DEC. 14, 2015

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This special court, set up by the United Nations in 1994 in response to a genocide of nearly one million people in Rwanda that year, was intended to bring to justice the orchestrators of the mass killings. All of those on the tribunal’s suspect list had fled Rwanda, and most were hunted down and arrested elsewhere. The tribunal’s prosecutor deployed a team to Rwanda in the 1990s to speak to victims and witnesses.

The tribunal’s early years were tainted by missteps. Critics said it was too slow, too expensive and too biased, failing to try any crimes committed by the side that ended the genocide and won the war — the side that now governs Rwanda.

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Many of the spectators were carefully watching Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, a prominent suspect, who served as the Rwandan government’s minister for family and women’s development during the 1994 genocide, when soldiers, militia and everyday farmers — whipped into a frenzy by their leaders — killed their neighbors.

Ms. Nyiramasuhuko’s role drew particular interest because she is the only woman the tribunal has tried. In 2011, she was found guilty on seven counts, including genocide and incitement to rape. Ms. Nyiramasuhuko was tried with her son Arsène Shalom Ntahobali and four other members of the local administration in the town of Butare in southern Rwanda, who were all convicted on multiple counts. The “Butare Six,” as they became known, all appealed their convictions.

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Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/15/world/africa/last-days-for-un-court-trying-suspects-in-rwanda-genocide.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0