NO ONE knows how many members of the Tutsi minority were butchered in Taba during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
In a grove of trees near the commune's main buildings are two large rectangular plots, their borders edged with plants. These are mass graves in which are buried some of the thousands of Taba residents who were slaughtered by the Interahamwe Hutu militias.
Accused of having organised, and in many cases committed these killings is Mr Jean Paul Akayesu (43), the former mayor of Taba in Central Rwanda. His trial, the first to be held by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, is due to begin today at Arusha in northern Tanzania. If found guilty he could be sentenced to life imprisonment.
Among those killed at the outset of the carnage in Taba were three men from one family. Their brother, Mr Ephrem Karangwa, says he witnessed their murders. He also says that Mr Akayesu ordered and participated in their execution.
"The genocide in this commune began on the evening of April 18th," says Mr Karangwa, now mayor of Taba. "That day Akayesu attended a meeting of all the mayors in the prefecture. When he got back to Taba he summoned members of his party (MDR Power) and went to talk to the Interahamwe. Then the killings began."
Having sanctioned the murder of his first victim, a teacher, Mr Akayesu is allegedly to have called a meeting at which he urged the elimination of all Tutsis in the area. It is charged that he made a series of incendiary speeches urging the population the kill all inyenzi's (cockroaches), even Tutsi foetuses in their mothers' wombs.
Survivors say he drew up death lists, distributed weapons and gave rousing encouragement to his henchmen.
"I was warned I was on a blacklist of people to be killed", says Mr Karangwa, described in a just published report by the human rights agency, African Rights as "the man Akayesu hunted more than any other".
"I fled with some of my family. I saw Akayesu and his gang as they looted and burnt my house. Then they began searching the area. My brothers and I split up but Akayesu caught up with them. "I was hiding on a hill a short distance away. I saw him shoot my youngest brother dead. Then his men killed the two who were left, slashing them with machetes.
A police inspector at the time of the genocide, Mr Karangwa, was pursued to a neighbouring commune by the Interahamwe. He escaped by bribing a colleague not to reveal his hiding place. By May 1994, most of the Tutsis in Taba were dead. "Many of my friends are buried here," says Mr Karangwa, standing by the mass graves. "People were killed brutally, with knives, machetes and clubs. You had to pay money if you wanted to be killed by a bullet. Akayesu did terrible things. He even took part in the killings".
Mr Karangwa has made statements to the tribunal investigators and hopes the UN trials in Tanzania will be properly conducted. But like many Rwandans he feels it would have been better if all the guilty had been tried in their own country. Were Mr Akayesu to be found guilty by a Rwandan court, he would face the death penalty.
So far, only 21 people have been indicted by the UN Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda which is, along with a similar tribunal for former Yugoslavia, the first attempt to prosecute war crimes in an international forum since the end of the second World War. Of the 11 people under arrest, four are being held in Arusha, among them Mr Akayesu who fled Rwanda in June 1994.
. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda yesterday postponed until next March the trial of an ailing Rwandan Hutu, Mr Georges Rutaganda, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity.