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Rwanda Threatens Darfur Pullout if U.N. Removes General
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A spokesman for Frazer declined to comment.
The United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) is plagued by a shortage of troops, trucks, and vital attack and transport helicopters. Fewer than 10,000 of the 26,000 peacekeepers the mission requires have deployed in the country. Seven U.N. peacekeepers, including five Rwandans, were killed in a July 8 ambush in Darfur.
The case against Karenzi dates back to the country's troubled past. In 1994, Rwandan Hutu extremists linked to the government killed more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus in one of Africa's bloodiest genocides. Kagame's Tutsi-dominated rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, drove the government from power. The Rwandan leadership considers Karenzi, a top commander in the rebel campaign, a war hero who helped end the genocide.
But Karenzi's record has come under scrutiny since his appointment last year as the second-ranking U.N. peacekeeper in Darfur. Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, charged that Rwandan forces under Karenzi's command in a separate conflict, as well as their Ugandan rivals, showed a "blatant disregard for the lives of civilians" during a June 2000 battle in the Congolese town of Kisangani.
U.N. peacekeeping officials last year said they looked into the charges but could not establish whether Karenzi was responsible for war crimes. But the United Nations began pressing this year for Karenzi's departure after a Spanish magistrate, D. Fernando Andreu Merelles, issued an indictment in February against Karenzi and other Rwandan officials for the alleged reprisal killings of ethnic Hutus and several Spanish nationals.
As Rwanda's intelligence chief, Karenzi had command responsibility for a series of political assassinations and massacres, including the "elimination" of Hutu populations in the towns of Nyakinama and Mukingo between 1994 and 1997, according to the indictment.
Karenzi declined to comment.
Staff writer Glenn Kessler in Washington contributed to this report.
