Rwanda opposition leader on trial

PROSECUTORS have accused a top Rwandan opposition figure of trying to recruit fighters to destabilise Rwanda during a trial that some see as a litmus test for political expression in a nation still struggling to come to terms with the 1994 genocide.

Victoire Ingabire appeared in court in the Rwandan capital of Kigali this weekend in a prisoner’s uniform, handcuffs and with a shaved head.

She is accused of genocide ideology, revisionism and backing terrorist groups. She has not yet entered a plea, but her four co-accused – former members of a brutal rebel group based in the Congo – have pleaded guilty.

Ingabire faces up to 30 years in prison.

Ingabire, who lived in the Netherlands for many years, returned to Rwanda in January 2010. She questioned why no Hutus were commemorated in a national monument to the genocide and promised to help Hutu prisoners.

It is illegal to question the official history of the genocide – something Ingabire, a Hutu, says should be allowed.

She was arrested several times following speeches, and banned from running in presidential elections in August last year. She was jailed in October 2010.

The case against Ingabire and her co-accused has highlighted Rwanda’s struggle to move beyond the 1994 genocide, when extremist Hutus killed 500,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in Rwanda.