NO IMPUNITY FOR THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR RWANDAN GENOCIDE, FEINGOLD SAYS April 26, 2000 WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) introduced a bill which states that individuals wanted by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for human rights abuses during the Rwandan genocide may be included in the State Department's rewards program. "This legislation will send those individuals a clear message - that there is no impunity for genocide, that the world will not forget, and that they cannot evade justice forever. Holding those individuals responsible for the genocide accountable for their actions is the only remaining opportunity for the international community to do the right thing with regard to the events of six years ago," Feingold said. The ICTR was created by the United Nations Security Council in November 1994 to prosecute persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in Rwanda during 1994. Its structure mirrors that of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the ICTY. Under current U.S. law, the Secretary of State can confer with the Attorney General and, through the rewards program that offers incentives to turn in terrorists and other international villains, pay a reward to any individual with information leading to the arrest or conviction in any country of any person who is the subject of an indictment of the ICTY. Similarly, the reward may be made to any individual furnishing information leading to the transfer to or conviction by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. But there is no such provision for the ICTR. Feingold's bill would authorize payment of rewards to individuals with information relating to persons subject to indictment for serious violations of international humanitarian law in Rwanda. This bill would add the masterminds of the Rwandan genocide to the list of individuals the U.S. rewards program is helping to track down. "It is situations like these that feed perceptions of a double-standard in American foreign policy,as if we believe that African lives are somehow less valuable than European ones, and African atrocities are somehow more acceptable," Feingold said. "That perceived double-standard undermines American credibility and casts doubt on our commitment to the values we hold most dear, the values at the very foundation of our national identity." Feingold, the Ranking Member of the Senate Subcommittee on Africa, has long been concerned about the various conflicts that have erupted in the Great Lakes region of Africa since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda when some 800,000 people were killed and a million forced to flee the country. Feingold raised the issue of parity between the ICTY and the ICTR on the Senate floor. In particular, he has pointed out that whereas the ICTY has the authority to prosecute individuals for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed since 1991 through the present, the ICTR's mandate covers only those acts committed within Rwandan borders during 1994. "While the ICTR is not perfect, it has been responsible for the first convictions for the crime of genocide ever to be issued by an international court," Feingold said. "It has been the first international body to recognize rape as a crime of genocide. And knowledgeable observers agree that it has made a great deal of progress since its early days. The United States should assist in these efforts. And the existing law that I propose amending ensures that the State Department and the Department of Justice - not the U.N. - will govern the offering, administration, and payment of rewards. Six years after the Rwandan genocide, six years after the slaughter of 800,000 thousand people, including those indicted by the ICTR in the rewards program is the very least we can do."

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