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Police on Alert as Gacaca Courts Start

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
NEWS
January 17, 2005
Posted to the web January 17, 2005
Kigali
As thousands of semi-traditional genocide courts in Rwanda hold hearings for
the first time since the courts were inaugurated more than two years ago, the
minister of internal affairs announced on Sunday that the police were on alert
to deal with any cases of violence or threats against witnesses or anyone else
involved.
"Gacaca is now our priority", the minister, Christophe Bazivamo, said in a live
talk show broadcast on state television and radio. "But we encourage everyone
to help in this process be informing security forces of any incidents. The
police are on alert to respond quickly to any problem that might arise in
connection with the hearings", he added.
Gacaca is a quasi-traditional justice system designed to speed up genocide
trials. The system will take up over 90% of trials that would have been handled
by the under staffed regular courts. According to the government, over 10,000
Gacaca courts will be operational by April this year.
"I don't think we will get a lot of problems since this is a community
activity. Everyone knows what happened so it doesn't help to eliminate a
witness", said Bazivamo. "In fact, now that everything is in the open, this
will be some form of protection for witnesses", he added.
There have been scores of Gacaca related killings in the past. The police and
judiciary were very quick in responding to the killings that sent shockwaves
especially among genocide survivors.

   

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