The Minister of National Unity and Civic Engagement, Jean-Damascène Bizimana has said that the scanning and digitalisation of about 43 million copies of Gacaca Courts’ archives were completed, but they will be publically accessible in 2024 after linking each file to the corresponding defendant. “This offers us hope because even if the hard copies of Gacaca Courts archives get damaged, their contents will be preserved thanks to the digitalised copies,” he told Senators on Thursday, February 24, adding that this is one of the activities in line with the Genocide remembrance and prevention. It was during a session with senators in which he exchanged ideas with them on the implementation of the Ministry of National Unity and Civic Engagement (MINUBUMWE)’s responsibilities. In 2017, the Government said that the process to scan and digitalise about 63 million copies of Gacaca Courts’ archives – which started in 2015, was expected to have been completed in 2018. Commenting on the reduction in the number, Minister Bizimana told The New Times that it was later realised some of the pages were found blank, hence there was no point in digitalising them – with only about 43 million copies having content being digitalised as of 2019. The digitisation of Gacaca case files keeps them in soft copies to ensure safe storage and easy access for further usage, such as documenting on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in order to fight against its denial, trivialisation and the spread of the Genocide ideology, for research as well as judicial purposes. The project is carried out in partnership with Aegis Trust, a British non-governmental organisation working to prevent genocide and other mass atrocities worldwide and which has the high expertise in preserving archives. Indexing system, and access Currently, the Minister said that ongoing works consist of putting in place an indexing system – for organising the archives in a way that will make it easier for people who need them to access them by entering a code that they will be given. The indexing consists of linking each file with identification details including the name of the corresponding defendant, their District, Sector and Cell of origin. “This is a complex system and takes time because sometimes there is a challenge of files which bear the same names yet they belong to different people (namesakes),” he said. Bizimana indicated it is expected that all the files will be accessible in 2024 when the entire project will be completed, but he said there will be instructions governing their access to avoid possible misuse, explaining that some files contain sensitive information. He cited information about cases of rape committed against women during the Genocide. Meanwhile, he pointed out that they are working with the Rwanda Information Society (RISA), a public agency in charge of ICT, about a plan to have an offsite backup. This is a means of securing data to a server in a different location than the primary server in an event of a disaster or malicious attacks. This move, Bizimana said is intended to prevent the loss of such data in case one storage gets damaged as a result of factors such as fire outbreaks. In January 2017, it was estimated that the Gacaca Court archive digitisation project would require about Rwf5 billion to complete. But in September of the same year, the budget was revised downwards to around Rwf2.8 billion with the Government attributing that to streamlining the process to cut costs in a manner that does not hinder efficiency. Gacaca Courts were the community-based Genocide courts. In their 10 years of existence (2002 to 2012), Gacaca Courts tried over 1.9 million cases related to the genocide against the Tutsi, which hugely contributed to the eradication of the culture of impunity and dispensation of justice to the victims, according to information from the Ministry of Justice. Among those cases, over 1.3 million concerned looted or destroyed properties, while over 638,000 were cases related to crimes committed against persons.
