Our concern in this editorial is the way in which some people suspected of participating in the Genocide are never questioned by any Gacaca court.
Is it because these people have the ability to bribe big to stay out of court? Reports have come up often that indeed suspects bribe Gacaca officials to not charge them with crimes.
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Take the example of one Hamed Abdulatif who is a well-known suspect genocidaire in the town of Cyangugu. Hamed Abdulatif tortured so many people in Cyangugu, according to people there, that it would be difficult to count them. His pickups, it is alleged, were ferrying Interahamwe up and down the town in their macabre errands to kill all the Tutsis there. He was the pay master of the Interahamwe in his sector. When Fred Rwigema died in 1990 Abdulatif was the one leading “burial” ceremonies whereby every town resident, every peasant was made to dig pits and bury stems of banana trees saying they were burying Rwigema. This man had “many, many guns”, according to a resident of Cyangugu who talked to us on the condition of anonymity. The man, according to those who know him, is a relative of none other than George Rutaganda. It is unbelievable then to hear that Hamed Abdulatif is living free in Kigali. The allegation is that this is where he has been residing for the past nine years. Did Aloyzia Cyanzayire who was the head of the Gacaca courts when Abdulatif allegedly refused to answer a Gacaca summons in Cyangugu know anything about him? We tried to raise her on the issue with no success. Was she aware that when the Gacaca in Cyangugu summoned Abdulatif the man contemptuously wrote it a letter saying he wouldn’t be able to answer but in the same letter stated that since one of their charges against him was that he had guns he agreed he indeed had two but that he handed them to his security guards to protect him? Perhaps Madam Cyanzayire knew these things. Perhaps she did not. In any case something is very wrong and it needs to be rectified quickly. The people however have not forgotten Hamed Abdulatif. In a letter to the Executive Secretary of the Gacaca Courts Domitilla Mukantaganzwa which we reproduce here (click on the image for a bigger view), the Gacaca jurisdiction of Kamembe asks that Abdulatif be tried, especially now that time is running out for the Gacaca Courts. We urge Madam Mukantaganzwa to act with the requisite speed to have Abdulatif apprehended, for if he is in Kigali it cannot be that difficult to do so. Justice, needless to say, has to be done. It is bad enough that people of such notoriety can elude justice for so long. It is worse that some of them are at large, right within the country, free to dance on the graves of those they murdered. |
Editorial 
