Background Briefing

I. Summary

Two sets of incidents in late November 2006 involving killings and alleged extrajudicial executions have highlighted existing tensions in some parts of Rwanda and risk further aggravating relations between ethnic groups. The incidents took place six months after the start of nationwide gacaca trials of persons accused of having participated in the 1994 genocide. In one set of incidents a genocide survivor, the nephew of a gacaca judge, was killed and eight people, including children, were then slain in reprisal. In another set of incidents the killing of a gacaca judge was followed by the alleged extrajudicial execution of three suspects taken into custody by the police.

In recent years dozens of genocide survivors and others involved in the gacaca process have been killed.1 Survivors’ organizations, human rights organizations, Rwandan officials, and the press have rightfully raised concerns about the security of survivors and witnesses in judicial proceedings. In mid-2006, the government established an office of witness protection and in late December President Paul Kagame and other officials called for sterner measures not just against assailants but also against local leaders in communities where survivors are attacked.

The reprisal killings in late November represent a worrying development as genocide survivors have rarely taken the law into their own hands in the recent past.  

Human Rights Watch is concerned that the official response to these incidents has not yet been sufficiently comprehensive or impartial. As this report documents, the authorities have arrested alleged perpetrators in three out of four incidents, but in the case of the reprisal killings police have arrested only some of the persons alleged by eyewitnesses to have participated in the crime. In addition, the investigation of the alleged extrajudicial execution of the three men in police custody was done by a police agency, not by an independent external body. On the basis of apparently incomplete information, the investigation concluded that the police officers had killed the men in self-defense.

Official response to such incidents – both police action and the statements of political leaders – can reassure or create further concern.

Rwandan officials must carry out prompt, effective, and impartial investigations and prosecutions in all situations, including the killing of genocide survivors, the killing of participants in the gacaca process, reprisal killings, and alleged extrajudicial executions. Such action is essential to establishing rule of law and for social stability — particularly crucial in a period of heightened tensions as Rwanda seeks to bring to justice hundreds of thousands of alleged perpetrators of crimes committed in 1994.



1 As this report was being edited, the press reported the killing in Kamonyi district, Southern Province, of Landuardi Bayijire, a survivor who was also president of the local gacaca jurisdiction and president of the local survivors’ organization. “Another Gacaca Judge Murdered”, The New Times, http://www.newtimes.co.rw/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=56&Itemid=39, January 2, 2007 (accessed January 2, 2007).