The Registrar, Bongani Majola, on September 2, 2014, met Prime Minister Philemon Yang in Yaounde to discuss the end of the work of the tribunal.

The United Nations Under-Secretary General and Registrar of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ICTR, Bongani Majola, says Cameroon’s assistance was crucial in the success of the Arusha, Tanzania-based court that has been trying suspects from the April 1994 Rwandan Genocide.

Speaking in Yaounde yesterday, September 2, 2014, after an audience with the Prime Minister, Head of Government, Philemon Yang, the Registrar said he came to commend Cameroon for being among the few countries that opened its doors to the tribunal when it began work. “I came to see the Prime Minister because we are nearing 20 years of the ICTR. As part of my trip of West Africa, I thought I should stop by in Cameroon to thank the government for its assistance and inform it of our plans to celebrate the tribunal’s 20^th anniversary on November 8, 2014,” Bongani Majola explained.

He said invitations will soon be out and the court would be happy to have Cameroon represented at the event. “We are to finish three more cases this month and will then be left with only one other to be handled in 2015. When we finish this last case by the middle of next year, we will close down the institution,” the UN Under-Secretary General disclosed.

Asked about what will happen after the winding up of the work of the tribunal, he said the UN Security Council in 2010 established the Residual Mechanism to take over the ICTR’s remaining work. This would be to track down and prosecute the three remaining major fugitives from the Rwandan Genocide - Felicien Kabuga, Protais Mpiranya and Augustin Bizamana, the former Defence Minister. The Residual Mechanism will also manage the archives of the tribunal and provide assistance to national prosecuting authorities.

The ICTR indicted 93 suspects, convicted and sentenced more than 75. It has established lessons learnt in prosecuting international crimes, sexual violence in conflicts, and managing witnesses in international tribunals. National courts and other international tribunals are also expected to benefit from the experience.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda was set up to try suspects of the 1994 Rwandan Genocide that targeted the Tutsi minority and moderate Hutus. Though differences between the country’s main ethnic nationalities, the Hutus and Tutsis, had lingered on for long, the downing of the plane carrying Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana, and his Burundi counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira in April 1994, provided the tonic for the start of 100 days of unprecedented bloodshed, which left at least 800,000 people dead.