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The Tutsi ethnic group Jean-Bosco Gakwenzire (hat), 65, kisses Pascal Shyirahwamaboko, 68, who murdered his father in Mutete, where former clbadmates reconciled. By JACQUES NKINZINGABO (AFP / File)
The houses located along the tree-lined street resemble the normal houses that are found throughout the Rwandan capital.
But behind the walls of the three villas adjoining Kigali is the headquarters of a global operation involving investigators and prosecutors seeking to trace the worst murderers of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
Inside, French investigators came to speak to witnesses and gather evidence. A Norwegian team is also on site.
All are supported by the Rwanda Genocide Fugitive Tracking Unit (GFTU), a special team created in 2007 to prosecute the architects behind the mbadacre of about 800,000 victims, most of whom are Tutsis.
"The mandate was to investigate and compile the files of fugitives still on the run," said Faustin Nkusi, spokesman for the National Authority for Public Prosecutions, who oversees the unit.
After the bloodshed, many authors escaped.
Some were arrested and taken to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), based in Tanzania and supported by the UN. This court closed in 2015 after several dozen convictions.
Focus Twiringiyimana, 47, a veteran of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda, heads to the Mutobo Vocational Training Center, where program participants spend three months before returning to their home country after decades. By JACQUES NKINZINGABO (AFP / File) For many of those who committed the killings, justice was done at the local level through community courts known as "gacaca" courts.
Between 2005 and 2012, these courts tried nearly two million people and nearly two-thirds of the cases resulted in a conviction.
But the search for justice continues.
72,000 convicted in absentia
A quarter of a century after the genocide, Rwanda is as determined as ever to ensure that key suspects are arrested and brought to justice for these killings.
Many are still on the run, scattered all over the world.
The GFTU issued 1,012 international arrest warrants for suspects in 32 countries.
Although the search for justice continues while Rwanda is determined to pursue the main suspects, reconciliation is the path chosen by Hutu Jean-Claude Mutarindwa and Daphrosa Mukarubayize, a Tutsi seen in the valley between their villages. By JACQUES NKINZINGABO (AFP / File) Several are in neighboring countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Tanzania. Others are more distant in Kenya, Malawi and Zambia. And still others have fled to Europe, North America or even Australia.
Among the fugitive suspects are Felicien Kabuga, one of Rwanda's richest men and accused of financing genocide, allegedly seen in Kenya.
Another is Augustin Bizimana, a former defense minister suspected of hiding in DR Congo.
The team has an impact: 19 people who allegedly participated in the genocide plot were arrested and sent back to Rwanda for trial, while another 22 were tried abroad.
But this is only a drop in the ocean.
At the close of the gacaca process in 2012, the courts provided the GFTU with a list of nearly 72,000 fugitives who had been sentenced in absentia.
And it's hard to find all those people with the other suspects.
Former combatants of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda are preparing to play football in the Mutobo reintegration center – but attempts at reconciliation do not hide the fact that 1,012 international arrest warrants are being issued against suspects in 32 countries. By JACQUES NKINZINGABO (AFP / File) "It's not easy," Nkusi said.
"We do not have the advantage in investigating and arresting, we have to collaborate with other institutions in these countries."
The GFTU team, made up of both investigators and prosecutors, works with teams around the world, including their counterparts in countries where suspects are hiding.
He also works with United Nations experts and the Interpol International Police Agency.
"Justice must be done"
Investigators face many challenges: now, suspects have grown old and have spent years perfecting their new identities and crossing borders.
Some got political asylum.
After the abolition of the death penalty by Rwanda in 2007, countries were encouraged to return suspects to their homes.
In recent years, suspects have been extradited from the United States, Canada and the Netherlands.
A grave discovered in the suburbs of Kigali last year and containing the bones and skulls of the victims testifies to the horror of the Rwandan genocide. By Yasuyoshi CHIBA (AFP / File) Other countries, however, argue that they have not concluded extradition treaties with Rwanda, while showing reluctance to try the suspects themselves. same.
"We want them to be brought back to the country, to the scene of the crime," Nkusi said, adding that some countries "were not willing to do so politically."
France, which denies Kigali's accusations of supporting the Hutu regime that planned the genocide, has denied repeated requests from Rwanda to extradite suspects.
Until now, only one former officer of the Rwandan army and two mayors have been sentenced in France.
"They have an obligation to judge these people," Nkusi said.
While Rwanda must mark the quarter century since the genocide, Nkusi hopes the pace of extradition will increase.
"Justice must be done," said Nkusi.
"People must be arrested, people must be judged – to be found innocent or convicted."
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