In November 2021 the UN secretly signed an agreement with the Republic of Niger to grant asylum to eight Rwandans who were acquitted by the ICTR or released after serving their prison sentences for genocide related crimes.

The government of Rwanda was neither associated with the negotiations nor informed of the terms of that agreement.

Rwanda first informally learnt about the transfer of those genocidaires to Niger, and then that secret deal was divulged on December 27, 2021, when the government of Niger made a U-turn and declared those people “personae non gratae” for "diplomatic reasons". As a result, the international community's continuous scheme to cocoon genocidaires was made public.

Later, in response to a UN request to suspend the expulsion order, the government of Niger accepted to reverse the decision for 30 days until the January 31, 2022, as the UN and its International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (the Mechanism) continued to search for a solution.

Evidently, of all the possible solutions, the UN will never consider former genocide detainees like all other criminals who no longer have anything to do with the courts. The UN and the genocidaires’ relationship seems destined to be an everlasting union.

As things stand, now, the UN is either trying to persuade Niger to reconsider its decision, or find another host country for these key figures of the past genocidal regime in Rwanda. The UN has equally proposed that its genocidaire protégés stay in Niger for at least one year, with financial assistance from the UN. This latest UN commitment to indulge genocidaires is reminiscent of the international community’s policies that shielded mass murderers and allowed them to escape in 1994.

The international community’s obliviousness and indifference to the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda is a fact that has been established before, including by the UN’s own Independent Inquiry in 1999 which concluded that, “the responsibility for failing to prevent or stop the genocide was a failure of the UN system as a whole.”

The international community had sufficient information that a genocide was happening between April and July 1994 and knew who was responsible for the mass killings. But they sat back and watched. The UN's independent inquiry revealed that UN peacekeepers present in Rwanda at that time, UNAMIR, watched “as people were being slaughtered right before their eyes”.

That did not stop France and the UN from welcoming and protecting representatives of the genocide government. Worse still, some Western “democracies” actively contributed to the genocide, and eventually allowed genocide perpetrators – who were France’s allies – to escape in the face of the RPF's advance.

In the aftermath of the genocide, on the one hand, the international community felt shame at its abject failure to save lives in Rwanda, but at the same time, the UN, human rights NGOs and aid organisations were shamefully giving credence to the claims of the genocide government. They stated that members of the genocidal regime were at risk, and they not only treated them as ordinary refugees, but also allowed them to keep their weapons and continue to function as a government operating first in the Operation Turquoise zone in Rwanda where French troops facilitated genocide and, later, in refugee camps in the former Zaire, now DRC.

According to the Muse Report, on July 11, 1994, France declared that members of the genocidal government would be welcomed in the Turquoise zone “as mere refugees.” Some killers were exfiltrated and evacuated to Western or African countries, while the majority were sheltered with their families, and France, acting under a UN mandate, actively facilitated their safe transit to Zaire by contacting the Zairean army to arrange for their safe passage.

The ex-FAR, and Interahamwe militias entered Zaire with their weapons and continued to wear their uniforms. According to official reports, when the killers poured into Zaire, “they brought with them tons of machine guns, grenades, mortars, and other light weapons.”

They also brought armored cars, field artillery, four operational helicopters and a light fixed wing attack aircraft yet they were welcomed as refugees and victims who had fled to escape the genocide in Rwanda.

The genocidaires "fattened on international aid," as UN agencies and international NGOs continued to operate in the camps in a situation dominated and controlled by mass murderers. Those genocidaires under UN protection boasted a troop strength of 50,000 ex-FAR and Interahamwe in more than a dozen UNHCR camps where they began to regroup and make plans to attack Rwanda and return to power to finish their genocidal agenda.

Furthermore, the UN arms embargoes were never enforced on the genocidaires both during and after the genocide. In addition to what they brought with them, the genocidaires continued to receive arms shipments in the camps. For instance, in late 1994, former president Juvenal Habyarimana’s widow, Agathe Kazinga, accompanied President Mobutu on a trip to China, and she used the opportunity to purchase arms for the ex-FAR and Interahamwe in the camps.

Similarly, the genocidaires in the camps were allowed to recruit combatants and conduct military training exercises, as they planned a “final victory and a definitive solution to Hutu-Tutsi antagonisms”.

Jean Kambanda, ex-Prime Minister of the genocidal government, visited refugee camps in Zaire where he spoke to large crowds, and told them that, “if the government of Kigali stood in the way of a prompt solution, military action would be taken." According to a 1995 Human Rights Watch report, the genocide leadership in Zaire refugee camps "openly threatened to kill all Tutsi who (would) prevent us from returning" and vowed to "wage a war that will be long and full of dead people until the minority Tutsi are finished and completely out of the country."

Ultimately, when the camps were closed in 1996, many genocide masterminds left Zaire for hideouts mainly in Western countries where they were granted refugee status or political asylum, as well as space and support to pursue their genocidal agenda. As such, the FDLR leadership established itself in Germany, and its website was even openly hosted in Germany, before it later found an Italian provider to host it.

It would be years before any of those genocidal killers whom the international community allowed to flee before scattering across Europe, America and Africa, would be brought to justice—and, in fact, more than 27 years later some have never faced justice. Today, there are hundreds of suspected génocidaires living in various countries across the world. The Rwandan Prosecution authority has sent 48 indictments to France, – which is the highest in Europe – followed by Belgium with 40 indictments, the USA was issued with 23 indictments, Netherlands 18, Canada 14 and UK with five.

Sadly, more than 27 years later, the UN approach with regard to Rwandan genocidaires who were released by the ICTR is evidence that the international community has learned no lesson from its failings in 1994.

The same way the international community protected genocidaires in 1994, and allowed them to escape as well as use the refugee camps in the former Zaire, as safe havens, today, in 2022, the UN is negotiating political asylum for them where, once settled and using UN allowances, they will be allowed to resume their sinister denialist activities, and war propaganda against Rwanda.

The same way in 1994 the international community gave credence to unfounded claims of the genocidal killers that RPF would deprive them of their rights, today, the UN gives credence to the baseless claim by the same former key figures of the genocidal regime that their return to Rwanda is unsafe.

Similarly, the same way in the 1990s the international community allowed genocidal forces to use UNHCR refugee camps as bases to launch raids into Rwanda, today, 27 years later, the UN is negotiating political asylum for former dignitaries of the genocidal regime where they will be allowed to link up with their former co-perpetrators and “Rwandan opposition in exile” to conspire against Rwanda.

The UN and Western “democracies” are well aware that those they cocoon and refer to as "Rwandan opposition in exile" are descendants and close family members of former ICTR genocide detainees. The UN and Western countries are also well aware that the political ideology of the so-called "opposition in exile" is no different from the policies that had led Niger’s eight guests to being tried for genocide crimes.

Instead of finding a solution that would prevent that "opposition in exile" from spreading their genocide ideology, the international community is cocooning them, as it did in 1994.

According to Athanase Rutabingwa, a former ICTR advocate, “it is the UN mode of operations [with regard to former ICTR genocide detainees] that needs overhaul.”

Let’s hope that ultimately, common sense shall prevail, and Niger’s U-turn will serve as a notice to the UN that its obliviousness to the genocide against the Tutsi and the tragic irony of its justice system should be stopped.