INTRODUCTION

In Rwanda: Death, Despair and Defiance, African Rights (1994) described the horrific cruelties against and killings of Tutsi and moderate Hutu by extremist Hutu over a period of a few months only (see also Ruvebana, this volume). In 1994, the beautiful country of Rwanda – also known as the country of one thousand hills – was engulfed by one of the most eff ective and most public genocides of all time. with in 100 days, from April 7 to July 18, about 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu were brutally murdered by extremist Hutu, including their neighbours, friends and acquaintances. In those 100 days, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 women and girls, but also men, were raped and experienced other forms of sexual violence. As a 1996 United Nations report observed, “rape was the rule and its absence the exception”. For many survivors, rape and other forms of sexual violence, but also the resulting HIV infection, babies born from rape, and stigmatization and isolation by their family and community members, constitute the ultimate violation of their human rights. In addition, the genocide left hundreds of thousand children orphaned and a similar large number of survivors lost their husband, wife and/or child(ren). Many lost their houses and other possessions. The country's economy, its judicial institutions and social services were completely destroyed. Over 1 million people were involved in the genocide and survivors and perpetrators are now again living side by side. Slowly but withstrong determination, the country is recovering from its horrific past. Programs of reparation and reconciliation, national and local, have been developed, and (tradition-inspired) justice mechanisms put in place.

Many instances of mass atrocities and in many ways similar carnage preceded and followed the period of the Rwandan genocide in different parts of the world.

In the 20th century alone, hundreds of millions fatalities occurred (Rummel 1994), and the scourge of international crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – remains a reality today. Attempting to do justice under the sceptre of such heinous cruelty and unspeakable suffering is a daunting task, withthe enormity of evil blowing up the limits of normally held trials and convictions.

In 2009, the International Victimology Institute Tilburg (INTERVICT/Tilburg University, the Netherlands), in collaboration with Together Against Impunity in the Great Lakes Region (TAI/GLR) (a Rwandan NGO focusing on victims’ rights), The Legal Aid Forum (a platform with member organisations engaged in the provision of legal aid services to indigent and vulnerable groups in Rwanda) and Ibuka (the umbrella organization for genocide survivors organizations in Rwanda), organized a five days international conference in Kigali, Rwanda, on developing victimological approaches applied to international crimes – genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes – with a focus on Africa. A mix of academics and practitioners participated in the conference, composed of a combination of insiders describing the processes they helped establish and guide outsiders with more theoretical expert knowledge on these processes. The speakers came from different academic disciplines and from all over the world. Moreover, several speakers of Rwandan NGOs, universities and governmental organizations were invited who shared their experiences coming from a country in which genocide took place so recently. The valuable input from representatives of NGOs enabled to combine the academic perspective with ref ections from people working on the ground. In addition, the visits to various genocide memorials left an unforgettable impression on the participants and enriched our understanding of the complexities at hand. This book contains the results of the conference in four clusters, which ref ect the conference themes.

The wide range of topics addressed was instrumental in guaranteeing in-depth and constructive discussions on developing victimological approaches to international crimes. Correcting the unsettling observation that one stands a better chance of being tried and judged for killing one human being than for killing 100,000 has been a driving force behind the (international) criminal justice initiatives focusing on international crimes. The establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993, followed a year later by a sister institution for Rwanda (ICTR), signalled the first steps of the global community in addressing these crimes. The move was later replicated in the form of internationalized tribunals, such as those for Sierra Leone, Cambodia, East Timor and Lebanon.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE GENOCIDE AGAINST THE TUTSI

To understand what happened in Rwanda, it is worth mentioning briefly something about the Rwandan history in as far as the preparation of the genocide and its execution are concerned. Before 1994, Rwanda, which is situated immediately south of the Equator, bordering the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi, was the most densely populated African country with more than 7 million inhabitants on only 26,338 square kilometres of land. As written by Melvern, the pre-colonial period was largely a mystery for that its history was recalled only in poems and myths. By that time, Rwanda being a Kingdom, the King owned everything: the land, the cattle and the people (Melvern 2004, 7). After the Berlin conference of 1885, in which the main European powers divided the African continent and Rwanda was given to Germany, Rwanda continued to have its monarchy, which was one of the impressing Kingdoms among other African ones (Des Forges et al. 1999, 47). Germany ruled through that monarchy since the time it installed itself in Rwanda in 1897. In 1917, the League of Nations gave Belgium the mandate to administer Rwanda. In its summary of Rwandan history, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) mentioned that Rwanda was a complex and advanced monarchy. The monarch ruled the country through his official representatives drawn from the Tutsi nobility. Thus, a highly sophisticated political culture emerged which enabled the king to communicate with the people.

Both German and Belgian colonial authorities, if only at the outset as far as the latter are concerned, relied on an elite essentially composed of people who referred to themselves as Tutsi, a choice which, according to Des Forges, was born of racial or even racist considerations. In the minds of the colonizers, the Tutsi looked more like them, because of their height and colour, and were, therefore, more intelligent and better equipped to govern. Unlike Germany's policy of indirect rule, Belgium's policy became direct rule, which eroded the power of the King. His son, Mutara Rudahigwa, replaced him. The Belgian rule was harsh on Hutu and, as Belgian rule consolidated, hundreds of thousands of Hutu peasants fl ed the country to neighbouring Uganda to become migrant labourers (Melvern 2004, 10).

Introduction

Since the beginning of the 1990s, the institution of the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities (the ‘High Commissioner’) has acquired a considerable prestige in the area of conflict prevention. Even though the High Commissioner is primarily, or even exclusively, aiming at the prevention of conflicts relating to national minority issues, it is obvious that a major tool for the High Commissioner to achieve his aims is monitoring and promoting a proper implementation of minority rights. Nevertheless, the security-oriented perspective of the High Commissioner cannot be overlooked, as it implies that he is – according to his mandate at least – only active in minority situations where serious tensions exists. It also implies that, as a conflict prevention instrument, the High Commissioner only considers a limited number of minority problems, whereas other minority problems which ‘don't have the potential to develop into a conflict’ fall outside the scope of his mandate.

The purpose of this chapter is to consider how far the High Commissioner has contributed over the years to a further strengthening and development of minority rights standards. Did the activities of the High Commissioner indeed lead to the development of new standards, or did they contribute to a further elaboration or clarification of existing standards? In another study, the first author of this chapter has explored the High Commissioner's role in relation to citizenship issues and concluded that the High Commissioner in the 1990s indeed contributed considerably to developing certain criteria which he used to monitor developments within specific countries.