By Nasra
Bishumba, KIGALI Rwanda
Rwanda will
not support 49 of the 160 recommendations made
by the United Nations Human Right Council that will be implemented over the
next five years, the Head of the Ministry of Justice's International Justice
and Judicial Cooperation Department, Providence Umurungi has said.
United Nations Human Right Council
This is the third time Rwanda will participate in the Universal
Periodic Review (UPR), having first made the trip in 2011
and later in 2015.
Under this mechanism, the human rights situation of all 193 UN
Member States is reviewed every four or five years.
The reviews are conducted by the UPR Working Group which consists
of the 47 members of the Council, however, any UN Member State can take
part in the discussion with the reviewed States. Each State review is assisted
by groups of three States who serve as rapporteurs.
Shedding more light on what transpired during the review held in
Geneva, Switzerland last week, Umurungi said that most of the rejected
recommendations were unrealistic and inaccurate as compared to
the reality on the ground.
“For instance, it is surprising to hear some countries recommend
that Rwanda should stop recruiting minors in security forces, something that is
completely irrelevant to us and untrue because the recruitment process in these
institutions is the most open, transparent and clear about the age factor,” she
said.
Umurungi also cited an example of the recommendation regarding sex
tourism of minors which she said is one of the many examples of those that are
concern Rwanda since it does not have such an issue.
She touched on the issues of people disappearances which she
said were raised by different members of the review committee.
However, she explained that there is already an official desk in
the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) that specifically receives and
investigates any reports of missing persons.
It should be noted that Rwanda is not a signatory of the
International Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced
Disappearance.
One other recommendation that Rwanda rejected was the scrapping of transit centers which
the government said are used to temporarily hold children before they are
rehabilitated and reunited with their families.
She said that such recommendations are made by some organisations
like Human Rights Watch based on some information that is mostly inaccurate and
not updated.
“We are not perfect and we do not claim to be. There were
challenges at the beginning but if you look at what these centers are doing in
terms of taking these children off the streets and reuniting them with their
families, and giving them another chance at a normal upbringing, their value is
on record,” she said.
Umurungi shed some light on Rwanda’s stand on the International
Criminal Court (ICC) which she said will remain unchanged based
on the fact that its dispensing of justice provides opportunity to genociders
to use the court to play victims to buy time and to avoid arrest.
She explained that this particular recommendation has been raised
by members for years but added that while all the countries’ objective is to
protect and promote human rights, they also have a right to reject something as
many times as they want.
“We are still a state member of the ICC but one of the reasons why
we are not signatories to their protocol because a genocide fugitive or an NGO
is given the right to sue Rwanda in that court. Unless we are given a guarantee
of any changes, we can perhaps reconsider. For now, it has not happened and it
is not going to happen soon,” she said.
Unlike other thematic treaties which only bind countries that
ratify them, the UPR affects all UN member States since it was adopted through
a General Assembly resolution.
It is also a sort of peer review mechanism (countries reviewing each other) unlike other treaties that are exclusively handled by committees of experts. – The New Times
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