Rwanda pledge on genocide suspects

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwandan officials say the government will hand any army officers suspected of committing crimes against humanity to a U.N. tribunal.

State-run Radio Rwanda said President Paul Kagame gave the pledge to Carla del Ponte, Chief Prosecutor for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Kigali, on Monday.

"We reiterated our determination to co-operate in dealing with suspects of genocide and other crimes against humanity ... specifically, on behalf of the military, we reiterated the same co-operation," the country's Chief Military Prosecutor Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Rwigamba told Radio Rwanda.

The tribunal was created in 1995 by the U.N. Security Council to try the ringleaders of the Rwandan genocide, in which Hutu extremists massacred an estimated 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

But its mandate extends to anyone suspected of committing genocide or crimes against humanity in Rwanda in 1994.

So far the tribunal has confined itself to trying prominent civil and military leaders of the defeated former Hutu government, as well as members of the notorious Interahamwe militia which led the 1994 massacres.

But Hutu opposition organisations and some human rights groups have accused the court of bias for ignoring war crimes committed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front, rebels who rose to power in 1994.

They ended the genocide and now dominate the government.

Late last year Del Ponte said the tribunal might soon issue indictments against Rwandan Tutsis who took revenge in the aftermath of the genocide or while attempting to stop it.

The tribunal has so far indicted 44 suspects and has tried and convicted seven, including the prime minister of the interim Rwandan government which presided over the genocide, Jean Kambanda.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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