Following the appointment of the new president of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT), activists have renewed call to bring to Rwanda physical archives of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
The IRMCT took over the work of the ICTR, which was set up by the UN Security Council to try masterminds of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
The UN Secretary-General on Monday, June 27, appointed Judge Graciela Gatti Santana of Uruguay, as the new President of the Mechanism, replacing Carmel Agius who has led the court since 2019.
Although the Security Council had suggested to deduct and digitalise the archives to make them accessible by everyone including those in Rwanda, calls remain to have the physical archive transferred to Rwanda.
Currently, the archives are kept at a facility located in Arusha, in Tanzania, the near the former headquarters of ICTR.
Jean Damascene Ndabirora Kalinda an academic specialising in international criminal justice and human rights, says that although the Security Council opted for digitalisation, it is not too late to repatriate the physical archive to Rwanda, saying that there are many reasons to back this push.
"Time solves a lot of things; at one point, we didn't expect the archives to be digitalized for us to have access. The MICT may never stay forever and when time to close it down comes, who knows, may be a decision will be taken to transfer the ICTR archives to Rwanda," Kalinda.
'Protected witnesses are among us'
For long, Rwanda pushed for the transfer of the ICTR archives to Rwanda but the United Nations urge that the reason of not transferring the archives to Rwanda is because they contain full details of protected witnesses who testified during the trial.
These protected witnesses are prosecution witnesses, majority of whom are survivors of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
However, Kalinda, who is also a genocide survivor, disagrees with the UN's position.
"We met with the outgoing MICT president, Agius, on Monday June 27, and tabled our reemphasis our need to have the archives at home. These protected witnesses are among us, in fact, it's us who are protecting them. How best is the UN protecting them than we are?"
"Our history and its records plays a big part in our reconciliation and the ICTR archives are part of our historical records, this is why we need them here," said Kalinda.
The ICTR's archive contains a staggering 4 km of documents. Sitting at the heart of the archive lies the testimony of the witnesses, who formed the main evidence base at the ICTR.
Given tribunal's history, this totals 26,000 hours of testimony, produced by 3,200 witnesses across 6,000 trial days. In addition to this, thousands of exhibits have been entered into the archive, along with the countless records of motions, correspondence, decisions, strategic reports and other administrative documents.
Part of Rwanda's history
Several experts share a position that the archives are part of Rwanda's history and would be more resourceful if they were in Rwanda.
Speaking at a recent online symposium held under the them; 'The Forgotten Tribunal: The Lessons and Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda' the lead prosecutor in the trial of Theoneste Bagosora and his co-accused, Barbara Mulvaney, expressed disappointment that the archives are not in Rwanda.
She believes they would give survivors some closure if they get to know how their family members ended up.
"I feel very strongly that the archives should have been relocated to Rwanda and it's a real a disappointment. This is their history; I mean the kind of detail that we have on the death of the prime minister (Agatha Uwiringiyimana) on what happened on those nights. This is Rwanda's history and it's the people's history. They should own it," Mulvaney said.
She added that, "It's like we have details of where people were killed, where they were if people are searching for them. People would want to know where their families ended up and what happened and things like that we have in the archive. We have detailed information on that and when I left the tribunal, we had binders on every witness we had."
Mulvaney said that after trials were concluded, she spoke to most protected witnesses asking them if they would have their testimonies made public, "most of them said yes. If the defence had access to our protected witnesses, then Rwanda should as well have it. It is time to move the archive to the people who were affected."
The first official spokesperson of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Ernest Sagaga, who is currently the head of Human Rights and Safety Department at the International Federation of Journalists said that if the ICTR wants to leave any legacy, the international community should fund the establishment of the archive in Rwanda.
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His ideas are shared by Stephen J. Rapp who was the lead prosecutor in the 'Media Trial' and led prosecution of Charles Taylor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Fundamentally, you're thinking about where the archives should go, they should go to Rwanda and if there are any particular security issues, they should be dealt with appropriately," said Rapp who is a former US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes in the Office of Global Criminal Justice.
Rapp says that currently the MICT has good presidents that can make determinations of where the archives would go.
Although the archives are in the hands of MICT and currently located in Arusha, Tanzania, Andrew Wallis, author and researcher into the 1994 gen ocide against the Tutsi says that traveling a long journey to Arusha can be frustrating yet the archives still remain not easily accessible.
