Clutched in small groups and squatting uneasily outside a clinic in northern Burundi, the growing crowd of Hutus fleeing village genocide courts in Rwanda looked anything but optimistic.
For the past two weeks, they have been trooping across the border in increasing numbers, fearing persecution or unfair treatment at the hands of local grass-roots gacaca (pronounced ”gachacha”) tribunals.
”We were told that the gacaca were formed to bring peace and reconciliation among the Rwandese,” said Pierre, a 64-year-old Hutu farmer who has fled with his wife and seven children.
”This is not the case,” he said bitterly. ”They have been turned into instruments to imprison Hutus, to disenfranchise them.”
Pierre admits to a small role in the 1994 genocide in which 800 000 people, mostly minority Tutsis, were slaughtered by Hutu extremists, but says the gacaca are being used by Tutsis to extract vengeance even from the innocent.
”Here, there are innocent and guilty,” he says softly, pointing at a crowd of about 100 people who have sought refuge at the Murehe health centre, located in northern Burundi, about 10km from the Rwandan border.
Since the gacaca began operating last month in a bid to clear a crippling backlog of genocide case in regular courts, about 2 000 Hutu refugees have arrived in Burundi from Rwanda, according to United Nations officials.
Of those, there are more than 1 000 Rwandan refugees, including about 600 children, now living in Murehe without any proper shelter or other facilities, according to Burundi’s army.
On Monday, Burundian authorities began moving them away from the border to sites between 50km and 100km within the country.
About 630 of them have been moved so far in an operation that immediately drew condemnation from Kigali, which said those who have fled are fugitives from justice and not refugees.
But that characterisation is roundly rejected by those here.
”I fled the gacaca,” said a woman named Helen, preparing porridge for her three children on a traditional stone oven. ”I was in sixth grade during the genocide. I didn’t kill anyone, but the Tutsi survivors accuse me.”
”They say anyone older than eight at the time took part in the genocide,” she added softly, one of the few here who does not grow agitated when describing her situation.
”We are all guilty here, all the Hutus are guilty to them,” says an angry 45-year-old man named Venuste, who says he fled with nothing other than the tattered clothing on his back.
”That’s what Kagame says, that’s what the soldiers say,” he says, referring to Rwanda’s Tutsi President Paul Kagame and his army, which is made up of people he says are the real culprits behind the genocide.
”We can no longer trust the gacacas,” Venuste says as other refugees applaud and nod in approval. ”We do not want to be tried by the gacacas. We do not trust Kagame and we do not want to return to Rwanda.”
With nearly one in 10 of Rwanda’s population of eight million facing charges stemming from the genocide, fewer than 10 000 suspects have been tried to date by Rwandan courts, prompting the opening of gacaca trials in March.
Based on the traditional village mode of delivering justice, the gacaca have the power to try, acquit or convict genocide and hand down sentences ranging from community service to life imprisonment.
Last week, the prefect of southern Rwanda’s Butare region visited the refugees in Burundi to try to convince them to return home, according to people who were present.
While she tried to assure them that the gacaca are not biased, the prefect, Hope Tumukunde, also said that no one who participated in the genocide will be able to escape justice.
”Whatever your decision is, to return to Rwanda or not, those who participated in the genocide will be tried,” witnesses quoted Tumukunde as saying on April 12.
Only eight refugees opted to return with the prefect, local officials in Burundi said. — Sapa-AFP