Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Rwanda Hears Last of 1.5 Million Genocide Cases

By SARAH CHILDRESS
The Wall Street Journal
December 24, 2009

Photo: Rwandan Prisoners
Rwanda's Gacaca courts have been criticized for corruption but processed tens of thousands of inmates like the ones above, awaiting trial in 2003.

KIGALI, Rwanda -- Rwanda's community courts are processing the last of more than a million cases tied to the country's 1994 genocide -- closing a vast experiment in local justice that the government hoped would move the country forward but that some human-rights groups have criticized for corruption and mismanagement.

Rwanda's so-called Gacaca courts, which are set to close in February, were the government's solution to addressing crimes connected with the murders of 800,000 ethnic Tutsis as well as some Hutus.

Having jailed some 130,000 suspected assailants following the murders, Rwanda devised a three-tier court system. Suspected architects of the genocide would be sent for trial in Western-style courts in neighboring Tanzania. Rwanda's courts would take on mass murderers and rapists. The rest -- people who had participated in killings, assaults, theft or destruction of property -- would be tried in a network of tribunals based on the country's traditional community courts.

Some 2,200 cases remain out of 1.5 million Rwanda says have been heard since the Gacaca system was officially launched in 2005. According to Rwanda's National Service of Gacaca Jurisdiction, the courts impaneled nearly 170,000 judges. The service estimates 40,000 of those were dismissed because they themselves were implicated in the genocides.

Such numbers highlight the paradox of the courts: The government argued they were the only swift path to justice, but they were overseen by citizens of a country where few can offer an impartial eye. The Gacaca have had other problems, say some human-rights activists and local journalists. Unpaid judges with little legal training have sifted through often-conflicting testimony, without the benefit of forensic evidence, at times meting out life sentences.

These rights groups charge that judges have at times been bribed to sway their rulings, and that some plaintiffs have used genocide charges to strike at opponents with whom they are locked in unrelated disputes, such as over land or inheritance. Some Gacaca cases have been brought against individuals who have criticized the current government, these people say, or who alleged killings by members of the ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, after the genocide.

Human-rights groups say they have heard several such cases of government interference but are reluctant to reveal details for fear of endangering the Rwandans who reported them. "It's maintained a climate where people are scared," said Leslie Haskell, Rwanda researcher for Human Rights Watch.

The spokesman for the national Gacaca service, Denis Bikesha, said the courts were intended to handle genocide cases only, and he wasn't aware of cases of government interference. "If that happened it would be unfair, and I'd be glad to know the cases," he said. "If someone is accused before Gacaca and the person is innocent... people will have to say something about his innocence, and he will be acquitted."

Mr. Bikesha acknowledged that there had been attempts to bribe judges. "With such a big number, you have to get some bad characters," he said, adding that the judges involved were dismissed.

Since the genocide, Rwanda has been largely governed by its Tutsi minority, which makes up about 20% of this tiny east African nation's population of nearly 10 million. Lingering tensions with the majority Hutu could drag Rwanda back into violence.

Rwanda's government said the courts' main objectives -- accelerating prosecutions and allowing survivors to learn what happened to friends and family -- have largely been achieved.

"People provide lectures on how to sort out our problems...They thought our approach was wrong, but they never gave an alternative," said Tharcisse Karugarama, Rwanda's minister for justice. "We can now embark on another chapter of development...The transition is over, 15 years after the genocide."

The grassroots Gacaca system is on display across the country's villages several times each week. Sessions often convene under the shade of trees. Prisoners face a panel of judges, typically a mix of men and women respected in their communities. Modeled on traditional gatherings where locals talked a problem through to its resolution with the goal of restoring local harmony, the sessions are open to all comers. Onlookers are free to speak about the defendants, interrupt or interject.

On a recent session in a local administration building about 20 minutes outside of Kigali, six judges, wearing suits and sashes the colors of the Rwandan flag, read the charges against a 61-year-old defendant. He was accused of driving a car full of Interahamwe, the militia that committed most of the killings, to a church to murder Tutsi who were hiding there. The man, wearing the pink cotton shirt and trousers of Rwandan prisoners, said he was being framed. He added that he himself is Tutsi.

Witnesses seated on the room's low wooden benches offered account after conflicting account of the day a decade and a half earlier. Some swore they had seen the accused behind the wheel. Some said he hadn't been there. More allegations followed -- including that witnesses on both sides had received bribes to tailor their testimonies.

The trial was expected to last another month.

Judges have handed down harsh sentences. Typically, suspects who confess receive reduced sentences. They often return to live among families of those they have killed.

For some Rwandans, the courts offer a kind of catharsis.

Jerome Kabarisa lost so many family members in the genocide that it takes him a moment to tally them on his fingers: 25. Mr. Kabarisa, now 50 years old, was warned to flee by a Hutu friend before the killing began, and spent the genocide in hiding. He never knew what had happened to his relatives until a few years ago, when a neighbor confessed that he had murdered most of Mr. Kabarisa's family. He asked for forgiveness.

The man was paroled in the Gacaca court because the community, including Mr. Kabarisa, agreed that he should be pardoned. "For me, he's a murderer," he said. "But also a hero, to take the time to reveal it to me."

The man returned to the village and lives one house away from Mr. Kabarisa.

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posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 10:22 PM