US backs UN aide accused of war crimes
UNITED NATIONS - The State Department has urged the United Nations to retain a Rwandan general as the second-highest-ranking UN peacekeeper in the Darfur region of Sudan, even though he has been indicted for allegedly committing war crimes in Rwanda during the mid-1990s, according to US and UN officials.
Rwandan Major General Emmanuel Karake Karenzi, the UN deputy force commander in Darfur, was charged by a Spanish magistrate in February with responsibility in the killings of thousands of ethnic Hutus during the mid-1990s.
The Rwandan government says the charges are baseless and has asked the United Nations to renew his contract for another year when it expires in October.
Rwanda's insistence that Karenzi remain in the mission poses a dilemma for the United States as it seeks to ensure support for a faltering UN effort to prevent atrocities in Darfur. Rwanda contributes 3,000 troops to the mission in Darfur - roughly one-third of the current force - and its withdrawal would erode the peacekeepers' ability to function.
In a meeting last week, Jendayi Frazer, the US assistant secretary of state for Africa, urged UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the world body's top peacekeeping official, Jean-Marie Guehenno, to renew Karenzi's contract, according to American and UN officials. Frazer argued that the UN cannot afford to alienate the Rwandans when they are needed in Darfur and may play a role in a future UN mission in Somalia.
But others in the administration believe Karenzi should go. "There are many in the US government who think we should dump the guy," said one American official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "But Assistant Secretary Jendayi Frazer has the final call."
"The message was, 'Listen to the Rwandans,' " the official said.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador to the United Nations, has indicated that the US position was not monolithic but that he lacked instructions from Washington on how to proceed. "Ambassador Khalilzad made it clear to the secretary general that this is [Ban's] decision," said Ric Grenell, the spokesman for the US mission to the United Nations, "and that we will not stand in the way of what the UN thinks is best."
Rwanda's UN ambassador, Joseph Nsengimana, noted that the world body has already offered to renew the contract of the top commander of the UN mission in Darfur, General Martin Luther Agwai of Nigeria, but has not done the same for Karenzi. "We have nominated General Karenzi because he is professionally qualified and the UN has recognized he is a very good official," Nsengimana said. "As the force commander's contract was automatically renewed, we requested to know why Karenzi's was not."
The controversy surrounding Karenzi comes as the United States struggles to press countries to commit more troops to the UN force in Darfur. Fewer than 10,000 peacekeepers are serving in a mission that was originally expected to include 26,000 troops. By most accounts, Karenzi has served with distinction in Darfur.
In 1994, Rwanda's Hutu extremists killed more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in a genocidal campaign that ended after the Tutsi rebel army, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Front, intervened and drove the Hutu-dominated government into eastern Congo. Karenzi, who played a key role in the rebel campaign, is considered a war hero in Rwanda for driving out the genocidal regime.
A Spanish magistrate, D. Fernando Andreu Merelles, issued an indictment in February against 40 Rwandan officials, including Karenzi and Colonel Rugumya John Gacinya, Rwanda's military attache in Washington, for reprisal killings against Hutus in the years after the Patriotic Front seized power. 