Content area
Full text
Abstract:
In institutionalizing gacaca, the Rwandan government has launched one of the most ambitious transitional justice projects the world has ever seen. But gacaca is controversial, and its contribution to postconflict reconciliation is unclear. Through public opinion surveys, trial observations, and interviews, this study provides a window into how gacaca has shaped interethnic relations in one Rwandan community. Although gacaca has brought more people to trial than the ICTR, transnational trials, and the ordinary Rwandan courts combined, gacaca exposes-and perhaps deepens-conflict, resentment, and ethnic disunity. Lies, half-truths, and silence have limited gacaca's contribution to truth, justice, and reconciliation.
Introduction
In institutionalizing gacaca, the Rwandan government has launched one of the most ambitious transitional justice projects the world has ever seen. Based on a traditional form of dispute resolution, gacaca is a local, participatory legal mechanism that seeks to blend punitive and restorative justice. In more than nine thousand communities throughout Rwanda, panels of elected lay judges known as Inyangamugayo ("those who detest dishonesty" in Kinyarwanda) preside over genocide trials in the same cities, towns, and villages where the crimes were committed. Inaugurated countrywide in 2005 and designed to ease the massive backlog of genocide suspects crowding Rwanda's prisons, the trials take place one day each week in local stadiums, emptied markets, forest clearings, schoolyards, and other areas that can accommodate what is intended to be a community event. The aim of these tribunals is at once daunting and inspiring: punish génocidaires, release the innocent, provide reparations, establish the truth, promote reconciliation between the Hutu and the Tutsi, and heal a nation torn apart by genocide and civil war in 1994. Gacaca, in one scholar's words, sets out to achieve "mass justice for mass atrocity," but even that may be an understatement (Waldorf 2006a:l).
Gacaca's ambition is matched only by the challenges it faces. Scholars, including Erin Daly and Lars Waldorf, and international NGOs, including Penal Reform International (PRI) and Avocats Sans Frontières (ASF), have documented a range of problems that frustrate gacaca (Daly 2000). Lack of defense counsel and other protections for the accused raise doubts about gacaca's compliance with international norms (PRI 2006) . Judges are inadequately trained to handle serious legal questions and control often unwieldy proceedings (African Rights 2003). Fear of...