says CHRIS BLACK
report by CHRISTOPHER JAMES (at The Hague) Posted: March 3, 2005
Mr Black reported on his experiences defending clients at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) at Arusha, Tanzania – the sister tribunal of the ICTY.
The ICTR is a phoney victor's court, just like its Hague equivalent, he explained. It was ostensibly set up to try alleged war criminals from the Rwandan ‘genocide’ of 1994, sparked by the murder of Rwanda’s President by British and US surrogates and their subsequent invasion of the country and overthrow of the government.
This war was really about the control of central Africa – crucially including access to the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo, which is rich in mineral wealth, coveted by the West.
Countless Hutus were killed by RPF forces during the invasion, yet not one single Tutsi has been indicted for war crimes at Arusha.
Mr Black described how, at the ICTR, multiple indictments are commonplace. In addition, indictments are changed mid-way through trials and defendants are convicted of crimes not included in their indictments. All of this is in contravention of norms of law.
Despite being on a United Nations payroll Mr Black has not been paid in over a year. Court investigators are part-time and often face harassment from shady Government figures. Some have been murdered. Witnesses are regularly arrested, detained and threatened by Rwandan police and secret services. Mr Black himself has had threats made against his person by senior Rwandan politicians.
"You can’t defend people under these circumstances – you can’t prepare a defence. "
Hearsay evidence is rife and infamous. Double, triple and quadruple hearsay is common and deemed admissible by the court.
Yet not one single document has been produced to show that genocide was planned, says Black.
"These aren’t trials, these are inquisitorial proceedings in which there’s only one objective and that is to put the accused in prison,” he told delegates.
"Yugoslavia was targeted in Eastern Europe and at the same time the US and Britain targeted Rwanda to take control of central Africa. They used the same techniques, the same strategies.”
Witnesses have admitted to being “scripted” and Mr Black estimates that as many as 80 per cent are prisoners involved in deals to win their freedom.
He described the fate of one client, arrested at the age of 19 in 1997, who has spent the past eight years sharing a cell with over 100 other prisoners. He has never been charged.
As with the Milosevic trial, where the defendant is banned from discussing the role of NATO and that played by politicians such as Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, it is considered ‘irrelevant’ by ICTR judges to raise how the RPF, the UN or Western powers are implicated in the tragedy.
"So the enemy is never considered. There’s a war but the enemy forces are never discussed, never allowed to be mentioned – they are just ghosts on the wall, shadows."
"The [tribunals] are more than Kafka-esque. It’s hard to explain the horror of what’s going on. The prisoners know they’re condemned - they’re intelligent men and women.”
