Burera hires prisoner to help both community development and reconciliation

NORTHERN PROVINCE Burera has launched a grand plan of construction of hundreds of hectares of terraces on the step hills by commissioning over 300 prisoners who are serving under the alternative penalty of imprisonment programme, TIG. The community development-oriented activities are part of the plan to promote development and reconciliation at the same time, said TIG executive secretary Evariste Bizimana. He castigated the district authorities to embrace the activities of TIG but at the same time to ensure close supervision in order to get durable benefits out of the program. “To prisoners its is an exam to witness whether they deserve mercy but it’s also a way of changing the mentality that punishment is by killing.” Prisoners who have pleaded guilty to Genocide-related crimes are involved in community activities and their sentence in prison is reduced to half. All the districts in Northern Province have used the TIG programme and have involved prisoners namely in forestation, quarrying and construction of the houses of Genocide survivors. Governor Boniface Rucagu said that community activities should not be viewed as slavery, but rather that the prisoners should be proud of lending a hand in the reconstruction of the country they participated in breaking down just years ago. The environmental-protection measures have been geared towards making progressive terraces to stop soil erosion. Ends