Opinion
To genocidaires; you can run, hide but won’t escape justice
![image](webadmin/images/blob.jpg-20220517101606000000.jpg)
You
can run and hide, but eventually you will be caught, if not by the law, by
time. They are dying, one by one, those horrid creatures. And each time one
goes, the world is rid of one more evil and is cleaner and safer, and we can
all breathe more easily.
Normally,
we would not say this of the departed. It sounds callous. We would usually
condole with the bereaved and commend the deceased to the creator and plead
with him to have mercy, forgive him his sins and grant him rest in eternal
peace.
But
that is only for normal, decent people. Not for those who have turned their
back on humanity, denied their own, and ripped out their souls and flung them
where they can never be retrieved. In exchange for what? I don’t know. Perhaps
a feeling of power even if only for a fleeting moment. Or to satiate unnatural
lusts. Or fulfilling terms of a diabolical pact.
For
those you cannot feel grief, only relief that they have met their end and
cannot cause death and pain any more.
I am
talking about the masterminds and executors of the genocide against the Tutsi
in 1994, those convicted and others who continue to hide and evade justice.
They can run and hide but eventually time will catch up with them and then they
will still have to answer for their sins.
Perhaps
it is good for them. Life on the run cannot be fun, even for those who have the
means to buy their safety. Guilt follows them everywhere they go. It rides on
their backs, firmly strapped, and they cannot shake it off. It is in their
heads and hearts and they cannot flush it out. They are not free.
The
other day the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT)
confirmed that Major Protais Mpiranya, Commander of the Presidential Guard
during the genocide, and indicted for his role in it had died. We only learnt
of his death last week, but it turns out it occurred 16 years ago in Zimbabwe
and the man was buried there.
Mpiranya
had been on the run since the defeat of the genocidal government in 1994. It
was always known that he was hiding in Zimbabwe, obviously with the knowledge
and support of some people in high places.
They
must have known about his death too, but chose to keep his passing a secret as
they had done his presence in the country, and probably for the same reasons.
His
death and its announcement is similar to that of another high profile genocidaire, Augustin Bizimana, minister of defence at the time of the genocide. The
IRMCT confirmed his death in May 2020, although he had died in August 2000 in
Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo, and been buried there
Both
men, and others, are gone and there can be few regrets about their passing. Two
stand out. One, they went before answering for their crimes before a court of
law. They kept running and hiding and have in a sense escaped justice. The
other, most lived to a ripe old age, a right they denied their victims.
It
is understood another person indicted for genocide wants to escape justice by
pleading advanced age. Felicien Kabuga, long on the run and only arrested in
May 2020 in Paris, is now 89 and his legal team claim that makes him unfit to
stand trial.
Still,
that cannot be much comfort to them. They cannot run or hide any longer and
must reckon with their maker. For believers that is some consolation. Finally,
they have to face divine justice. And it is certain to be severe because none
of them is known to have repented their actions.
But
even if they think they have been smart, dying the way they do - often alone,
away from family, among strangers, with no identity or an assumed one
(anonymous really) – cannot be exactly the way they wished to go or what they
bargained for. Just desserts some might say and no one will accuse them of
being insensitive or uncharitable.
And
again, genocidaires who have died before accounting for their crimes and their
apologists might think that death has helped them cheat justice. Not quite.
They forget that it has not absolved them either.
Confirmation
of Mpiranya’s death last week is a reminder that many of his kind still walk
free around the world. They have not been arrested and brought to trial. Just
about the same time, there was another reminder that they may run and hide but
eventually will be caught before death snatches them. It was announced that
Major Pierre Claver Karangwa, the organiser of the massacre of Tutsi seeking
sanctuary from marauding genocidaires at Mugina Catholic parish in Kamonyi, had
been arrested in the Netherlands.
Some
countries are doing what everyone should be doing: make sure there is no place
to hide. Others where they are known to be should do the right thing: apprehend
genocidaires (suspects if you will) and bring them to trial, not hide and
shelter them.
Still,
questions remain. Why are they able to hide for so long, sometimes in plain
sight? Is it because there is something they have in common with their
protectors – shared hatred, ideology? Is there perhaps some kind of material
gain or political calculation? Or is it because nobody really cares?
These
and more reasons cannot stop the Grim Reaper coming for them. At the end of it
all, was flight and the crimes that led to it really necessary?
Source: www.newtimes.co.rw