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GENEVA, March 9 (AFP) - A UN Commission demanded trials for the culprits in Rwanda's genocide last year and condemned massive human rights abuses, but also sought to encourage the current government in a resolution.
In the resolution adopted without a vote late Wednesday, the UN Commission on Human Rights denounced mass killings in which between 500,000 and a million minority Tutsis and opposition Hutus are believed to been slain by Hutu troops of the former government and extremist militias.
The commission also noted with concern that disappearances, torture, summary executions and destruction of property still take place, according to a special report submitted to it, and encouraged the government to promote respect for basic freedoms and to rebuild the administration.
The government was installed by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) after it seized power in July last year following three months of carnage sparked by the death in a suspicious plane accident of Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana.
The report said that continued unrest in Rwanda was discouraging hundreds of thousands of displaced people and refugees from returning and also condemned atrocities and a terror campaign by Hutu extremists of the ousted regime in refugee camps.
It noted that the government -- a coalition including moderate Hutus -- had taken steps to improve the situation in the central African country, and that "efforts in this regard are hampered by a lack of resources".
The resolution welcomed the creation of an international criminal tribunal to judge those held responsible for the Rwandan genocide.
The text was sponsored by Albania, Benin, Canada, France, Iceland and the Netherlands.
gl/nb AFP AFP
