An Outrage! How Is This Justice?

Apparently the tribunal concluded that his participation was not severe enough for a capital punishment.

From what's in the article of CNN you cannot determine what he was charged of exactly and what he was found guilty of. I think we can safely assume that it was found that he did not directly order the attack or had full supervision over it. My guess is that he did not do enough to prevent it from happening, which is bad enough as it is. All this is speculation on my part, I do not have the information at my disposal.

Of course you can also assume that the tribunal is corrupt but that would be pure speculation as well. You seem to know much more about the case though (at least that's the impression I got from your post) so why don't you fill us in some more?

I really don't know what to say. I'd wait for more facts before I make a decision.

Didn't something like that happen when the colonies started to split off from Britain?

Not condoning it, its still atricious

A great man.

One who I agree with.

The next worse thing Europe did after colonizing Africa and/or Asia was leaving those colonies after it was no longer in vogue. (I rather think that it became much less profitable with the advent of modern assault weapons, but I'm a cynic that way)

Sounds like the man had a mental disorder and a strange cat.

I would say that is the manifestation of vanity, but that's personal outlook on life anyway.
I have just read,(last night actually and recommended it to Bomber via PM as a good read), Kurt Vonnegut's Timeqauke and I just found that Kurt mentions him, Schweitzer, in Cat's Cradle. I've read a few of Kurt's books and have decided to read the rest. Cat's Cradle, will be the next. This also reminds me that I intended to change my sig.

Tom

I like Kurt's books, a lot.

A.S. was a man who did what he believed in. He didn't, like most people and I do, just sit around and yack. He dedicated his life to helping people, and I couldn't care less what his reasons were. (We're all vain.)

That is a very manly thing to do, I think. A great manly thing to do.

Nothing new there then

As other people have already commented, we don't know the full extent of his culpability.

Let us also be pragmatic - Rwanada needs to move on from what happened. A large number of previously normal, peaceful people engaged in activities that - to the rest of us who weren't there - seem incomprehensible. If they were to hang everyone who - outside of those insane months - would have been thus sentenced, the country would soon run out of rope.
It is for this reason that they have reconciliation committees - essentially, if you come clean, you get amnesty. Rwanda will never be able to bring everyone to justice for what happened, so they've made the decision to try to get everything in the open, so that they might understand and - hopefully - ensure that it never happens again.
Those of us who live in our - comparatively - safe, secure 'First World' countries can never fully understand what happened, and as such, we should probably refrain from being overly critical.

Succinct I have to give you that one

Why fcuk about?

Oh come on now, ropes can be reused.

I don't believe this was one of those national "reconciliation committees" - from what I've read, this was an International Criminal Tribunal (under UN supervision) and as such, it was their "duty" to determine quilt or innocence.
From the CNN article, they found him guilty of participation in "... genocide by ordering militiamen to set fire to a church and then bulldoze it while 2,000 people were huddled inside." Perhaps the CNN reporter(s) got it wrong, perhaps not.

Those two comments bother me most. Seems, too often in recent years, that when "events" like these mass murders occur, the best defense (the one that seems to work) is to put time and distance between the crime and the trial. It makes it easy for those of us not affected (slaughtered, massacred) to just take the positions you seem to suggest and let the principal perpetrators off with a sever slap on the wrist.

Let's do the math. 15 years for 2,000 murders. That's roughly 1 year for every 133 killed.

It's always easiest to turn a blind eye, or (as you say) just move on.

Or too corrupt, or all of the above.

The reported verdict seems to indicate otherwise, unless a death sentence was "off the table" from the start. That's my guess, knowing the UN's history of being unable or unwilling to dispense any appropriate punishment in these cases.

This is the CNN report (again):

Here's a summary of the Charge Sheet:

African Rights New Publications, Charge Sheet No.2 November 1999

You can google as well as I can Mac, but here's a good discussion of the crime: Genocide

Hope this helps

Encore.

Fcuk hanging this guy. Just douse him with some gasoline, flick a match, and dance like a demon around his burning, writhing body.

15 years.[/disgust]

Yet another quality job by the U.N.

I'm not entirely convinced that more violence is what Rwanda needs right now...

I'm not suggesting that he should be given a slap on the back and told "well done". Far from it.

But a nation that has beens carred by barbaric acts of violence, committed by ordinary people, could probably do without public displays of, er, barbaric violence. Doesn't quite send out the desired message of "don't do this"

Mel Gibson is a piece of hatred filled sh[i][/i]it. Loathsome though he may be, I wouldn't wish him to suffer the indignity of portraying a lousy stinking Taffy.

He was found guilty on two cases of genocide (he was accused of 4). I agree that 15 years is a rather light punishment. As you know I disagree with the death penalty but being put away for life is a punishment I find quite appropriate for a proven case of genocide (let alone two cases of genocide).

Anything could deceive you my think friend.

Reasonable provocation, to see what a dead person looks like

I can possibly accept that for one person, not 2,000 people... actually, depends what they did.

Are you stating local legislation or just your opinion? In case you're living somewhere where this is not legislation (like the UK as an example, I have no idea where ZA is) then just find enough likeminded people and make it the law. If you're not putting your money where your mouth is, then just shut up.

A desire to see what a dead person looks like coupled with short term memory problems, could lead to a lot of corpses

Please allow me to introduce myself, I'm a man of wealth and taste....Pleased to meet you, Hope you guess my name.......