Gacaca courts begin operations

Courts under Rwanda's traditional justice system, known as "Gacaca", began proceedings countrywide on Thursday, in an effort to expedite trials for hundreds of thousands of detained genocide suspects.

"They have started with suspects who fall under category two, who include mainly people that took orders to kill from their superior," Anastase Balinda, head of documentation in the national service of the Gacaca jurisdictions, told IRIN.

Trials started in 751 village courts where for the past two years thousands of suspects have been questioned by locally elected judges, sitting as investigative panels.

During this phase, the Gacaca judges are expected to hand down verdicts to perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, in which 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed, according to Rwandan government estimates.

Rwanda announced recently that up to one million Rwandans - one-eighth of the population - were due to be tried under the Gacaca courts for their roles in the genocide.

During the Gacaca trials, thousands of imprisoned genocide suspects are due to be paraded before their accusers to defend or confess their role in the killings, and also identify their accomplices who remain at large.

"We expect to have more suspects arrested as the trials gain momentum," Balinda said.

In 2004, up to 60,000 detained suspects broke ranks with their inmates and confessed to having participated in the genocide, with many accusing others still at large of involvement in the killings.

The Gacaca judicial system, a revamped version of a traditional form of justice, was launched in 2002 on an exploratory basis to speed up trials of genocide suspects charged in conventional courts.

Almost 11 years after the genocide, the backlog of suspects awaiting trial in conventional courts remains enormous.

There are 80,000 people detained in prisons countrywide. Some are likely to die before their cases are heard under the national (regular) court system. Although many will eventually be transferred to Gacaca courts for trial, their exact number has not been decided.

In February, investigative Gacaca hearings were conducted in 8,262 courts and trials in these courts are due to begin in 2006.

Focusing on confession and apology, the Gacaca courts are also intended to facilitate national reconciliation as those who confess and plead guilty could have their sentences reduced.

Gacaca, meaning grass in the local Kinyarwanda language, was traditionally used by village communities who would gather on a patch of grass to resolve conflicts among families, employing the heads of each household as judges.