Reconciliation is the Basis of Rwandan Gacaca Justice
by Swanee Hunt, Rocky Mountain News
February 8, 2024

It was April, the heart of the rainy season, when the Rwandan massacres began. In just three months, starting with the ferocious downpour, some 800,000 Rwandans (of a population of 8 million) were slaughtered.

It was the fastest genocide in human history. In the aftermath, more than 100,000 alleged perpetrators were imprisoned; thousands of others escaped. The genocide targeted educated Tutsis; as a result, only about 50 lawyers were left in the criminal justice system.

Now, nearly nine years later, many of those prisoners still languish in overcrowded jails built for 10,000. But that's about to change. To alleviate the crush and rectify the injustice of holding prisoners without trial, Rwandan President Paul Kagame has granted provisional release to those who confess to carrying out the genocide, who were teenagers at the time of the crime, or who are sick or elderly. (The masterminds are on trial in a U.N. court in Tanzania.)

In the last few weeks, 40,000 prisoners have been released and most are now immersed in two months of "re-education." Training includes learning the history of the genocide, AIDS awareness, and trauma counseling. Although no longer behind bars, a majority of the released prisoners will still face trial, appearing before a jury from their community under the gacaca justice system launched last year.

Gacaca (pronounced ga-CHA-cha) is a new form of the tribal tradition where villages settled disputes in public hearings. Those who confess to murder, describe the horrific details, and appear sufficiently repentant could see their sentences reduced by half or more. In many cases, the suspects would be freed immediately, with time served as their sentence.

Although the U.S. government supports Rwanda's provisional release of prisoners, certain human rights groups question its wisdom. African Rights says the "provisional liberty" could jeopardize the judicial process. In a maelstrom of emotion, survivors might fear retribution and witnesses could be too intimidated to testify. Suspects might simply disappear. The trials could be a mockery. The gacaca experiment could end up a lame substitute for genocidal justice. Judges who are barely trained, unpaid and often illiterate will decide the fate of tens of thousands of murder suspects who, by admitting wrongdoing, could go free. Even the best scenario is grim: terrified survivors, forced to relive the horrors of the genocide, will have to live among confessed murderers, rapists, and thieves.

One woman grappling with these dilemmas is Aloisea Inyumba, the governor of Kigali-Ngali province and former head of Rwanda's National Unity and Reconciliation Commission. Inyumba is a member of Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace, a global initiative that brings women to the policy table in situations of violent conflict. Inyumba witnessed the 1994 genocide; in the aftermath, she was given the task of arranging for the burial of the corpses and finding homes for 500,000 orphans. In a risky move, she persuaded survivors to care for their enemies' children. Out of the chaos of war, Inyumba was creating a movement toward reconciliation.

Now Inyumba faces a similarly daunting task: helping Rwandans live with neighbors who killed their families. According to Internews, Inyumba addressed the prisoners during their release, saying, "You will meet people who have been seriously wounded . . . there are people who have been traumatized and this experience will be a very difficult one . . . this is not just a moment to celebrate that you are getting out of prison, you should pause and think about where the bad leadership of the past brought us."

Despite its limitations, the gacaca court system may bring catharsis to the victims of the genocide. Accusers can face the accused; the wounded their torturers. Families can learn how their loved ones died. But questions remain: When to feel compassion for criminals? How to open dialogue when emotional wounds are still raw? How to balance the anger of a survivor with the anguish of a prisoner wrongly punished?

In the 20th century's landmark Nuremberg trials, Nazi leaders were prosecuted for the systematic murder of millions of Jews. Forged out of the rubble of World War II, the trials were a distant affair to many of those struggling to rebuild shattered lives and communities. In Rwanda, however, the sheer number of prisoners on trial is unprecedented and the trials will be in communities throughout the land. No normal court system is designed to handle mass atrocities; but gacaca will force criminals and survivors to face each other, to forgive, to understand.

Rwandans are choosing to honor their healing process. Long-term stability might well result. As the global community faces current conflicts that have devolved into impossibly poor choices, we could learn from Rwandans' insistence on the bedrock principle of reconciliation.

more articles by Swanee Hunt

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