ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, December 13, 1995 TAG: 9512130048
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: ARUSHA, TANZANIA
SOURCE: Associated Press
An international tribunal announced Tuesday that it had issued its first indictments in connection with last year's ethnic slaughter in Rwanda, charging eight people with genocide and crimes against humanity.
The eight were charged with murdering tens of thousands of people at four massacre sites, part of the ethnic violence that killed 500,000 people.
Justice Richard Goldstone of the International Tribunal for Rwanda said the defendants will not be identified until they are arrested. ``We do not want to do anything that helps these people avoid arrest,'' he said.
It was clear, however, that none of those charged were among the former Hutu leaders of Rwanda who are accused of orchestrating the killings, mostly of minority Tutsis.
``In order to indict people right at the top you need evidence. The building bricks are people at the middle and upper levels of command,'' said Goldstone. He said it could be a year before prosecutors have enough evidence to charge the former leaders.
Officials of Rwanda's new Tutsi-led government could not be reached immediately for comment. In the past they have expressed displeasure at the tribunal's slow pace.
The indictments do not specify how many people were killed, but previous investigations have revealed many details. The incidents in the indictments include:
Attacks between April 10 and June 30, 1994, that an investigation by the human rights group African Rights found killed up to 50,000 people. The victims had taken refuge at Bisesero and put up fierce resistance as soldiers, police and militiamen attacked them. For months they fought, but only a few hundred survived. Bisesero is now known as the ``mountain of death.''
An April 17, 1994, massacre at a Catholic church complex where French military officers reportedly found at least 4,300 piled-up bodies. More people are believed to have been killed as they fled, and other bodies may have been buried. Witnesses told African Rights that the attackers used machetes and grenades, as well as tear gas, to drive them out of the church so they could be hacked to death.
The slaughter of thousands of people at Gatwaro Stadium in Kibuye on April 18 and 19, 1994. African Rights has said a French military investigation found that at least 7,000 people were killed. Survivors and local government officials claim the total was closer to 18,000.
A massacre at the Church of Mubuga that killed thousands of people between April 14 and 17, 1994.
Goldstone said the evidence against the eight defendants included many accounts from survivors.
The prosecutor said he expected to issue a second indictment in February or March accusing four people already in custody in Zambia and two others still at large.
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