Trial of Suspect in Rwandan Church Massacre Begins

The Associated Press reports that a Rwandan man began trial Monday for allegedly massacring a church of 2,000 fellow Rwandans 15 years ago. Gaspard Kanyarukiga, an ethnic Hutu, reportedly convinced a bulldozer driver to crush the ethnic Tutsis who had sought shelter in the church during the 1994 genocide. Tutsis who survived the bulldozing were hunted down and slaughtered by armed gangs. The killings were part of 100 days of killing orchestrated by the Hutu government at the time. More than half a million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered during the country-wide violence. But Kanyarukiga's trial, at the Tanzania-basedInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, may take years. The tribunal has judged just 39 people in the 15 years since the genocide.