I remember an interview I did as a student journalist with a French professor who survived the Rwandan genocide. If one can put human tragedy succinctly, some members of his family did not survive. What I remember most to this day is his hurt at the international community's response. I also remember his anger at Canada for harbouring some of the perpetrators. It was bad enough we allowed it happen, he said, but worse we let it go unpunished.
 
We let it go unpunished until the trial of Desire Munyaneza. Last Thursday, Justice André Denis of Quebec Superior Court sentenced Munyaneza to 25 years in jail with no chance of parole — the harshest sentence possible under the newly-enacted Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. Munyaneza was tried and convicted for his role as a leader of a Hutu militia during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. But why are we trying him in Canada? That's a good question.
 
Well, Munyaneza's case is a test of new act — adopted in June of 2000 to bring Canada in accordance with the Rome statute that established the International Criminal Court. Munyaneza came to Canada in 1997 with a fake Cameroon passport and sought refugee status. His claim was rejected as RCMP evidence linked him to the genocide. But he wasn't deported. When the Act came into effect, and the Canadian government had enough evidence, he was arrested and charged in 2005. His trial lasted two years and cost Canada $1.6-million to prosecute him. But his conviction is a watershed for international law in Canada. We are the first nation to prosecute and convict a resident for war crimes committed in another nation. With this precedent, international legal experts anticipate more cases in the future.
 
Still a bit cynical? Why not just send him to Rwanda or to the International Criminal Court? Well, the question of whether to prosecute crimes under international law is a complex. If we send him back to Rwanda, there is no guarantee he will get a free trial or a trial at all. The Rwandan justice system is still backlogged with cases associated with the genocide and its jails are overflowing. But it is also a matter of principle: Canada wanted to prove, perhaps to survivors like the professor I interviewed, that we are not a safe haven for war criminals, a charge often associated with this country.

This isn't the first time we've tried to prosecute war criminals. Canada used to have a provision under the criminal code where we could charge for international crimes. In the 1990s, Canada tried to prosecute Imre Finta, a WWII era Hungarian police officer, who was allegedly involved in the forced deportation of Hungarian Jews to Nazi concentration camps. He was acquitted by the Supreme Court of Canada largely because it was too hard to try a person for crimes committed 50 years earlier; especially when the case rests on witness testimony.
 
After this decision, the Department of Justice focused on revoking citizenship and deporting alleged war criminals rather than trying them. But even this was problematic — even though a court would find reason to deport them, many alleged war criminals remained in Canada.

An implicit part of this case was to salvage Canada's reputation. It was important to establish that war crimes — whether at home or abroad — are every country's responsibility. Now, we might face some tough questions, such as what to do when the alleged war criminal is a citizen of an ally of Canada’s, such the U.S.
 
We put some of these questions to Jillian Siskind, president of Canadian Lawyers for International Human Rights. She not only followed the Munyaneza case, but worked in the department of justice on war crimes cases and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, drafting the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic.

Do you think it was right to try and sentence Munyaneza in Canada?

Allison Buchan-Terrell is a second-year student in Ryerson’s Master of Journalism program.