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KIGALI, Rwanda, July 25 (AP) --
The Prime Minister of the new Rwandan
Government, Faustin Twagiramungu, announced plans today to prosecute
tens of thousands of people on genocide and murder charges.
Mr. Twagiramungu said that within the bureaucracy of the former government alone, there are more than 22,000 people suspected of complicity in issuing orders to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Those suspects, he said, do not include the thousands of militiamen, soldiers, presidential guardsmen and ordinary citizens who carried out the massacres that killed between 200,000 and 500,000, according to United Nations estimates.
Justice Minister Alfonse-Marie Nkubito said that those convicted of genocide would face a firing squad. He also said that Rwanda supports the United Nations plans to set up international tribunals to try war criminals. But Mr. Nkubito said the United Nations was at least a year away from creating its tribunals and that trials in the Rwanda courts would begin as soon as possible, perhaps within the month.
Correction: July 27, 1994, Wednesday
Because of an editing error, a front-page article yesterday about Rwanda referred incorrectly to the emergency disposal of the bodies of dead refugees. Relief officials have been given clearance to burn the bodies, but they have not yet begun to do so.
