Kigali — No more speculation; Rwandans of all walks of life will on Saturday morning throng designated locations to witness their respective Gacaca Tribunals kick-start the task of dispensing justice in connection to the crimes committed during the 1994 Rwanda Genocide.

It is a day when all the 1,545 Gacaca courts countrywide will embark on the trial phase after over about two years of pre-trial stages. Of those, only 118 Tribunals have conducted trials before, in what was largely a pilot exercise.

Officials say there will not be any official inaugural ceremony, but Justice Minister Edda Mukabagwiza will deliver a public speech to be broadcast on both state radio and television.

"It is an important day. We expect all Rwandans to participate dedicatedly to ensure that justice is delivered," Mukabagwiza told The New Times on Thursday.

"Nobody should fear; witnesses should give their testimonies freely and the suspects should be able to co-operate and not intimidate or cause harm to witnesses," she said.

Mukabagwiza also urged people to maintain the security of witnesses and genocide survivors, saying that the government was unable to provide police or an LDU guard for every household.

The Minister revealed that thousands of released suspects, especially those who confessed and apologised, will be tried first. A January 1, 2003 President Paul Kagame's decree has granted a provisional release to over 50,000 genocide suspects.

Leon Nkusi, the Information Officer of the National Service for Gacaca Jurisdictions, said sufficient awareness campaigns had been carried out, and all the Tribunals but a few in Kigali city, were set for the trials tommorrow.

"Through the local leaders, we have sensitized the masses and I think they are well prepared. Except for a few courts in Kigali City, which will start the trials at a later date," Nkusi said on Thursday.

Nkusi urged the population to remain calm, to tell the truth and desist from activities that sabotage Gacaca activities. He also discouraged people from fleeing the country, and appealed for solidarity.

Last year thousands of Rwandans fled to neighboring countries, especially Burundi after a few courts started conducting trials. Some attributed their fleeing to rumors that Gacaca had been introduced as a way of revenge, while others were suspects.

Meanwhile, Nkusi told The New Times that the government dropped the proposal of creating over 500 Gacaca trials to try the suspects that are under the Category I of genocide suspects. The category covers those who are accused of planning the atrocities, rape, and other extremely brutal murder cases.

He said the idea was dropped at the consultation stages, adding that it became unpopular by most politicians. "Many people fought it and we had to leave it," said the senior Gacaca official.

Asked about the issue, Minister Mukabagwiza was rather not clear in her response. "Those (suspects in Category I) may well be prosecuted in the classical courts," she said. Estimates had put suspects in Category I to about 10 per cent of those accused. Over 200,000 people are suspected to have participated in the 1994 genocide, which claimed an estimated one million Rwandans. A total of 152,000 genocide suspects have confessed, mostly through the Gacaca courts.

Re-introduced after the 1994 genocide, Gacaca is a traditional mode of grassroots justice in which the elders arbitrate in low-profile disputes. The system was re-established to help reduce a backlog of genocide cases in classical courts, and as a means of fostering unity and reconciliation in the country.

It is scheduled that Gacaca trials will end by December, 2007.

Meanwhile, there are emerging concerns over the continued harassment and mysterious killings of witnesses and, unconfirmed reports indicated yesterday that at least three witnesses had been murdered in Cyangugu in Western province.