Kigali - In a bare courtroom in Rwanda’s capital, Leon Mugesera stands trial, accused of whipping up a storm of violence against the ethnic Tutsi group two decades ago with hate speech including calls to exterminate “cockroaches”.
“It doesn’t matter whether it takes 10 or 20 years. We have to find out what happened,” says prosecutor Alain Mukurarinda of Mugesera’s case, transferred from Canada to Rwanda.
“The most important thing is that the judgment is passed where the offences took place, so the people here understand that Rwanda will not allow the perpetrators to escape justice.”
Rwanda is still recording every single nugget of information in a bid to make sure the horrors are accounted for, recorded and never forgotten.
“I'm not worried about this taking too long, as there are ways to make sure that all the information gathered is legally admissible,” says Mukurarinda.
He is sure with these documents, even those genocidaires who have fled and changed their identities will be called to account.
The UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, set up in 1994 in neighbouring Tanzania to try the alleged masterminds behind the genocide, has only heard about 60 cases.
Over a decade, 2 million others passed through village courts, Gacaca (meaning to sit and discuss) in which attackers faced their victims.
Human rights groups have cast doubt over the fairness of these trials, which used judges elected from local communities who often had no legal background.
Today the records of these trials, which include admissions to the most heinous of crimes, heartfelt apologies and options for redress, are in danger.
They are documented in films, photos and files in 18 000 boxes that sit in police headquarters, while the government looks for backers to help digitise Rwanda’s history before it is consumed by humidity, theft, insects or fire.
In many of the genocide memorial sites across Rwanda, heaps of clothes fill churches where thousands of people hid from attackers who blasted holes through walls or crowbarred through windows to get to their victims.
Identity cards, jewellery and chipped glasses are displayed alongside rows of skulls and neat lines of leg bones that belie the raw anger of the events of 20 years ago.
At the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre – the site of a mass grave for 250 000 people – the old photos of genocide victims posing for family portraits, on their wedding day or watching their children grow up, fill the walls.
Their ripped and soiled clothes hang eerily from wires and their relatives, neighbours and friends speak of the indescribable horrors they witnessed from video screens.
Viewing the scene are groups of schoolchildren wearing high socks and taking history notes.
“A generation is being judged for the crimes they committed.
“But after another 50 years, we’ll have another generation who will need to learn from the experience of their parents, grandparents, criminals and survivors,” says centre director Honore Gatera.
Back at the courthouse, Mukurarinda says hearing the recollections of witnesses – some of whom testify anonymously for fear of reprisals – is exhausting, but adds the process must go on to avoid such atrocities reoccurring.
“Even now, 20 years later, the problems of the genocide are still here, but we have a good basis for going forward thanks to the trials in Arusha, of Gacaca and right here,” he says.
Sapa-AFP