PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CONVICTED BY

UNCLAS KIGALI 000530 SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PHUM RW SUBJECT: PRESIDENT OF HUMAN RIGHTS GROUP CONVICTED BY GENOCIDE COURT ¶1. (SBU) Summary. Francois Byuma, a local human rights activist, received a nineteen year sentence from a Kigali gacaca court on May 27 for his participation in attacks on a Tutsi citizen during the 1994 genocide. Byuma, head of the human rights organization Turengere Abana (Protect Our Children),claimed bias on the part of the gacaca court, given Turengere Abana's investigation of a sex-with-minor charge against the president of the court. While the facts are in dispute, this incident illustrates both the tremendous moral dilemma many hutus faced during the genocide, and the potential for abuse when they are judged by gacaca courts. In this particular case, the gacaca trial court appears to have acted improperly, and the case is under appeal. End summary. ¶2. (SBU) On May 31, polchief spoke with Francine Rutazana, Executive Secretary of LDGL. She and the heads of several other local human rights organizations have taken up the case of Byuma, arguing on due process grounds that the case should have been reassigned to another gacaca court, given the court president's implication in the sex-with-minor investigation by the accused's organization. Comments by Rutazana indicated morally ambiguous behavior by Byuma in 1994 and the court president in the recent past. ¶3. (SBU) Regarding the events of 1994, she said, Byuma concedes that he was present at road barriers erected in his neighborhood during the genocide, and that he participated, although tangentially and by order of local authorities, in efforts to locate tutsis for slaughter. He contests charges that he participated in the beating of a cornered tutsi, or had any intention generally to harm his tutsi neighbors. There has been no evidence, she said, of Byuma's direct involvement in any deaths or injuries. (Note: among other genocide charges, the court convicted Byuma for injuring others with the intention of causing death. He received the maximum sentence). ¶4. (SBU) As to the gacaca president, she said, he had engaged in consensual sex with an underage girl (age 17),an offense under Rwandan law. Byuma's organization had been investigating at the request of the girl's family. Rutazana and other human rights activists were concerned, she said, that the court president was using his position of authority in the local community to evade a morals charge. She noted that the gacaca court case was now under appeal, and she hoped that the gacaca appellate level court would void the judgment and assign the case to another trial level gacaca court. The court president could hardly be considered an impartial gacaca judge, she said, under these circumstances. She and other human rights activists, she noted, would continue to appeal to the GOR and the gacaca service to correct this "miscarriage of justice." She then added: "This is not the only case we have found where gacaca court officials abuse their positions." ¶5. (SBU) Comment. In a regular court of law, a judge would recuse himself if a defendant made a reasonable showing of bias or conflict of interest. Gacaca courts have less due process protections -- although judges can be removed for acts "incompatible" with the gacaca justice system, these are neighborhood courts run by non-judges and non-lawyers. The majority of cases appear to be handled properly, but abuses do occur, on either side of the ethnic divide -- some courts are accused of being too harsh in their judgments, and some too lenient. Whatever the truth of Byuma's behavior in 1994, this court president should not have heard this case. On the other hand, Byumba finds himself in the uncomfortable position of a present day human rights campaigner who, at the very least, did not act with perfect moral integrity during the genocide. Were his actions sufficiently reprehensible to require nineteen years in jail? Not every hutu who appeared at roadblocks or walked in patrols (often at the command of local authorities),actually helped to murder his or her neighbors. This is the GOR's continuing dilemma: how to conduct justice on a mass scale, addressing the horrific abuses of the genocide, while employing a less-than-perfect system of village adjudication. End comment. ARIETTI