Rwanda: Ex-women's minister guilty of genocide, rape - 24 June 2011

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the genocide

A former Rwandan women's minister has been sentenced to life in prison for her role in the genocide and the rape of Tutsi women and girls.
Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, 65, is the first woman convicted by the UN-backed tribunal for the Rwanda genocide.

She was found guilty, along with her son and four other former officials, after a 10-year trial.

Some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed during the 1994 massacres.

Nyiramasuhuko, who was family affairs and women's development minister, was accused of ordering and assisting in the massacres in her home district of Butare in southern Rwanda.

The prosecution at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) accused her of taking part in the government decision to create militias throughout the country. Their mission was to wipe out the Tutsi population as fast as possible.
 
Militias flown in:
"She has been convicted for genocide and crimes against humanity, including extermination, rape and persecution," ICTR spokesman Danford Mpumilwa told Reuters news agency by telephone from the court.
Along with her son, Arsene Shalom Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s at the time, she was also accused of organising the kidnap and rape of Tutsi women and girls.

Ntahobali, who was in his early 20s at the time of the genocide, was also found guilty and sentenced to life.
Four other local officials got between 25 years and life in prison.

 

Rwanda's genocide:

• 800,000 people killed in 100 days
• Hutu extremists massacred ethnic Tutsi minority and political opponents
• Roadblocks set up where people were identified by their ID papers and slaughtered with machetes
• Ended when Tutsi rebels led by Paul Kagame seized power in Kigali in June 1994
• Many Hutus fled into DR Congo, sparking years of unrest in the region

BBC East Africa correspondent Will Ross says Nyiramasuhuko showed no emotion as she was sentenced.

She was found guilty on seven of the 11 charges she faced.

She had denied all the charges.

The trial opened in 2001, making it the longest held by the ICTR.

Last month, former army chief Augustin Bizimungu and three other former military officers were convicted after a nine-year trial.

The Rwandan government, led by Paul Kagame who ended the genocide, has long complained about the slow pace of justice at the tribunal, based in Arusha, Tanzania.

Butare was once home to a large mix of Hutu and Tutsi people, and there was some resistance there to the orders to carry out the massacres.

The government of which Nyiramasuhuko was a member dismissed the most senior district official - a man who opposed the genocide. He was never seen again.

When he was replaced, the massacres began and militias were flown in from the Rwandan capital Kigali to assist.

Nyiramasuhuko was accused of requesting military assistance to proceed with the massacres in her home commune.

The prosecution says along with her son she often forced people to undress completely before loading them on to trucks and taking them to their deaths.

After the genocide, she fled to neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo (then Zaire), before being arrested in Kenya in 1997, reports the AFP news agency.

Our correspondent says that although she was the only woman on trial for genocide before the ICTR, many other women have been convicted of genocide in Rwandan courts.

Two nuns were found guilty of participating in the genocide by a court in Belgium.
BBC News 

Afghanistan's Karzai: US 'in peace talks with Taliban' - by Paul Wood - 18 June 2011

 

The comments came hours before an attack on a police station, for which the Taliban claimed responsibility.

The US is engaged in talks with the Taliban, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said, in the first high-level confirmation of US involvement.

Mr Karzai said that "foreign military and especially the US itself" were involved in peace talks with the group.
Hours later, suicide bombers attacked a Kabul police station, killing two.

Earlier this month, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said there could be political talks with the Taliban by the end of this year.

The US is due to start withdrawing its 97,000 troops from Afghanistan in July.

It aims to gradually hand over all security operations to Afghan security forces by 2014.
 
Summer of fighting:
"In the course of this year, there have been peace talks with the Taliban and our own countrymen," Mr Karzai told a Kabul news conference on Saturday.

"Peace talks have started with them already and it is going well. Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations."

 

Analysis

Paul Wood BBC News, Kabul

It's always been assumed that the US is reaching out directly to the Taliban, but this is the first high-level official confirmation.

The exact identity of the Americans' negotiating partner is not known whether they are talking to a go-between or to somebody with authority.

Neither is it known what is on the table: The assumption is that these are talks about talks rather than something more substantive.

No one should expect quick results from whatever contacts may be taking place. The prediction from all sides - Nato, the Afghan government and the Taliban itself - is for another summer of hard fighting ahead, and probably many more summers after that.

He gave no details as to whether the discussions involved Taliban officials with US authorities, or a go-between.

Shortly after the announcement, at least two suicide bombers attacked a police station near the financial ministry in the Afghan capital. The Taliban has claimed responsibility.

Mohammad Ayub Salangi, Kabul's police chief, told the BBC two police officers had been killed in the attack, which was ongoing.

''A group of suicide attackers got inside police district one," he said. "We have surrounded the area.''

An interior ministry spokesman said there were four attackers, one of whom blew himself up, two of whom were killed by police, while a fourth was still fighting.

Finance ministry employees said the ministry was under lockdown.

"We can hear sporadic gunshots," one employee told the BBC. "Guards at the front of the ministry have also fired at attackers who wanted to get inside the ministry."

Meanwhile, insurgents attacked two convoys supplying Nato troops in the eastern province of Ghazni, police said: Four Afghan security guards escorting the trucks were reportedly killed by roadside bombs.
 
Sanctions list split:
The Taliban's official position regarding peace talks is that it will only negotiate once international forces leave Afghanistan, and that it will only talk to the Afghan government.

Click to play

Colonel Richard Kemp: "There is no prospect for successful peace talks with the Taliban"

Diplomats have previously spoken of preliminary talks being held by both sides in the continuing conflict.
The US has yet to comment on Mr Karzai's statement.

The UK said it supported "Afghan-led efforts to reconcile and reintegrate members of the insurgency who are prepared to renounce violence, cut links with terrorist groups, and accept the constitution".

"In view of the death of Osama Bin Laden it is time for the Taliban/insurgency to positively engage in the political process," said a statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, said there was currently no prospect for successful peace talks with Taliban.

"The only possibility that could happen is if they as a movement are defeated and there's no prospect of that happening in the near future."

He said the objective of international forces in Afghanistan should be to encourage malleable elements of the Taliban to split away from the hard-core leadership of Mullah Mohammad Omar, thereby weakening the group.

On Friday, the UN split a sanctions blacklist for the Taliban and al-Qaeda, to encourage the Taliban to join reconciliation efforts.

Before now, both organisations have been handled by the same UN sanctions committee.

The UN Security Council said it was sending a signal to the Taliban that now is the time to join the political process.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said in a statement that the move sent "a clear message to the Taliban that there is a future for those who separate from al-Qaeda, renounce violence and abide by the Afghan constitution".

The Taliban ruled Afghanistan before being driven from power by US-backed forces in 2001.
It had sheltered al-Qaeda and its leader Osama Bin Laden.
BBC News