Emmanuel Ndindabahizi

This period in Rwanda’s history is best associated with the word “genocide”. According to the United Nations, during the three months of 1994 members of one ethnic group, to wit Hutu, had exterminated over 900,000 of their fellow countrymen belonging to another ethnic group (Tutsi). For the last few years the international community has been trying – through a specially set up tribunal – to find out who was responsible for organizing this massive extermination of Tutsi civilians, instigating to the killing of Tutsis, who supplied and distributed weapons for this purpose.

53-year-old Emmanuel Ndindabahizi is not the first top official of Rwanda who has been brought before the Tribunal. A few months ago a former Rwandan minister of information and a bourgmestre (mayor) of one of the Rwandan communities were sentenced in Arusha to long terms in prison for instigating their countrymen to kill innocent civilians and participating in these crimes.

Former finance minister Emmanuel Ndindabahizi was arrested in mid 2001 in Belgium. He was then transferred to the Tribunal’s detention facility in Arusha where he was indicted with genocide, extermination and murder as crimes against humanity.
Ndindabahizi is considered to be responsible for the massacre of Tutsi in Kibuye prefecture where the accused minister was born, spent his childhood and had risen to this government post. From the first week of April through May and into June 1994, he led a campaign of extermination against the civilian population of Tutsi. He personally ordered local administrations to kill Tutsi civilians, distributed weapons to facilitate the killing, and was present during such attacks on Tutsi. Thus, on April 9, 1994, the minister addressed a crowd and publicly called for the killing of a Tutsi female teacher present there. He stated that her payment of cattle to the chief of the local administration should not spare her life. The following day, armed Hutus killed the woman. On May 20, 1994, Ndindabahizi personally distributed machetes to local militiamen, saying: “Many Tutsi pass by here, why aren’t you killing them?”. On another occasion, the minister stated: “Have you killed Tutsi women married to Hutus? ... Go and kill them. – They risk to poison you.” The indictment act gives the names of Tutsi civilians killed by his order.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines incitement to commit genocide as a violation of international law that must be prevented and punished. In September 1998 the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda gave a life sentence to former prime minister Jean Kambanda for crimes against humanity. Among proven facts against Kambanda was his support to Radio Television Libre Mille Collines (RTLM), a radio station whose broadcasts urged people to destroy the civilian Tutsi population. The Rwanda Tribunal concluded that Kambanda’s actions amounted to incitement to commit genocide.