Open Court

(2 of 2)

Ntirushwamaboko spent nine years in jail after his arrest for participating in the genocide, before becoming one of the first inmates to confess. He was rewarded with release nearly two years ago, pending trial. "I started realizing that what happened in this country was indeed terrible," he recalled after his trial, which lasted five hours. "The Bible says, 'Tell the truth, ask for forgiveness, and then start looking ahead and asking for eternal life.'" Ntirushwamaboko will be sentenced this week. He faces seven to 12 years, but the time served will be taken into account. As a reward for confessing, half his sentence can be spent working three days a week in community service, planting trees or building roads, schools and hospitals nearby.

The gacaca courts focus on local grievances, so property crime cases are also routinely heard. During Ntirushwamaboko's trial last week, he also described the looting of houses, crops and cattle, and mentioned his accomplices. These episodes roused fierce accusations, too. Murdered family members can't be replaced; cows and other chattels can. Looters are required to make restitution.

As the winners of the brief civil war that followed the genocide, the current government of Tutsi President Paul Kagame set the terms of the gacaca trials. For many, this type of justice is incomplete. The gacaca courts will not consider accusations against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

	I'm asking for forgiveness from all Rwandans ... but mostly from God — AUGUSTIN NTIRUSHWAMABOKO

Units from the conquering Tutsi rebel army have been accused of brutal revenge killings. The government worries that trying alleged rpf crimes alongside those of people like Ntirushwamaboko will bolster claims that the Tutsi, too, committed genocide. That troubles some outside observers. "If you give justice only to one group of people, I'm not sure that will have a reconciliatory effect," says Jean-Charles Paras, head of the Rwandan mission for Penal Reform International. "Quite the contrary, actually."

Another flaw, say critics, is the reliance on confessions. In many cases, the perpetrators are the only living witnesses to their crimes. The promise of a lighter sentence could be an incentive to implicate others, sometimes falsely. And many of the accused admit only to the bare minimum, and incriminate only accomplices who are dead or have fled the country. "I've never heard anybody confessing to more than one murder," says Gabriel Gabiro, a reporter for the Hirondelle news agency, which specializes in human-rights issues. "You'd think nobody in Rwanda killed twice." Many who confessed — including Ntirushwamaboko — were released pending trial, terrifying the families of their victims. "Some of these people still have the hearts of animals," says Dusabe Theoneste, 41, a farmer who lost much of his family during the genocide. "They haven't changed from when they were taken to prison."

But Ntirushwamaboko's case shows how the gacaca system could help heal Rwanda. As he accompanies a journalist into the house of Febronia Mukamusoni, the sister of the man he admits to killing, Ntirushwamaboko is greeted with a smile. "Five years ago, if I saw him and I had the means, I would have killed him," says Mukamusoni, 47. But after hearing him testify during the gacaca court's discovery phase, which stretched over the last two years, Mukamusoni decided to meet him face to face. "He told me, 'Look, we did this because we had bad leaders who told us to kill,'" she says. "And he asked for forgiveness." Mukamusoni cultivates a plot of land near Ntirushwamaboko's house so the two often see each other.

Mukamusoni lost her parents, two brothers and four nephews and nieces in the genocide. "It's almost everyone," she says. Her husband, a Hutu, survived but is currently in jail, accused of participating in the killings. "He denies everything," she says. "He says he did not kill anyone. But how do I know? Maybe he's lying."