(Nairobi) – Human Rights Watch announced today that it is releasing a series of archives highlighting the extraordinary efforts of human rights defenders in Rwanda and abroad, to warn about the planned 1994 genocide and attempt to stop the killings. The documents painfully illustrate leading international actors’ refusal to acknowledge the slaughter of more than half a million people and act to end it.

A significant number of individuals responsible for the genocide, including former high-level government officials and other key figures behind the massacres, have since been brought to justice, and more than a dozen prosecutions of genocide suspects are being conducted in domestic courts across Europe under the principle of universal jurisdiction. And yet, in recent years, several high-level alleged genocide masterminds have died, or, in the case of one alleged planner, been declared unfit to stand trial, highlighting the urgent need to continue the quest to deliver justice.

“The genocide in Rwanda remains a stain on our collective conscience and, 30 years later, lessons can still be drawn from the actions – or lack thereof – of world leaders in the face of ongoing atrocities,” said Tirana Hassan, executive director at Human Rights Watch. “There is an urgent need to expedite the pursuit of justice to ensure that the remaining architects of the genocide are held to account before it is too late.”

Read more: www.hrw.org

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