Category: Rwanda

According to their website, Shooting Dogs is scheduled to be released on DVD on July 31. The film is based on the true story of a priest and teacher who find themselves in the middle of the Rwandan genocide.

From allAfrica.com:

Captured mainly from the viewpoints of two British settlers — an idealistic young teacher and a world-weary priest — the film’s central tension is not borne from how, but rather how long, the main characters will stand by as thousands of Rwandans take refuge in their secondary school amid the maelstrom of civil war.

As an aside, the logline is excellent — 1994, 800,000 killed in 100 days. Would you risk your life to make a difference?

With over 700,000 genocide suspects (almost one in four adults) in the war torn Rwanda, villages are starting local trials to deal with the massive number of suspects.

In the traditional courts, a panel of nine elected community members become judges. The trials are held in the defendant’s place of birth or where they grew up and the audience is encouraged to testify.

Defendants are not allowed to have lawyers and are given the opportunity to confess. If they do, they can be pardoned or have their sentence lessened dramatically.

This system of community courts is not being used for former police and military officers, or the architects of the genocide. Instead, villages are using it as a way to deal with the massive number of perpetrators who would otherwise never stand trial.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda has come under increasing pressure lately for its lack of progress in trying the accused ringleaders of the Rwandan genocide. The court was established in 1994 and carried a prosecution docket of some 700 politicians, clergymen, media personalities, and government officials.

Yet, to date, only 72 people have been arrested with 25 being eventually convicted.

By the end of 2007 it will have cost UN member states, including Britain, roughly £20 million per prosecution if the remaining cases lead to convictions.

Currently there are 27 people standing trial with the ICTR and another 14 are waiting for their trials to begin.

As the nation of Rwanda struggles with its future, Paul Rusesabagina is apparently becoming a political threat. The former hotel manager, whose story was told in the film Hotel Rwanda (and recently released his autobiography — An Ordinary Man), has been raising the ire of President Kagame and his followers, as he adds his voice to others who want to see more democratic freedoms in Rwanda.

As Shyaka Kanuma of the independent newspaper Focus stated:

“This is a dictatorship for sure. But that’s good for the moment. You can’t have a Western-style democracy in a country where 80 percent of people vote on ethnic lines.”

Even as Kagame and Rusesabagina take opposing sides in the political debate, many others are worried that this clash of idiologies might be driving the country toward more ethnic violence. Paul Mugiraneza of the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, put it simply, “both sides are using the genocide as a tool of politics.”

Agnes Ntamabyariro, the former Justice Minister of Rwanda, had her first court appearance this week. She’s the highest-ranking official to be charged with genocide in connection with the 800,000 Rwandans killed in the 1990s.