The Kambanda case would officially begin only three years after the commitment of his crimes. According to a timeline on the trial, "Jean Kambanda is arrested in Nairobi, Kenya on 18th July 1997 and transferred to Arusha, to the International Penal Court for Rwanda on the same day." Thus would begin a remarkable trial, somewhat unprecedented, but arguably driven by the conditions which would be established by the events of World War II. Kambanda's trial is contextualized by the recent and more distant elements of Rwanda's ethnic and political history.

The notorious ethnic cleansing of Rwanda which occurred in the early 1990's had actually been the long-standing product of decolonization. When the political power vacuum had left the nation to the disposal of leadership by force, Rwanda's 1959 revolution for independence did not just separate it from the authority of its German oppressors. It additionally exiled countless numbers from its...
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