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Believes that the arrest of Fulgence Kayishema “sends a powerful message” for those who commit such crimes
May 26. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, celebrated this Thursday the arrest in South Africa of Fulgence Kayishema, one of the main defendants for his role in the genocide in 1994 in Rwanda who, after more than two decades in unknown whereabouts.
“Kayishema’s arrest sends a powerful message that those alleged to have committed such crimes cannot evade justice and will eventually be held accountable, even more than a quarter of a century later,” said the UN Secretary General through his spokesman. Stephane Dujarric.
Likewise, he stressed that “ending impunity is essential for peace, security and justice”, while devoting his thoughts to the victims of both the Kayishema crimes and “other serious international crimes”.
Guterres praised the cooperation between the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) and the South African authorities in the context of this arrest, and recalled that all States have the obligation to cooperate with this body in the location, arrest, delivery and transfer of the accused who are at liberty.
The Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (IRMCT) has reported this Thursday that Kayishema was arrested in the city of Paarl in the framework of a joint operation by the body and the South African authorities after more than two decades in unknown whereabouts.
Kayishema was indicted in 2001 for genocide, complicity in genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity for acts in Kivumu commune, Kibuyu prefecture. The man is suspected of murdering more than 2,000 men, women, children and the elderly who had sought refuge in the Nyange Church, including his direct involvement in planning and carrying out the massacre, including obtaining and distributing gasoline to burn the church. with these people inside After this attempt failed, Kayishema and others involved in the massacre used a bulldozer to tear down the church, burying the refugees, who died in the rubble.
During her period on the run, Kayishema used various aliases and false documents to hide her identity, while receiving support from relatives and former members of the Forces Démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (FDLR) — a rebel armed group founded and composed mainly of Hutus responsible for the genocide– and others who support the genocidal ideology of the Hutu Power movement.
Some 800,000 Rwandans, the vast majority of them Tutsi and moderate Hutu, were killed by Hutu extremists over nearly three months in 1994. Mass graves are still being discovered today, especially since convicts who have served their sentences have provided information about the place where they buried or abandoned their victims.
