Rwanda wants Uganda suspects back

Rwandans who fled to Burundi have been sent back home

The Rwandan and Ugandan governments are meeting to discuss the repatriation of more than 1,000 Rwandan Hutus.

They fled to Uganda because they feared being tried in traditional courts for their alleged involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

The meeting follows the signing of an extradition treaty between the two countries on Friday.

Uganda has refused the asylum requests for all but 80 of those who fled.

Rwanda has already implemented a similar agreement to repatriate Hutus who fled to Burundi.

"They [the Rwandans] should return to Rwanda and stop wasting time far away from their families and country," Rwanda's local administration minister Protais Musoni told the AFP news agency.

The meeting in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, is being chaired by the United Nations refugee agency.

The refugees face trial under Rwanda's traditional Gacaca justice system, which began functioning in March in an effort to clear a backlog of genocide cases in the national courts.

Thousands of Rwandan refugees are already living in settlements in Uganda and Burundi.

Dispute

In June, Rwanda and Burundi declared that Rwandans living in Burundi were "illegal immigrants" and not refugees.

But the UNHCR disputed this assessment, and said the return of the people in question was a violation of international law.

Rwanda's 1994 genocide killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Some 12,000 Gacaca courts are operating based on traditional systems of justice, in which the victims confront their alleged attackers in front of other villagers.