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UNITED NATIONS, Feb 17 (AFP) - UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali recommended Friday that an international tribunal to deal with charges of genocide in Rwanda be headquartered in Tanzania.
In a report to the UN Security Council, Boutros-Ghali said it would not be realistic or appropriate to locate the court in Rwanda and that the Tanzanian capital of Arusha was a better choice.
Boutros-Ghali made the decision following an inquiry made by a technical mission that travelled in December to Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, which later said it preferred not to host the court.
The council had voted on November 8 to create the international tribunal, but it is far from being operational.
The first phase began with the opening of an office in the Rwandan capital of Kigali to gather information from the government and international organizations and design a strategy for investigating allegations.
The court is designed along the same lines as the international tribunal in the Hague to deal with the former Yugoslavia.
The United Nations has said that between 500,000 and one million Rwandans were killed in massacres that followed the death of president Juvenal Habyarimana in a plane crash on April 6.
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AFP AFP
