Government to sues two parties for genocide

The Rwandan government has sued two political parties for involvement in the country’s 1994 genocide, Rwandan radio said on Tuesday. In a suit lodged by the Ministry of Local Government and Social Affairs, the National Republican Movement for Democracy (MRND) and the Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) are accused of violating the 1993 Arusha peace agreement and the 1991 constitution which introduced multipartyism in Rwanda. The ministry said the two parties “organised and participated” in the 1994 genocide, which claimed “more than one million lives”. “This is in the violation of the Arusha peace agreement and the 1991 constitution,” Rwanda radio noted. The MRND party was led the late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, while CDR was a radical, youthful extremist party which supported Habyarimana’s regime. The trial is being held in the absence of representation by the parties concerned. If found guilty, the two parties are likely to be legally banned, the radio announcement said, adding that currently the two parties were illegal under the 17 July 1994 Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) declaration, which forms Rwanda’s fundamental law. Rwandan Foreign Minister Andre Bumaya said the process to have the two parties legally annulled had been going on for some months. “The parties had de facto been suspended,” he told IRIN on Tuesday. “What is being done is to conclude the process legally. It is a legal formality,” he added. Meanwhile, the case has been adjourned until 4 September.