Monday, June 16, 2008
Article #2 from Volume 1, Issue 4: Your Media, Your Human Right
“Reconciliation as Grassroots Justice”
Rachel Proefke
Between April and July of 1994, in the span of 100 days, an estimated one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered throughout Rwanda as the rest of the world watched passively. The brutal genocide was orchestrated by the use of the propagandist radio station Radio Mille Collines; instigated in the shadows by the government; and enflamed by an inauspicious plan crash blamed on Tutsis which killed Rwanda’s President.
Most of the killings were perpetrated by civilians against unarmed civilians in vicious attacks of neighbors and community members acting out murder and destruction on a largely innocent minority and their supporters. This event is significant for the sheer efficiency and magnitude by which so many lives were extinguished.
Also, its significance is manifested in the fact that this was not the first outbreak of violence between Tutsis and Hutus, but rather one of the more glaring instances in a greater history of ethnicized tension in both Rwanda and Burundi where both sides are guilty of transgressions.
In the aftermath of the genocide, while the rest of the world wrestles with its complicit inaction, Rwandans are left with the questions of justice, truth, memory, and reconciliation.
Grappling with more than 120,000 alleged genocidaires placed in Rwanda’s prisons and communal jails by 2000, and despite the instituting of the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, reconciliation and justice have been sought by other means.
Human Rights Watch conceded that the combination of the national courts and the ICTR managed to try 10,000 suspects in a decade, but at this rate it is projected that it would take upwards of 100 years to prosecute all the suspects. In a throwback to traditional community and tribal justice systems, a means to deal with Rwanda’s wounds has been presented in the form of the Gacaca court system.
According to the official Rwandan government website of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, the Gacaca courts system is the manifestation of endeavors to reconstruct what happened during the genocide, speed up the legal proceedings by using as many courts as possible, and promote reconciliation of all Rwandans to build their unity.
Traditionally, Gacaca courts were community assemblies presided by elders which would settle village and family disputes.
However, in their modern manifestation, these grass-roots courts, as their name implies, are overseen by individuals with judicial training and act as a forum for the community to discuss the local context of the genocide and prosecute local offenders on four categories of criminality- organizational capacity in the genocide, perpetrators of homicide, committing acts of serious bodily injury, and property damage.
There are no lawyers present at the trials; instead, community members are welcome to comment or intervene as they see fit on either the side of or against the defendant. While instituted primarily to speed up the process of justice within the small, mountainous African nation, instead the courts have been attested as the primary agents for reconciliation, truth, and memory at the local level.
This complements the community-based nature of the genocide itself where neighbors are the perpetrators and where communities must conceive of a means to negotiate their relationships.
The Gacaca courts are often touted as the most sweeping implementation of the ideological assumptions behind the necessity of truth and reconciliation. However, they are often criticized as well for potential biases, inefficiencies, needlessly exposing witnesses and victims to reprisal, and inadequacies of coping with such a complex historical and socio-political context larger than the locality.
Others in turn retort with the notion that these faults are the “occupational hazards” of truth and reconciliation as opposed to conventional retributive justice systems. The question remains how is justice to be conceived of and achieved in the context of such widespread brutality? What is the function of locality in reconciliation following crimes against humanity? And how do we repatriate a sense of community and peace after such broad transgressions?
Despite the persistence of these subjectively-oriented questions, at the very least, the Gacaca courts are occupying the gaps in accountability, speed, and resolution that international justice following the genocide has left gaping. They can be conceived of as healing the wounds that complicit international passivity allowed to be inflicted. Perhaps the best way to secure justice for community-based and widespread crimes is through respect for this locality, as opposed to through the very mechanisms of justice and protection which failed to resolve the issue before over one million civilians were brutally butchered.
Rachel Proefke
Between April and July of 1994, in the span of 100 days, an estimated one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were butchered throughout Rwanda as the rest of the world watched passively. The brutal genocide was orchestrated by the use of the propagandist radio station Radio Mille Collines; instigated in the shadows by the government; and enflamed by an inauspicious plan crash blamed on Tutsis which killed Rwanda’s President.
Most of the killings were perpetrated by civilians against unarmed civilians in vicious attacks of neighbors and community members acting out murder and destruction on a largely innocent minority and their supporters. This event is significant for the sheer efficiency and magnitude by which so many lives were extinguished.
Also, its significance is manifested in the fact that this was not the first outbreak of violence between Tutsis and Hutus, but rather one of the more glaring instances in a greater history of ethnicized tension in both Rwanda and Burundi where both sides are guilty of transgressions.
In the aftermath of the genocide, while the rest of the world wrestles with its complicit inaction, Rwandans are left with the questions of justice, truth, memory, and reconciliation.
Grappling with more than 120,000 alleged genocidaires placed in Rwanda’s prisons and communal jails by 2000, and despite the instituting of the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda, reconciliation and justice have been sought by other means.
Human Rights Watch conceded that the combination of the national courts and the ICTR managed to try 10,000 suspects in a decade, but at this rate it is projected that it would take upwards of 100 years to prosecute all the suspects. In a throwback to traditional community and tribal justice systems, a means to deal with Rwanda’s wounds has been presented in the form of the Gacaca court system.
According to the official Rwandan government website of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, the Gacaca courts system is the manifestation of endeavors to reconstruct what happened during the genocide, speed up the legal proceedings by using as many courts as possible, and promote reconciliation of all Rwandans to build their unity.
Traditionally, Gacaca courts were community assemblies presided by elders which would settle village and family disputes.
However, in their modern manifestation, these grass-roots courts, as their name implies, are overseen by individuals with judicial training and act as a forum for the community to discuss the local context of the genocide and prosecute local offenders on four categories of criminality- organizational capacity in the genocide, perpetrators of homicide, committing acts of serious bodily injury, and property damage.
There are no lawyers present at the trials; instead, community members are welcome to comment or intervene as they see fit on either the side of or against the defendant. While instituted primarily to speed up the process of justice within the small, mountainous African nation, instead the courts have been attested as the primary agents for reconciliation, truth, and memory at the local level.
This complements the community-based nature of the genocide itself where neighbors are the perpetrators and where communities must conceive of a means to negotiate their relationships.
The Gacaca courts are often touted as the most sweeping implementation of the ideological assumptions behind the necessity of truth and reconciliation. However, they are often criticized as well for potential biases, inefficiencies, needlessly exposing witnesses and victims to reprisal, and inadequacies of coping with such a complex historical and socio-political context larger than the locality.
Others in turn retort with the notion that these faults are the “occupational hazards” of truth and reconciliation as opposed to conventional retributive justice systems. The question remains how is justice to be conceived of and achieved in the context of such widespread brutality? What is the function of locality in reconciliation following crimes against humanity? And how do we repatriate a sense of community and peace after such broad transgressions?
Despite the persistence of these subjectively-oriented questions, at the very least, the Gacaca courts are occupying the gaps in accountability, speed, and resolution that international justice following the genocide has left gaping. They can be conceived of as healing the wounds that complicit international passivity allowed to be inflicted. Perhaps the best way to secure justice for community-based and widespread crimes is through respect for this locality, as opposed to through the very mechanisms of justice and protection which failed to resolve the issue before over one million civilians were brutally butchered.
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Labels: human rights, hutu, media, media control, newsletter, rachel proefke, reconciliation, rwanda, tutsi, university of washington, uwjhr
Labels: human rights, hutu, media, media control, newsletter, rachel proefke, reconciliation, rwanda, tutsi, university of washington, uwjhr
