide they were convicted for. The world has rejected them including the countries which host their families.

Today, the rise of social media contributes another weapon to the deniers’ armory. Sagahutu said that ICTR incarcerated the wrong people and the Interahamwe were created by the victims. Sagahutu has not changed, or repented, which questions his early release. He has and shows no remorse at all.

Survivors of the Genocide are conducting mental health awareness campaigns as they are victims of mental health as a result of the genocide. By allowing Sagahutu, who lives under IRMCT budget, to spread his denial narrative, IRMCT is not protecting the victims as its core mandate requires.

To prevent genocide from occurring again, the IRMCT should protect the truth from deniers.

Genocide denial dehumanizes the survivors and the victims.  Genocide denial concerns us all because it undermines justice. Please IRMCT, stop Sagahutu.