Two days ago, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, or ICTR, sent a Note Verbale to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation of the Government of Rwanda, objecting to the incarceration and prosecution of Professor C. Peter Erlinder, a law school professor at William Mitchell and a defense attorney representing several individuals facing charges at the ICTR.
Professor Erlinder is being charged with the crime of genocide denail. Specifically, he was arrested on May 28, 2010 in Rwanda. On June 6, 2010, the High Court of Gasabo ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support Erlinder's detention. In addition to speeches made and conferences attended by Professor Erlinder, the court and prosecution referenced conduct and statements made during Erlinder's defense trials at the ICTR. This is almost certainly what caused the ICTR to issue a formal request for his release, and even Secretary of State Hillary Clinton weighed in
According to an Associated Press account, Clinton said she understood "the anxiety of the Rwandan leadership over what they view as genocide denial or genocide rejectionism."
But she was also quoted as saying "We really don't want to see Rwanda undermine its own remarkable progress by beginning to move away from a lot of the very positive actions that undergirded its development so effectively."
Though she didn’t refer by name to Erlinder, a defense attorney for the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, she is quoted as saying "I think there are ways of dealing with that legitimate concern other than politically acting against opposition figures or lawyers and others."
This latest dispute emerges as relations between Turkey and Israel continue to deteriorate, with renewed calls for both Israel and the United States government to recognize the Armenian genocide. As Mark Arax reported in Salon just yesterday, Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League was all-too willing to deny the Armenian genocide in the interest of political expediency a mere three years ago:
Foxman had just returned from a meeting with Turkish military and government leaders to discuss pressuring Congress, the State Department and President Bush to turn back the genocide resolution once again.
"Our focus is Israel," he explained. "If helping Turkey helps Israel, then that’s what we’re in the business of doing."
But such a bottom line would seem an uncomfortable place for a Jewish leader to be when the question was genocide.
"Was it genocide?" he said. "It was wartime. Things get messy."
"It was wartime" and "[t]hings get messy" is in essence the government of Turkey's response to the Armenian genocide. Perhaps even more revealing, according to Arax, Foxman saw his attempt to compare the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide as an affront, as though the suffering of Jews and Armenians was simply incomparable. Likewise, it is Professor Erlinder's suggestion that Hutus were also targeted that has resulted in a political outcry in defense of his prosecution:
Peter Erlinder has not committed any crime, but rather has been jailed and persecuted for exercising his duties as a defense lawyer at the ICTR -- an environment in which many of his former colleagues on both sides of the cases would attest to the intense nature of these proceedings, and the extraordinary vulnerability and risks faced by those with enough courage to take on unpopular and difficult cases. Part of his work has led him to unearth a number of legal documents from the United Nations and other official organizations, and collect them for review at the website known as the Rwanda Documents Project. Much of this evidence casts doubt on the official story of the 1994 genocide as told by the current authorities, but in no way does Erlinder's research constitute a crime.
Nevertheless, a disgusting backlash has come out against Erlinder, somehow justifying his grotesque imprisonment because these voices disagree with his political opinions. Right here on The Huffington Post, the seemingly well-intentioned genocide survivor Freddy Umutanguha misconstrues the Erlinder case and argues that "every Rwandan I know would place our right to protect our nation's peace and stability ahead of Mr. Erlinder's right to endanger them." But is that really what Erlinder was doing? Of course not. The mere suggestion that Hutus, as well as Tutsis, were systemically slaughtered -- sometimes by the people currently in power -- appears to be a politically inconvenient discussion that Kagame wants to conceal underneath arbitrary laws of the thought police.
Whatever the merits of Erlinder's case, human rights activists have been concerned for some time that the government uses "genocide ideology laws" to silence and intimidate political opposition and dissent. A report in February of this year by Amnesty International highlighted the problem:
A law criminalizing "genocidal ideology," whose terms are vague and ambiguous, was promulgated on 1 October 2008, unduly stifling freedom of expression. The offence is punishable by 10 to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Victoire Ingabire, has regularly been denounced in media close to the government as being "negationist" of the genocide or "divisionist" for public remarks made since her return from exile in January 2010 calling for the prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Hutu by the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
The leader of the Ideal Social Party (PS-Imberakuri, PSI), Bernard Ntaganda, was also called before the Rwandan Senate to answer accusations of genocide ideology in late 2009.
"Rwanda has an obligation to prohibit speech that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" said Tawanda Hondora, "but Rwanda's laws on genocide ideology too often conflate legitimate political dissent with such incitement."
Amnesty International: Intimidation of Rwandan opposition parties must end
Today, the Harvard Law Record had an op-ed by Patrick Karuretwa, a Rwandan attorney studying for two advanced degrees in America. He condemned Western support for Erlinder, arguing that Rwanda was right to prosecute him and that Rwanda was being "used" by "left-wingers...in a bid to attack their own country." While there's nothing in his article to support these allegations, these and other articles raise some troubling questions for Americans as they examine the Rwandan case and genocide denial generally. For decades the American and Israeli governments have muted recognition of the Armenian genocide in the interest of political expediency, while maintaining support for governments that use genocide denial laws to suppress unpopular speech or as political weapons in campaigns against dissidents and opposition parties. In a stunning display of arrogance, the Israeli Knesset even contemplated a measure that would have criminalized recognition of the Palestinian expulsion from Israel in 1948.
It is time for an honest conversation about the uses and abuses of history. If countries that consider themselves proud examples of free inquiry and debate wish to avoid grotesque displays like the Danish cartoon violence and the Iranian Holocaust denial "conference," or politically expedient prosecutions for "gross minimization" of heinous acts in other nations without the same well-established commitment to free speech and open debate, we must reexamine our own cynical use and abuse of history. In the meantime, we can support Representatives McCollum and Ellison in their efforts to pass a resolution calling for Erlinder's release. For more information on how to help, take a look at his university's updates on the situation.