US: Professor accused of Rwanda genocide

Goucher College has suspended a visiting French professor from teaching after the Baltimore institution was presented with charges that he was directly involved in the 1994 genocide in his home country of Rwanda, writes David Moltz for Inside Higher Ed. While some view the charges as credible - he strongly denies them - some human rights officials are dubious, wondering if the professor is really in trouble back home over controversial statements he made questioning whether what took place in Rwanda was a genocide.

Sanford Ungar, Goucher's president, made the announcement last weekend in a letter he sent to professors, students and their parents. He noted that an NBC News producer approached him in December and said he was working on a "series about international war criminals who are living and working in the United States." Then, the producer told a disbelieving Ungar that Leopold Munyakazi, a visiting French professor at Goucher, was one of them. In tow was a Rwandan prosecutor who asserted that his government had eyewitnesses who insisted that Munyakazi had "participated directly" in the 1994 genocide in Rwanda - in which the Hutu majority attacked the Tutsi minority and an estimated 800,000 people died from the violence - though earlier accusations did not suggest he had any involvement in committing genocide.

Munyakazi was invited to teach at Goucher for two semesters via the Scholar Rescue Fund, a programme of the Institute of International Education "that provides fellowships for established scholars whose lives and work are threatened in their home countries".
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site