BY SEGUN JEGEDE
On 4th July 2021, Rwanda will again solemnly mark the 27th anniversary of the end of the genocide of Tutsis in that country. What is known today as the Rwandan genocide was the culmination of years of tension between the incumbent Hutu government and the Tutsi ethnic group. As a result of an artificial ethnic distinction by Belgium, Rwanda’s colonial master, relations between the Hutus and Tutsis had degenerated into one defined by unending violence and hatred following the so-called 1959 “Hutu revolution” during which the Tutsi ruling elite was upended and thousands of Tutsis killed with many more forced into exile in neighbouring countries.
There were subsequent intermittent attempts at a negotiated or forced return of the Tutsis in the diaspora. Having failed to make any impact, the Tutsi military wing, the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), in due course, took up the gauntlet and escalated their discontent into a full blown war in October 1990 by attacking Rwanda from neigbouring Uganda (the refuge of thousands of Tutsi for decades).
The substantial territorial gains swiftly made by the RPF on the battlefield soon compelled the International community to initiate mediation between the antagonists in an effort to prevent a humanitarian disaster in the Great Lakes region. The ensuing marathon peace talks held in Tanzania, resulted in the signing of the Arusha Accords – a power-sharing agreement between Hutus and Tutsis projected to lead to a return of the Tutsis, and ultimately, peace to Rwanda.
Unfortunately, however, the implementation of the Broad Based Transitional Government (BBTG), proposed in the Arusha Accords to put an end to the conflict and foster unity between the warring parties, became a problem as some powerful extremists in the Hutu government stalled and dithered endlessly at the implementation talks in Tanzania. Much to the consternation of the United Nations and the international community, the President of Rwanda, Juvenal Habyarimana, who had been active in the effort to implement the Arusha Accords, was returning from one of the meetings meant to put in place the new government when his plane was shot down by a pair of missiles as it prepared to land in Kigali by yet to be identified assailants on 6 April 1994.
Following the President’s death, Rwanda was shaken to its foundation by an orgy of violence inflicted on it by the powerful Hutu clique that had made the Arusha peace Accords unworkable. Moments after the President’s plane was brought down, as if acting out a script, roadblocks manned by militiamen appeared all over the streets of the capital city of Kigali, while soldiers of the Presidential Guards spilled out of their barracks and started a house-to-house search for Tutsis who were then summarily executed.
By the evening of 7 April, the RPF, which, up till then, had complied with the United Nations monitored ceasefire agreement, was constrained to recommence hostilities after it failed to get the Rwandan army to stop the massacre of Tutsis. With both sides actively locked in an existential battle for the soul of Rwanda, the three-month-old civil war fought simultaneously with the genocide started in earnest.
The main actors in the genocide consisted of soldiers of the Hutu-dominated national army, members of the national police force, alongside the ubiquitous extremist Hutu militias, and ordinary Hutu peasants. They killed, maimed and raped their Tutsi relatives, neighbours, colleagues and friends, oftentimes adopting the most dreadful methods to achieve their objectives. The personalities who escalated the pogrom against the Tutsis included among numerous others: Colonel Theonest Bagosora, widely recognised as the mastermind of the genocide; Jean Kambanda, Prime Minister of the Interim Government; General Bizimungu, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Army; Ministers, Provincial Governors and Mayors; and members of the militia such as Bernard Munyagishari, Omar Serushago and Yusuf Munyakazi.
When the dust of the catastrophe began to settle, following the military victory of the RPF on 4 July 1994, approximately 800,000 persons, the majority of whom were Tutsis, had been slaughtered within just 100 days. The unimaginable human tragedy also included the displacing of about two million people within Rwanda and the flight of over two million others, mostly Hutu civilians, to the neighbouring countries of Zaire, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda.
It is instructive to point out that the Tutsis, like the Jews lost to the Holocaust, were exterminated just because they were Tutsis, and curiously, during the 100 days of the genocide in which the print and electronic media treated the world to shocking details of the massacre in newspapers and on cable TV, no serious attempts were made to stop the carnage, either by the so-called world powers or powerful individuals who were in a position to negotiate with the known masterminds.
“Nigerian politicians and senior government officials have paid scant attention to those lessons and have rather chosen to flirt dangerously with violent templates that could potentially trigger a scenario similar to the Rwandan catastrophe”
It is therefore remarkable that despite the hard lessons thrown up by the Rwandan genocide and the subsequent prosecution and conviction of its masterminds at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Nigerian politicians and senior government officials have paid scant attention to those lessons and have rather chosen to flirt dangerously with violent templates that could potentially trigger a scenario similar to the Rwandan catastrophe.
Like Rwanda, Nigeria has had its fair share of tensions and crises, including a civil war that embedded what many regard as genocide. While one may never know the outcome of the debate as to whether the killing of Igbo civilians during the civil war constituted genocide as defined in the Genocide Convention, there is substantial merit in the argument that were the events of 1966 -1970 to occur today, certain acts attributed to the government and some non-state actors at the time would qualify as genocide under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Rwanda and Nigeria seem to share apocalyptic similarities, despite the difference in size and demographic makeup. Whereas, in pre-genocide Rwanda, perennial chaos and human rights abuses of the gravest kinds had left indelible marks on all sectors of life and only required the killing of the president to ignite the genocide, in Nigeria, the obsessive nurturing of ethnicism for political and economic gains by its leaders has often snowballed into ethnic conflict and large-scale atrocities. Our ceaseless hair-raising flirtation with the cliff edge of a national implosion has often occasioned permutations by political observers that the country was heading for a cataclysmic breakup.
While patriots and diehard unitarists are wont to downplay this perception as hasty and uncharitable, recent events in the country have compelled even the most zealous optimist to have a rethink.
As things stand today, the socio-political health of the country is a legitimate cause for grave concern because unlike previous crises that we had somehow managed to circumnavigate, the unprecedented insecurity that has already cost thousands of lives and the brazen attempt to Fulanize the country have grown from mere problems to veritable behemoths threatening Nigeria’s very existence.
So far, hundreds, if not thousands of people in the South of Nigeria have fallen victim to kidnapping, rape and murder at the hands of Fulani herdsmen in the last couple of years while millions of naira have been paid in ransom. What befuddles the mind is not only the unprecedented scale of these attacks, but their systematic and coordinated execution, leaving no ounce of doubt that they bear official imprimatur.
Verifiable accounts of victims abducted in their farms or vehicles while traveling in many parts of the South establish that young Fulani herders openly carry automatic weapons and even more sophisticated arms stockpiled in camps located in the bushes and forests of Southern Nigeria. From all indications, particularly given the frequency and widespread nature of these violent crimes, there is no shred of doubt that they are perpetrated with the full knowledge of the nation’s law enforcement agents and condoned by them. Conclusive proof of this assertion is that cases reported to the police are rarely investigated and when investigated, not seriously prosecuted.
Initially, the attacks against travelers on Southern roads and farms were thought to be random acts of banditry by misguided herdsmen, but selective silence on the part of the President and senior government officials as the criminal acts became more widespread indicate otherwise. Until recently, the president’s deafening silence on the atrocities of the herdsmen had merely led to speculation as to whether or not he was aware of the sustained attacks carried out by his kinsmen, but there is now significant anecdotal evidence to suggest that the President and senior government officials are aware of the gruesome attacks of the militarized herdsmen against innocent Southerners, but had merely chosen to ignore the clamour to call the rampaging herdsmen to order.
Nigerian politicians and senior government officials are well advised that though there is largely domestic inaction against hate speech and incitement to genocide, the Rome Statute, enacted to end impunity for the most serious crimes of international concern views direct and public incitement to genocide as a mode of participation attracting serious penal consequences for offenders. Moreover, Article 19 of the International Covenant for Civil Political Rights while protecting freedom of expression, also prohibits “propaganda for war” and states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
Before concluding, it is fitting to entreat the chief law officer of the Federation, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to take more responsibility at a time like this to keep the President, Ministers and senior government officials in line by letting them know that hate speech and incitement to genocide are prohibited in international law because of the grave danger it poses to society and that incitement remains dangerous even if it does not lead to actual genocide, i.e., the destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
It is also a no-brainer that Fulanisation of Nigeria by means of a jihad, successful or not, would entail unspeakable acts of violence constituting the elements of genocide and crimes against humanity. For all of these, there will be consequences – for the arms-bearing foot soldiers and the masterminds remotely directing the carnage from the comfort of their homes.
Finally, as we remember the over 800,000 victims of the Rwandan genocide who paid the supreme price for the unbridled hatred nurtured by a false ethnic distinction initiated and promoted by the colonialists, let all politicians, senior government officials and other stakeholders reflect on the catastrophic effect a genocide inducing ‘jihad’ or another civil war would have on present and future generations of Nigerians.
Segun Jegede is a legal practitioner and former Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
So far, hundreds, if not thousands of people in the South of Nigeria have fallen victim to kidnapping, rape and murder at the hands of Fulani herdsmen in the last couple of years while millions of naira have been paid in ransom. What befuddles the mind is not only the unprecedented scale of these attacks, but their systematic and coordinated execution, leaving no ounce of doubt that they bear official imprimatur.
Verifiable accounts of victims abducted in their farms or vehicles while traveling in many parts of the South establish that young Fulani herders openly carry automatic weapons and even more sophisticated arms stockpiled in camps located in the bushes and forests of Southern Nigeria. From all indications, particularly given the frequency and widespread nature of these violent crimes, there is no shred of doubt that they are perpetrated with the full knowledge of the nation’s law enforcement agents and condoned by them. Conclusive proof of this assertion is that cases reported to the police are rarely investigated and when investigated, not seriously prosecuted.
Initially, the attacks against travelers on Southern roads and farms were thought to be random acts of banditry by misguided herdsmen, but selective silence on the part of the President and senior government officials as the criminal acts became more widespread indicate otherwise. Until recently, the president’s deafening silence on the atrocities of the herdsmen had merely led to speculation as to whether or not he was aware of the sustained attacks carried out by his kinsmen, but there is now significant anecdotal evidence to suggest that the President and senior government officials are aware of the gruesome attacks of the militarized herdsmen against innocent Southerners, but had merely chosen to ignore the clamour to call the rampaging herdsmen to order.
Nigerian politicians and senior government officials are well advised that though there is largely domestic inaction against hate speech and incitement to genocide, the Rome Statute, enacted to end impunity for the most serious crimes of international concern views direct and public incitement to genocide as a mode of participation attracting serious penal consequences for offenders. Moreover, Article 19 of the International Covenant for Civil Political Rights while protecting freedom of expression, also prohibits “propaganda for war” and states that “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.”
Before concluding, it is fitting to entreat the chief law officer of the Federation, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice to take more responsibility at a time like this to keep the President, Ministers and senior government officials in line by letting them know that hate speech and incitement to genocide are prohibited in international law because of the grave danger it poses to society and that incitement remains dangerous even if it does not lead to actual genocide, i.e., the destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part.
It is also a no-brainer that Fulanisation of Nigeria by means of a jihad, successful or not, would entail unspeakable acts of violence constituting the elements of genocide and crimes against humanity. For all of these, there will be consequences – for the arms-bearing foot soldiers and the masterminds remotely directing the carnage from the comfort of their homes.
Finally, as we remember the over 800,000 victims of the Rwandan genocide who paid the supreme price for the unbridled hatred nurtured by a false ethnic distinction initiated and promoted by the colonialists, let all politicians, senior government officials and other stakeholders reflect on the catastrophic effect a genocide inducing ‘jihad’ or another civil war would have on present and future generations of Nigerians.
•Segun Jegede is a legal practitioner and former Prosecutor at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
