ID

142608

Etiquetas

PGOV, PREL, PHUM, KLIG, KJUS, OFDP, SP, RW

Fecha

2008-02-22 14:28:00

RefID

08MADRID201

Origen

Embassy Madrid

Clasificación

CONFIDENTIAL

Destino

08KIGALI107

08MADRID201

Encabezado

VZCZCXRO4844

PP RUEHAG RUEHROV

DE RUEHMD #0201/01 0531428

ZNY CCCCC ZZH

P 221428Z FEB 08

FM AMEMBASSY MADRID

TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4321

INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

RUEHLGB/AMEMBASSY KIGALI PRIORITY 0016

RUEHNR/AMEMBASSY NAIROBI PRIORITY 0092

RUEHDR/AMEMBASSY DAR ES SALAAM PRIORITY 0117

RUEHJB/AMEMBASSY BUJUMBURA PRIORITY 0001

RUEHKI/AMEMBASSY KINSHASA PRIORITY 0027

RUEHLA/AMCONSUL BARCELONA PRIORITY 3320

RUEHGV/USMISSION GENEVA PRIORITY 0872

RUEHRN/USMISSION UN ROME PRIORITY 0002

RUEHUNV/USMISSION UNVIE VIENNA PRIORITY 0072

RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 0414

Contenido

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 MADRID 000201

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

@ELIMINADO@

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/22/2018

TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, KLIG, KJUS, OFDP, SP, RW

SUBJECT: RWANDA/SPAIN: INTL ARREST ORDERS IN WORKS, NOT YET

DELIVERED

REF: KIGALI 107

MADRID 00000201 001.2 OF 003

Classified By: DCM Hugo Llorens for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

1. (C) SUMMARY: Post agrees with ref A assessment regarding

the February 7 indictments issued by Spanish National Court

Judge Fernando Andreu of 40 Rwandan military officials on

charges of genocide. The overall implication of the

indictment is that Tutsi leadership, including President

Kagame, were responsible for provoking the genocide,

beginning with cross-border actions from Uganda against the

GOR in October 1990, and subsequently conducting a

"counter-genocide" that left more Hutus dead than Tutsis in

the original genocide. The indictment identifies Rwandan

Lieutenant Colonel Rugumya Gacinya as the current Rwandan

Defense Attache to the U.S. and assigns to him responsibility

for four massacres and participation in the assassination of

a Spanish priest. Consular LES legal advisor notes that

Judge Andreu's investigation has been underway for two years,

including interviews with witnesses who claim direct

knowledge of events, including former GOR officials,

journalists, and a former U.S. Representative. Interpol told

LES that Rwanda could elect to challenge any Interpol

warrants requested by Spain as politically motivated, which

would trigger an internal review by Interpol. Legatt has

made an inquiry with Interpol but has not heard back. MFA

contacts have indicated that the judiciary has issued

international arrest orders, that Interpol-Spain has not yet

received a request for red notices due to a bureaucratic

delay, but that it should within a matter of days. The GOS

had relayed to the GOR that the judicial process was not

reflective of Spanish foreign policy, nor did the GOS endorse

or have prior consultation on the indictments. END SUMMARY.

2. (U) Judge Fernando Andreu of the Spanish National Court

filed a 182-page indictment charging 40 Rwandan officials

with genocide, among other offenses, on February 6, 2008.

While the indictment names President Kagame as one of those

responsible for the genocide, it does not indict him, as the

Court recognizes the immunity of heads of state. However,

the indictment names Lieutenant Colonel Rugumya Gacinya as

the current Rwandan Defense Attache in Washington and does

not recognize any immunity from prosecution he may currently

enjoy due to his diplomatic status. Gacinya is accused of

responsibility for the following: the Nyacyonga Field

massacre in mid-April 1994; the massacre of civilian

populations in the towns of Ngarama, Nyagahita and Kigasa;

and the June 10, 2000 assassination of Spanish citizen and

Catholic priest Isidro Uzcudun in Mugina. The indictment

alleges that Uzcudun was murdered because of his testimony

about massacres of Hutu populations in and around Mugina.

//PREAMBLE//

3. (U) The indictment begins as follows: (Embassy informal

translation) "In the course of this investigation up to the

present, rational and well-founded evidence has come to light

that, beginning in October 1990, a highly-armed and

well-organized group with a political-military structure

initiated a series of activities of a criminal nature, first

undertaking these acts from Uganda into the territory of

Rwanda. In its first four years, the group undertook

different organized, systematic actions toward the

elimination of civilian populations, both via the initiation

of hostilities against the Rwandan army and in the carrying

out of terrorist acts of serious magnitude and intensity in

Rwandan territory, principally in the north and center of the

nation, all of this under a structured, stable, and

strategically organized and regimented command. From the

time the group obtained power (in Rwanda) through violence,

it created and developed a regime of terror and a structure

of criminality parallel to the State, dedicated, under a

planned and pre-established design, to kidnapping, torture,

rape of women and children, the carrying out of terrorist

acts (both directly and under the simulated authorship of its

enemies), the imprisonment of thousands of citizens without

MADRID 00000201 002.2 OF 003

judicial process, the selective assassination of persons, the

destruction and systematic elimination of cadavers through

their disposal in unidentified mass graves, mass incineration

of bodies, and dumping of bodies in lakes and rivers,

indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population based

on their ethnicity, seeking the elimination of the ethnic

majority, and finally the carrying out of hostile actions

both in Rwanda and in the neighboring country of Zaire (now

Democratic Republic of Congo), producing indiscriminate,

systematic massacres of refugee populations there and

large-scale acts of pillaging to provide self-financing of

these criminal acts, in addition to enriching its leadership."

//ADDITIONAL DETAILS//

4. (U) The official charges, including genocide, crimes

against humanity, war crimes, conspiracy, and terrorist acts,

are laid out on pages 138-147. The explanation of the

National Courts concurrent jurisdiction to the International

Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is elaborated starting on

page 147. The specific accusations against each of the 40

individuals are on pages 151-178.

5. (U) Pages 96-101 detail the testimony of former U.S.

Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. Page 95 describes a

September 1994 visit by Jean Marie Vianney Ndagijimana to

Washington and New York in which he allegedly was told

separately by Boutros Boutros Ghali and former Assistant

Secretary for African Affairs George Moose that if the

SIPDIS

killing of Hutus stopped, then a detailed report (the Gersony

report) about the Tutsi massacre of approximately 30,000

Hutus would be swept under the rug.

6. (U) Judge Andreu's investigation has been underway for

more than two years. The indictment contains testimony from

numerous former GOR officials and anonymous protected

witnesses. The driving force behind this investigation is an

NGO called the International Forum for Truth and Justice in

Great Lakes Africa (aka Veritas Rwanda Forum), headed by

Spanish citizens Juan Carrera and Jordi Palou-Loverdos.

Palou-Loverdos is the legal representative of the nine

Spanish citizens killed in the genocide. The Forum initially

filed a lawsuit with the National Court in 2005. The Forum

held a February 12 demonstration in Brussels to seek EU

activity in executing the indictments. More information on

this NGO can be found in English at

www.veritasrwandaforum.org. The indictment attributes the

deaths of the nine Spanish citizens to several of the 40

indicted individuals, but the indictment does not claim these

deaths as jurisdiction for the charges, nor is the list

confined to those who were involved in the deaths of the

Spanish citizens.

7. (U) The indictment concludes by authorizing the

preparation of arrest warrants to be sent to the National

Police, the Spanish Civil Guard, and INTERPOL, as well as

European Arrest Warrants (Page 181).

//JUDICIARY COMMITTED TO PURSUE ARRESTS//

8. (C) Embassy's LES legal advisor reached out informally to

colleagues at Interpol and the National Prosecutor's office

to inquire as to how and whether Judge Andreu's indictment

would move forward with respect to international extradition

requests and Interpol red notices. The Chief Prosecutor of

the National Court told LES February 15 that Judge Andreu was

committed to following through with prosecution, including

extradition requests for all those named in the indictment

other than those with immunity, although he did not specify

whether this referred to President Kagame or more broadly to

those currently holding diplomatic immunity. The Chief

Prosecutor did not mention Interpol red notices.

9. (C) Interpol told LES that if Spain were to request red

notices against the 40 individuals, the GOR could appeal the

eventual Interpol decision via Article 3 by claiming the

MADRID 00000201 003.2 OF 003

indictments are politically motivated, which would trigger an

internal Interpol review. Separately, LEGATT made an

informal inquiry with Interpol but has not yet heard back.

LEGATT noted that Interpol will have some degree of a right

of first refusal on whether or not to distribute the orders.

//MFA NOT SUPPORTIVE//

10. (C) Antonio Sanchez-Benedito, Spanish Deputy Director

General for Sub-Saharan Africa, told Poloff February 14 that

the GOS had not received prior notification of the

indictments, nor had the Court asked for GOS input.

Sanchez-Benedito noted that Spain is a country with complete

separation between the judiciary and the executive, with a

judiciary that has perhaps the broadest judicial jurisdiction

in the world. He said the National Court made the decision

without any consultation or advance warning of the

government, although the GOS was aware of the investigation.

Sanchez-Benedito said the GOS was not aware of the status of

the order or whether the judiciary would seek Interpol

warrants. He said that the decision of the court has

absolutely nothing to do with the Spanish foreign policy, and

he added that he had conveyed this message to the GOR. Of

the Spanish universal mandate, he said "it is what it is; we

have some judges who are interested in addressing human

rights abuses worldwide." He noted the nine Spaniards who

were killed as a result of the genocide, saying that the GOS

has consistently sought justice for those crimes. But, he

added, there are other fora where this is taking place - the

ICTR in Arusha, the Great Lakes Conference, and the

Tripartite plus mechanism, which the U.S. leads. He said

that the GOS supports these initiativess as the way to create

lasting justice in the region, and the MFA has said as much

to the GOR.

11. (C) On February 22, Sanchez-Benedito repeated his

previous message and added that MFA understood that the court

had issued international arrest orders, although Spain's

Interpol office had not yet received them, due to a

bureaucratic delay on the Spanish side. He added his

understanding that Interpol would receive the international

arrest orders within a couple of days, and he concluded by

repeating that the GOS had communicated to the GOR that it

viewed these developments as unhelpful, but that it did not

have power to intercede with the independent Spanish

judiciary. Finally, Sanchez-Benedito noted President Bush's

recent visit to Rwanda and inquired after whether the issue

had been raised either by President Kagame with POTUS or by

others with Secretary Rice. He said that the GOS would be

very interested to know of any such developments. Poloff

undertook to inquire.

AGUIRRE;"