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

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

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

L-EUR FOR PETER OLSON, KAREN JOHNSON
L-LEI FOR PROPP, CLIFTON JOHNSON
L-AN FOR ONA HAHS
THE HAGUE FOR HEATHER SCHILDGE

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