Rwanda speeds up genocide trials

Hundreds of thousands died in 100 days of slaughter

By Helen Vesperini in Kigali

The people of Rwanda are voting for new judges for traditional courts which are being reintroduced to tackle the huge backlog of trials of genocide suspects.

At least, it's a Rwandan solution to a Rwandan problem

Rwandan lady

As a first step about 260,000 community members are being elected onto panels and then trained as judges in people's courts, known as gacaca, which means justice on the grass.

Rwanda's prisons have overflowed with suspected killers awaiting trial, since the 1994 genocide when hundreds of thousands of Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.

Now through gacaca the government is trying to do two things:

• Speed up justice for the 115,000 genocide suspects cramming the country's prisons;
  
• Foster national reconciliation between killers and the families of victims.

But it is a big challenge.

Search for truth

The poster for the gacaca awareness campaign shows a bright yellow sun rising over Rwanda's hills and people joining hands with their fellow villagers.

President Kagame: Wants to speed up justice and reconciliation

The caption is: "The truth heals".

But many doubt to what extent the truth will actually emerge in the gacaca trials.

One man told me he was in Kigali in hiding for the 100 days of the 1994 slaughter but that he did not actually see one single killing being carried out.

"I heard the shooting, I heard the gangs with the machetes, I could recognise some people by their voices and when I looked out in the street I could see all the corpses," he said

"But I would be unable to testify that I actually saw such and such a person hack anyone to death".

Human rights groups agree that this is a problem.

Basically, those who actually saw what happened are either the perpetrators themselves or they are dead, said one researcher.

In the words of Antoine Mugesera, the chairman of the genocide survivors' association, Ibuka, if just one quarter of the truth about what happened comes out in gacaca, it will be a big step forward.

And in general, ordinary people are saying they think gacaca is a good thing.

"At least, it's a Rwandan solution to a Rwandan problem," said one lady.

Even those who have only the most basic grasp of the problem have understood one thing - that this might just be a way towards a solution to the terrible legacy of the genocide.