One million Rwandans to face killing charges in village courts
/One million Rwandans - an eighth of the country's population - are
expected to be tried for alleged participation in the 1994 genocide, an
official said yesterday. Domitilla Mukantaganzwa, executive secretary
of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, said the trials, which
will be conducted in traditional gacaca village courts, could start
next month in a few areas but they will not get under way throughout
the country until 2006. "Drawing from the experience and figures
accruing from the pilot trials, we estimate a figure slightly above one
million people that are supposed to be tried under the gacaca courts,"
Ms Mukantaganzwa told Reuters in Kigali. The new estimate of one
million indicates the vast scale of the task of bringing to justice
those suspected of participating in the killings of 800,000 Tutsis and
moderate Hutus massacred in Rwanda between April and June 1994. The
traditional courts are preparing to hear accusations against hundreds
of thousands of people who are currently living freely, often beside
neighbours whose relatives they are suspected of killing. [more]
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