Record reward for instigators of Rwanda genocide

The US has said it is starting an "aggressive and targeted" campaign to hunt down those behind the Rwandan genocide, offering…

The US has said it is starting an "aggressive and targeted" campaign to hunt down those behind the Rwandan genocide, offering rewards of up to $5,000,000 for information leading to their arrest.

Pierre-Richard Prosper, US ambassador-at-large on war crimes issues, said he would meet with Democratic Republic of Congo's President Joseph Kabila today to lay the groundwork to take the campaign to that country in the coming months.

Prosper said many of the at-large indictees are the leaders of the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda(ALIR), named by Washington as a terrorist group, which is fighting the government in Kigali from bases within Congo.

The campaign's first target is Felicien Kabuga, a wealthy businessman accused of funding the 1994 genocide in which Hutu extremists killed around 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

READ MORE

Kabuga is accused of buying machetes and hoes to be used to hack people to death and of fuelling ethnic hatred by paying for radio broadcasts dedicated to "Hutu Power".

The maximum reward given to date has been $2,000,000.

Rwanda's Tutsi-led government has complained that the international community has worked far harder to arrest alleged war criminals in the Balkans and other regions than in Rwanda.