Open Court

PHOTOGRAPH for TIME by RICCARDO GANGALE/GALBE

GRASSROOTS JUSTICE: Ntirushwamaboko before the gacaca court in Zivu, southern Rwanda

In the village of Zivu, nearly everybody has turned out. Several hundred men and women, some carrying babies or minding children, many shading themselves under brightly colored umbrellas, are ranged across a grassy field. Eight people wearing sashes striped in yellow, blue and green — the national colors of Rwanda — sit behind a wooden table. There's a festive appearance to the proceedings that the words of Augustin Ntirushwamaboko belie. The 38-year-old farmer stands ramrod straight as he describes dragging a Tutsi man from the bushes in Zivu in 1994 and bludgeoning him to death. "When I hit him with the...

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