In this review, RW Johnson unravels the web of culpability behind the failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda and is as critical of the role of the UN as of western governments. Zed, 2000, 1 85649 831 x.

The election of more than 200,000 judges in Rwanda offers hope of speeding up trials resulting from the 1994 genocide, Human Rights Watch said. But the innovative judicial system, called “gacaca,” may be subject to political pressures and lacks some basic internationally recognized safeguards, such as the right to legal counsel.

Rwanda is to set up 11,000 traditional courts, known as Gacaca, to ease pressure on an overburdened prison system now holding 115,000 inmates awaiting trial for the 1994 genocide, the state-owned Rwandan News Agency reported on Monday, quoting the advisor to the Supreme Court, Augustin Nkusi.

A prosecution witness today claimed before judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) that Jean de Dieu Kamuhanda, former Rwandan minister for higher education and scientific research, ordered killings of ethnic Tutsi who sought refuge at Gikomero Parish during the 1994 genocide.