Résumé
Human Rights Watch issues a press release calling on the UN Security Council to maintain UNAMIR forces in Rwanda. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch at the time, said: "The orchestrated campaign of massacres of Rwandan Tutsis, who were targeted by the Rwandan army and armed militias of political parties in view of their extermination for no other reason than their ethnic belonging, constitutes genocide".
Citation
Contact: Kenneth Roth (212) 972-8400
Susan Osnos (212) 972-2257
April 20, 1994
For Immediate Release:
Human Rights Watch today called upon the United Nations Security Council not to withdraw its remaining UNAMIR forces from Rwanda because doing so would condemn the 20,000 to 25,000 Rwandan civilians currently under its immediate protection to certain death. It is estimated that the vast majority of the 9,000 Rwandans in the Amahoro-Stadium, are Tutsi, as are the majority of Rwandans under U.N. protection in other facilities in Kigali. These individuals sought the protection of UN. forces, which accepted that duty.
Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth stated, "The orchestrated campaign ofmass killings of Rwandan Tutsi, who have been singled out by the Rwandan army and armed political party militia for extermination on no grounds other than their ethnicity amounts to genocide. Under the Genocide Convention, the international community has a duty to prevent and punish genocide. Many Tutsi Rwandans have sought United Nations protection in Kigali, rather than pursuing other survival strategies. The United Nations has a moral and legal obligation to maintain at a minimum the force that is in Rwanda at least until those under its protection have been removed to safety. Additionally, the United Nations must address the extermination of Tutsi throughout the country, and take appropriate action to halt the genocide in progress."
Human Rights Watch further called upon the United Nations Security Council to denounce by name those responsible for planning and implementing the mass slaughter of Rwandans, who include the following military authorities: Colonel Bagosora, the military officer in charge during the first days of the massacre; Col. Augustin Bizimungu, now Commander in Chief of the Rwandan Armed Force, and Captain Pasqual Simbikangwa, a military figure implicated in many killings and cases of torture who is reportedly directing the anti-Tutsi killings by the militia from the office of the presidency.
According to Roth, "The violence over the past two weeks in Rwanda is neither anarchy, nor is it the consequence of civil war, or ethnic hatreds. The massacres have been carefully organized by a segment of the Rwandan military, in particular the Presidential Guard and the ruling party militia, who have been organized and armed by the army. They are using a campaign of genocidal proportions against the Rwandan Tutsi, while eliminating both Hutu and Tutsi political opponents as well, to obtain political control of the country. The international community has a duty to name and denounce those responsible for this appalling crime, and to protect their victims."
