UPDATE ON GACACA GENOCIDE CASES

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000203

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/03/2018
TAGS: PHUM PGOV KDEM RW
SUBJECT: UPDATE ON GACACA GENOCIDE CASES

REF: 2007 KIGALI 530

Classified By: Ambassador Michael R. Arietti, reason 1.4 (B/D)


1. (SBU) Summary. Gacaca courts by the end of 2007 had
heard over one million genocide cases, with just under
seventy thousand cases remaining. New gacaca legislation
will move most category one cases (the most serious suspects,
just under nine thousand) from regular courts to the gacaca
system. The best gacaca judges will be selected to hear
them. Twelve hundred genocide cases already begun in the
regular courts will also be moved to gacaca courts. Changes
in sentencing are also contemplated, with greater use of
community service and less prison terms. A final review of
completed gacaca cases is underway, with "general assemblies"
of gacaca judges in each sector reviewing some cases. Rwanda
is on the cusp of completing its monumental task of judging,
neighbor by neighbor, the dark days of the 1994 genocide.
End summary.


2. (C) Emboffs met with Denis Bisheka, Director of Training
and Sensitization at the National Gacaca Service on March 18,
to discuss Government of Rwanda efforts to wind-up
adjudication of genocide cases. Bisheka said the total
gacaca case load at the end of 2007 stood at 1,127,776 cases,
of which 1,059,298 had been adjudicated (including trial
proceedings and appeals). The remaining 68,478 cases (many
of which had likely been heard since the turn of the year)
would be completed in the next month or two, he estimated.


3. (C) Pending legislation, he said, would soon transfer
nearly all remaining category one genocide cases (8734 in
total) to the gacaca courts. Nearly ninety percent of these
cases, he commented, were rape cases, which would require
extra procedures, including some sort of in-camera hearings,
to protect the victims' identities and encourage their
testimony. Aside from these category one cases, which had
never been heard, another 1200 genocide cases were in various
stages of regular court proceedings. These cases would also
be transferred to the gacaca courts. Those few cases
remaining in the regular courts (he had no exact estimate)
would concern only the very top leaders of the 1994 genocide
now in Rwandan hands.


4. (C) For the category one cases transferred to gacaca
courts, new sentencing guidelines would be used -- including
life without the possibility of parole for those who did not
confess (note: most gacaca cases end in confessions by the
accused, who receive lighter sentences, including immediate
release to their families, with community service and jail
time coming later). However, for the 1,127,776 cases
previously mentioned, he said, pending legislation would
retroactively reduce actual prison sentences even further
(beyond the lighter sentences mandated by a gacaca amendment
in March of 2006),with greater use of community service
(called TIG) and suspended sentences. Bisheka said the
Gacaca Service had given serious thought to "suspending
everything," with all prison sentences wiped away (with some
further use of TIG). However, he added, sentiment among
genocide survivors had run heavily against this. While
survivors did not demand genocidaires serve full sentences,
he noted, they did want some jail time retained under the new
legislation.


5. (C) Regarding fully adjudicated gacaca cases, Bikesha
said that at the sector level (Rwanda has 416 sectors),
Qsaid that at the sector level (Rwanda has 416 sectors),
"general assemblies" of the sector gacaca judges would make
one final review of completed cases, essentially those that
were particularly controversial -- he gave the example of
human rights activist Francois Byuma, given a nineteen year
sentence for arguably limited involvement in the deaths of
several Tutsis during the genocide (reftel).


6. (C) In a separate session also on March 18,
representatives of Human Rights Watch, Penal Reform
International and Lawyers Without Borders offered to emboffs
and other diplomats their comments on the pending gacaca
legislation, decrying in particular what they perceived to be
the lack of privacy protections for rape victims for cases
transferred to neighborhood gacaca cases. They expressed
concern that for the 1200 cases already underway in the
regular courts, transfer to gacaca courts would constitute a
modified form of double jeopardy -- some suspects might have
won at trial court, with the case appealed by the
prosecution, only to find themselves retrying the case before
a gacaca panel of judges. The representatives also repeated
concerns they had expressed in the past over lack of adequate
due process protections, particularly as the gacaca system
began to speed up adjudications last summer.


7. (C) Comment. The Gacaca Service appears to have nearly
completed its monumental task of adjudicating over one
million genocide cases. Many observers (including our own
human rights reports) have criticized the widely acknowledged
due process limitations of a neighborhood justice system
conducted by non-lawyers. However, a measure of justice has
been dispensed in the supremely difficult task of neighbors
judging neighbors for reprehensible acts. As the
adjudications move into their final phase, we see a practical
evolution of punishments (given limited prison space and
years of overcrowding),with increasingly lighter sentences
mandated by a series of legislative amendments. End summary.
ARIETTI