Prosecuting International Crimes in Africa - PULP - University of ...

The contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 69
Rape and sexual violence […] constitute genocide in the same way as any
other act as long as they were committed with the specific intent to destroy, in
whole or in part, a particular group, targeted as such. Indeed rape and sexual
violence certainly constitutes (sic) infliction of serious bodily and mental harm
on the victims and are even […] one of the worst ways of inflict (sic) harm on
the victims as he or she suffers both bodily and mental harm. In light of all the
evidence before it, the Chamber is satisfied that the acts of rape and sexual
violence described above, were committed solely against Tutsi women, many
of whom were subjected to the worst public humiliation, mutilated, and raped
several times, often in the public, in the Bureau Communal premises or in
other public places, and often by more than one assailant. These rapes
resulted in physical and psychological destruction of Tutsi women, their
families and their communities. Sexual violence was an integral part of the
process of destruction, specifically targeting Tutsi women and specifically
contributing to their destruction and to the destruction of the Tutsi group as a
whole.
In relation to the second actus reus of ‘imposing measures intended to
prevent births within a group’, the Chamber held that rape met its
requirements. The Chamber held that rape can lead to the destruction of a
group, in whole or in part, pronouncing that 24
measures intended to prevent births within the group may be physical, but can
also be mental. For instance, rape can be a measure intended to prevent births
when the person raped refuses subsequently to procreate, in the same way a
group can be led, through threats or trauma, not to procreate.
Moreover, the Chamber considered the specific cultural and other
circumstances obtaining in many African societies, including Rwanda,
underlining that indeed in those contexts, rape can be used to destroy a
group. The Chamber held that 25
[i]n patriarchal societies, where membership of a group is determined by the
identity of the father, an example of a measure intended to prevent births
within a group is the case where, during rape, a woman of the said group is
deliberately impregnated by a man of another group, with the intent to have
her give birth to a child who will consequently not belong to its mother’s
group.
In making the above pronouncements, overall, the ICTR provides limited
sources to support its positions, or relies on secondary sources of
international law, other than underscoring the terms of its Statute
construed according to their natural meaning and their context as generally
required under international law. 26
24 Prosecutor v Akeyesu para 508.
25
Prosecutor v Akayesu para 507.
26 Art 31 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) UN Doc A/Conf39/27 289.