Courts closure postponed
2009-12-10 10:51
Kigali - Rwanda on Wednesday postponed for the second time the closure of the grassroots courts created in 2001 to try the bulk of the country's genocide suspects, officials said.
More than 2 000 cases are yet to be concluded by the courts known as gacaca (pronounced gachacha), which began actual trials some five years ago.
The courts were initially to wind down by the end of 2007, but the date was postponed to the end of 2009.
"We still have 2 261 cases to be tried across the country. We will hand over a final report to the country's higher courts in February 2010," said Gratien Dusingizimana, the head of the gacaca department.
Some one million people have been tried by the courts and Dusingizimana said they had achieved the objective of revealing the truth, resolving contentions over the genocide, ending impunity and fostering unity and reconciliation.
Negative consequences
However the principal genocide survivors rights group criticised the tribunals for failing to reveal how the 1994 massacre of some 800 000 people, mainly minority Tutsis, was planned.
"For the survivors, the truth about the planning remains unknown. This can have negative consequences," Theodore Simburudali, the head of the rights group, Ibuka, said.
"Those who say that there was no planning could as well conclude that there was no genocide."
Based on the age-old concept of a traditional village council, the gacaca were revived in an effort to clear a crippling backlog of genocide-related cases in the national court system.
The courts are empowered to try those who participated in the killings and can hand down sentences ranging from community service to life in prison.
The masterminds of the genocide are being tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda based in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.