NAME OF MECHANISM

International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda since 1 October 1990

PERIOD OF OPERATION

January 1993 – March 1993

MANDATE AND OPERATIONS

Mandate: The commission was established by a coalition of Rwandan human rights organisations, the Liaison Committee of Associations in Defence of Human Rights in Rwanda (CLADHO), with the participation of several international nongovernmental organisations – Africa Watch, International Federation of Human Rights, Inter-African Union of Human Rights and International Center for Human Rights and Democratic Development. It investigated human rights violations committed by the Rwandan government and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) rebel group between October 1990 and January 1993.

Staff: Ten international commissioners, as well as interpreters and short-term consultants.

RESOURCES

Final Report of the International Commission of Investigation on Human Rights Violations in Rwanda [1993]

RESULTS

The commission investigated attacks on civilians, including 2,000 killings. It found that both government forces and the RPF were responsible for grave human rights violations, and that the government was guilty of acts of genocide. According to the commission, the government’s violations were systematic, massive and committed with deliberate intent against the Tutsi ethnic group and opponents of the Hutu-dominated ruling party, Mouvement Révolutionnaire Nationale pour le Développement (MRND). It noted that authorities at the highest level, including the head of state and his associates, were responsible for organising the grave violations committed by civilians, the Rwandan army and the militias of MRND and Coalition pour la Défense de la République (CDR), an extremist Hutu party.

The commission made a number of recommendations in its final report, including that the MRND’s Interahamwe militia be dissolved and that those of its members responsible for violations be prosecuted. It also recommended that all militias be disbanded and that investigations of mass graves be continued. The Rwandan government responded by issuing a statement of “recognition and regret” over the human rights abuses that had occurred. In April 1994, President Juvénal Habyarimana and Prime Minister Dismas Nsengiyaremye issued a joint statement of acknowledgement and apology and guaranteed a 10-point set of reforms [HRW│1994]. Despite the commission’s recommendations, no prosecutions of crimes it investigated took place [USIP].

BACKGROUND

Many Tutsi, the minority but politically dominant ethnic group in colonial-era Rwanda, were driven from the country in the revolution that led to independence from Belgium in 1962. Following the RPF’s invasion of Rwanda in 1990, the MRND government began attacking civilians it claimed were the rebel group’s accomplices [HRW│1994].

SOURCES

[Human Rights Watch│1994]
[United States Institute of Peace]