fields in neighborhoods where the attacks occurred . There are no lawyers and no judges in robes . A panel of local villagers with no legal experience conducts the proceedings . `` For me , gacacas help me find closure and healing , '' Murenzi said . `` I am able to see up close how remorseful the attackers are . ... You never see that in real court . '' Gacaca courts were introduced in the central African nation after the April 1994 genocide , which raged for 100 days . The victims were mostly from the Tutsi ethnic minority , who were targeted by Hutus over a rivalry that dates to colonial days . Some moderates from the Hutu majority who support Tutsis were also killed . Murenzi , a Tutsi from the capital , Kigali , lost most of his extended family in the genocide . During the attacks , he was in neighboring Uganda with his parents , where he attended school at the time , the 37-year-old said . `` My mom 's sisters , brothers , my uncles , they were all killed and buried in mass graves , '' he said . The
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- For Morris Murenzi , a visit to his native Rwanda always includes attending a gacaca court -- a local tribunal of villagers set up to try suspects in a 1994 genocide that killed 800,000 . The gacaca courts , as seen here in 2003 , are inspired by old village tribunals used to settle disputes . At the proceedings , he sits with his countrymen . Some tearfully confront their attackers and testify against them , their scars from the genocide still visible . Others -- like him -- quietly listen , their emotional scars invisible . They wait and hope for answers about how their relatives died as a nine-member panel questions suspects . `` Some of the witnesses who ask questions are disfigured , others are disabled , '' said the Dallas , Texas , resident whose last gacaca trial was in Kigali two years ago . `` The attackers have no place to hide . They are forced to address what they have done to the victims . '' Murenzi is one of thousands of people who attend gacaca courts all across Rwanda on any given day . Hearings are held in open