[lit-ideas] Rwanda to release 8,000 more genocide prisoners
- From: "Alex Jorgensen" <bangdrum@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:20:08 +0800
Rwanda to release 8,000 more genocide prisoners By Arthur Asiimwe
Fri Jan 26, 6:07 AM ET
KIGALI (Reuters) - Rwanda will release another 8,000 prisoners convicted or
awaiting trial over the central African nation's 1994 genocide, a chief
prosecutor said, raising fears among survivors of a fresh round of
bloodletting.
The release adds to tens of thousands already freed in recent years as part
of an effort to empty Rwanda's over-flowing prisons and promote
reconciliation.
Rwanda's chief prosecutor, Martin Ngoga, confirmed the new releases,
expected to start in early February. They include 8,000 people linked to the
1994 massacres and 1,000 others convicted of other crimes.
"This group will exclude key masterminds of the genocide," Ngoga told
Reuters.
But Theodore Simburudali, the president of Ibuka, an umbrella organization
that groups together genocide survivors, feared the plan would lead to more
deaths.
"Many of these people that are to be released have lied about their role in
the genocide for the sake of being pardoned. They end up coming and killing
more survivors," he told Reuters on Friday.
Simburudali accused President Paul Kagame's government of neglecting the
welfare of survivors, while spending huge resources on releases.
"We have been requesting reparations all these past years but nothing has
come forth," he said.
Some 800,000 members of the minority Tutsi ethnic group and moderate Hutus
were butchered in 100 days of killings blamed on Hutu hardliners beginning
in April 1994.
Human Rights Watch warned this week that Rwanda faces a new round of ethnic
violence if it fails to prosecute the killers of witnesses and survivors of
the genocide.
It said dozens of survivors and others involved in the traditional gacaca
court process, where many genocide cases are being heard, have been killed
in recent years.
Since 2003, Rwanda has released between 50,000 and 60,000 prisoners, of whom
about 80 percent were accused of involvement in the genocide.
Hundreds have been re-arrested, however, after committing other crimes on
reaching home, including killing genocide survivors in a bid to destroy
evidence.
The inmates to be freed in February will undergo a month-long civic
"sensitization" program before being allowed to go to their homes, Ngoga
said.
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