June 17, 2002
An ancient system of traditional justice will be resurrected in Rwanda this week, when 11,000 village tribunals begin trying some of the 100,000 people detained in overcrowded jails for their alleged role in the 1994 genocide.
This experiment in jurisprudence, unique in its scope -- more than a quarter of a million judges are involved -- is aimed both at clearing a crippling backlog clogging up the courts and prisons, and at delivering a degree of national reconciliation eight years after one of the bloodiest episodes in Africa's history.
Over the course of 100 days in 1994 in Rwanda, up to a million people, according to the government in Kigali, were slaughtered in a systematic campaign to exterminate the small central African country's Tutsi minority population.Many Hutus opposed to the genocide were also killed in the massacres, in which large swathes of the population took part.
More than 100,000 Rwandans facing charges related to the genocide are currently languishing in squalid prisons across the country.The mainstream judicial system has no hope of disposing of these cases any time soon, and the grassroots system known as gacaca (pronounced gachacha) courts -- in which all participants, judges, juries and the accused, come from the same village -- is a unique approach to handling crimes against humanity.
Since they began hearing cases in 1996, Rwandan courts have sentenced 660 people to death and almost 1,800 to life terms, while 2,566 suspects have been acquitted.Executions were carried out on just one occasion, in April 1988, when 22 genocide convicts were put to death.
Other judicial forums dealing with the genocide, notably the UN-mandated International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which sits in Arusha, Tanzania, deal only with key ringleaders.
Since its inception in November 1994, the ICTR has disposed of just nine cases, having handed down life sentences to five Rwandans, jail terms of 25, 15 and 12 years to three others, and one acquittal.On Tuesday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame will officially launch the nationwide revival of gacaca courts.
Confession and repentance are the cornerstones of the system, which takes its name for the Kinyarwanda word for lawn, and many suspects of lesser crimes who admit to their transgressions are likely to win their freedom.
In October, local residents across the country elected juries of "notable persons" to hear evidence and deliver verdicts.
In a first stage starting Tuesday, the killing sprees will be reconstructed with testimony about the circumstances surrounding them, the identity of the perpetrators and victims as well as material damage caused.Accused persons will make their first appearances several months later.
Gacaca trials will deal with all but the most serious cases -- those accused of the capital offences of planning or organising the genocide will stay within the mainstream judicial system or be tried by the ICTR.
"Ordinary Rwandans took part in the massacres in large numbers. Trying violence on such a massive scale is not just a legal problem, but also a political problem," according to chief state prosecutor Gerald Gahima."The genocide was an extraordinary event, which calls for extraordinary laws," he said.
As well as accelerating justice and punishing the guilty, gacaca, "by involving the population, should help reconcile the people of Rwanda who are still profoundly divided," he added.
With the encouragement of the authorities, a similar system has already been working inside some of the jails, where prisoners have formed committees and heard the confessions of their fellow detainees.
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