I have read with keen interest the reaction of Dr. Kambanda on the Article of Dr Theogene Rudasingwa in which they declared the so called Genocide of Hutus, whereas Dr. Kambanda using his own legal reality and fallacy doesn’t accept the Genocide of the Tutsis which was recognized by the international community and the whole world.
I have no doubt in my mind that Drs, Kambanda and Rudasingwa live in their own legal Island. But I will just concentrate on Dr. Kambandas’ argument and I will make some legal points to counter argue the legal misreprestantation of Dr Kambanda on Genocide.
The UN Convention of 1948 on Genocide was precise and crustal clear in simple words and any deviation from this could be interpreted as construction of the intention of the law. As such my argument will be based on the following Article.
ART. 2
Article:2
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in
part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
According to Dr Kambanda, Genocide is synonymous with planning, I will argue that whereas planning might be an element of intent required, however intent is not planning, for example if I harbor hatred for a group of an ethnic group or race, a religious group without an opportunity to exterminate them, if I get an opportunity and exterminate in part or whole any of the above groups , I have already fulfilled all the elements of Article 2, it doesn’t matter whether, I planned it, it’s only the intent that matters, where does therefore Dr. Kambanda read planning as a prerequisite of Genocide? Is he making his own law?
According to Dr. Kambanda, Genocide has a specific period ( at least the starting time). Is my learned colleague really live in his own legal island? What does he really mean by time? Does he mean Genocide is based on starting time?
He further argues using “But test” “How can genocide be triggered by an unplanned event on the side of the perpetrators, making the unplanned event the” but for” the massacres. This is strange at law” He however, fails to differentiate the victims and perpetrators and instead chooses deliberately the words innocent and victim party.
“How can the” but for” be of an innocent and victim party? Honestly, such massacres wouldn’t be called genocide” he asked.
Again he confuses his readers by saying that “Massacres that can properly be called genocide must have been planned long before they happened and those massacres must happen as and when planned”.
This is not true because the 1948 Convention was and is precisely very clear in its Article 2, it does not use the word properly, we cannot have proper genocide and genocide, the only word there is Genocide, where and why does Dr Kambanda decide to choose his own words that were not intended by the legislators of this law.
I would therefore argue that Genocide has been defined under international law and legal precedents have been set by ICTR for Rwandas perspective , the rest could be the wishes of Dr Kambanda or his own opinion which as an academic his lawfully entitled too.
Frank Mwine
Is an International Criminal Law Consult in UK
Email:
[email protected]
