Trial Postponed in Tutsi Genocide Case
- By Chris Tomlinson
- Jan. 15 1997 00:00
Froduald Karamira is the highest ranking official of the former government in custody for the 1994 slaughter of over half a million people -- most of them Tutsis.
Paul Katothitwa, who is sponsored by the Belgium group Lawyers Without Borders to defend Karamira, said he needed an adjournment to prepare his case.
He also complained he was yet to find a reliable interpreter to work with. All court proceedings will be conducted in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda's national language.
A date for the resumption of the trial has not been set.
Karamira was a founder and former vice president of the Democratic Republican Movement, a Hutu supremacist political party. Rwandan authorities accuse him of advocating violence as early as October 1993 in a speech in Kigali.
In pre-1990 Rwanda, only Hutus were given the opportunity to have real power. Many people, including Karamira, obtained false identity cards so that they could be considered Hutus. ."
During the election campaign, the Zajedno, or Together, opposition coalition found that bashing "Mira" was a big crowd pleaser.
Forsaking nationalism, Milosevic and his wife have returned to slogans of their youth when they met as ambitious members of the Communist Party.
But songs about World War II anti-Nazi partisans sound hollow from the same leadership that plunged the country into a war to build a Greater Serbia.
"I hope they all burn in hell, because there is only one God and he will judge them on their record, and that record is pretty bad." said a student protester called Vesna. "Take a look around you and see what they've done."