Jean Kambanda


Jean Kambanda was the prime minister in the caretaker government of Rwanda from the start of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. He is the only head of government to plead guilty to genocide, in the first group of such convictions since the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came into effect in 1951.
Kambanda holds a degree in commercial engineering and began his career as a low-level United Popular BPR banker, rising as a technocrat to become the chair of the bank. At the time of the April 1994 crisis he was vice president of the Butare section of the opposition Republican Democratic Movement.
He was sworn in as prime minister on April 9, 1994 after the president Juvénal Habyarimana and prime minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana, were both assassinated. The opposition MDR had been promised the prime ministerial post in the transitional government established by the Arusha accords, but Kambanda leapfrogged several levels in the party's hierarchy to take the job from the initial choice, Faustin Twagiramungu. He remained in the post for the hundred days of the genocide until July 19, 1994. After leaving office he fled the country.

Criminal responsibility

Kambanda was arrested in Nairobi on July 18, 1997, after a seven-week multinational stakeout and transferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The court accused him of distributing small arms and ammunition in Butare and Gitarama with the knowledge that they would be used to massacre civilians. He was found guilty after pleading guilty, a plea he later rescinded, but which rescission the Court did not accept.
On September 4, 1998, the ICTR condemned Jean Kambanda to life imprisonment for:
Joy Mukanyange, the Rwandan Ambassador to Tanzania was the only Rwandan official who attended the sentencing. She thought it fair that Kambanda received a life sentence and his crimes had been recognized by the international community. She noted that Rwanda was "not looking for revenge".
This verdict was upheld by the ICTR Appeal Chamber on October 19, 2000, and Kambanda is currently jailed in Koulikoro Prison in Mali.

Blaming the army

Although Kambanda pleaded guilty after receiving legal counsel, his lawyer argued that the prime minister was a "puppet" of the military, who had dragged him from his bank, after killing the previous prime minister, to legitimize their control of their country. He asked the ICTR for a sentence of two years because he acted "under duress with limited responsibility".
The court concluded that this defense against a charge of genocide was irrelevant.
In 2006 he testified for the defence of Colonel Theoneste Bagosora in the 'Military 1' trial of senior military leaders. That testimony was the former Prime Minister's first and only public testimony on the 1994 events in Rwanda and in which he said that he had never found a plan to commit genocide. The decisions of the ICTR regarding Kambanda have been subject to criticism.

Responsible but not guilty

In his appeal, Kambanda said that his confession had been in error, due to poor or misunderstood counsel. He said that his objective was not to plead guilty but to tell the truth. According to the ICTR appeal:

Legal legacy

As a head of government convicted by an international court, Kambanda is an important figure, with the verdict against him forming a precedent against the legal principle of State Immunity.