The long-awaited trials to be conducted by Gacaca courts...

The long-awaited trials to be conducted by Gacaca courts - an adapted form of Rwandan traditional participatory justice - are to begin on 18 June to deal with the perpetrators of the 1994 genocide, in which Hutu extremists in the country killed some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days.
The purpose of the Gacaca judicial process was to expedite the trials of those accused of crimes, to "reveal the truth about the genocide", to put an end to the culture of impunity in Rwanda, and to reconcile the Rwandan people and strengthen ties between them, said President Paul Kagame's government on its official website. Gacaca also revived traditional forms of dispensing justice based on Rwandan culture, and demonstrated the ability of local communities to solve their own problems by involving people in the trial and sentencing process, the government added.
Since 1996, Rwandan law has categorised genocide suspects into four categories: category 1 comprises the planners, organisers, instigators and leaders of the genocide, "notorious murderers", and persons who committed acts of sexual torture or violence; category 2 comprises the perpetrators, conspirators or accomplices of homicide or serious assault; category 3 comprises those accused of serious assaults; and category 4 those who committed offences against property, such as looting.
In March 2001, the attorney general released a revised list of 2,900 category 1 suspects who may incur the death penalty if convicted, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in its annual report for 2002. During the trials prisoners will be brought before a public gathering in their hometowns or villages, and local residents will be invited to participate. The judges, some 254,000 of them, were elected publicly in October 2001 by their communities on the basis of their integrity. Participation in the elections was 90 percent in some rural areas, Hirondelle reported, although this figure was slightly lower in the capital, Kigali.
The judges will preside over the 11,000 Gacaca courts at four levels - cell, sector, district and prefecture levels - and will judge all but those accused of the most serious of crimes committed during the genocide. (The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania, has been mandated to try those accused of genocide and crimes against humanity).
Whereas the "grass-roots" form of popular justice might encourage people to testify to events they witnessed personally during the genocide, human rights advocacy organisations have a number of reservations about the system. These include the fact that under the Gacaca system, lawyers are not allowed to represent the accused; the judges will be examining complex and extremely serious cases with no formal legal training, and in some cases little or no formal education; and judges may have a personal interest in the verdict.
The Gacaca trials are due to start in 12 pilot prefectures, and will then to be extended to every part of the country within two months, according to Hirondelle.