Prosecutor General Jean-Bosco Mutangana told The New Times that his office is ready to support efforts by UK authorities to bring to justice five Rwandan men suspected of participating in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. Nearly 11 years on, a decision is still pending on five extradition cases of Genocide suspects living in the UK.
This book examines the project undertaken by the post-genocide government to shape the collective memory of the Rwandan population, both through political and judicial reforms but also in public commemorations and memorials. Drawing on over two decades of field research in Rwanda, the author uses surveys and comparative local case studies to explore Rwanda’s response both at a governmental and local level.
Many young girls and women were victims of rape during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), set up by United Nations Security Council was the first institution to recognise rape as a means of perpetrating genocide.
Parliament Speaker Donatille Mukabalisa has urged countries to arrest and extradite genocide fugitives roaming across the world. She said this will not only serve justice for the over a million people killed in the Genocide 25 years ago but also necessary to give closure to the survivors of the Genocide, who still grapple with effects of the atrocities.
After the genocide against the Tutsis in 1994, many perpetrators escaped. Some were arrested and taken to the UN-backed International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), which is based in Tanzania. That court closed in 2015 after several convictions. For many of those who carried out the killings, justice has been at a local level through community tribunals known as “Gacaca” courts.
The Supreme Court upheld the 30-year jail sentence for genocide convict Charles Bandora, which he had earlier been handed by the High Court’s specialised chamber for international crimes in 2015. Bandora, as a prominent businessman and vice chair for the then ruling MRND party in the former Commune Ngenda, was charged with five crimes related to the Genocide against the Tutsi.
To be a “situated bystander” means to resist the pressure to participate in genocidal violence and to belong to a moral order that is distinct from that of the extremists. Therefore, this article challenges the homogenous portrayal of the unresponsive bystander group and introduces the novel concept of “situated bystandership” to draw attention to the proximal and representational contexts that shape bystanders’ responses, roles and positions in society.
In this book, the author examines how Rwandans navigated the combination of harmony and punishment in grassroots courts purportedly designed to rebuild the social fabric in the wake of the 1994 genocide. Post-genocide Rwandan officials developed new local courts supposedly modelled on traditional practices of dispute resolution as part of a broader national policy of unity and reconciliation.
Through the Rwanda case, this article advances an understanding of transitional justice adoption, which focuses on ways in which governments use transitional justice as a tool of political order. Within this framework, transitional justice is adopted to address security, resource, and legitimacy challenges for a post-conflict or post-transition government.
The author looks at how Rwanda has worked to prosecute the perpetrators of genocide, remember its victims, and move forward which is an enormous undertaking. It set up the Gacaca courts, which reviewed nearly 2 million trials in under a decade, and as thus, Rwanda provides a case study in local legal adaptation toward accountability.
The Rwandan community; friends of Rwanda; members of the diplomatic corps and representatives of international organizations based in Geneva; met on April 10 at the headquarters of the UN Office in Geneva to mark the International Day of the Reflection on the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Ngarambe further urged all states that shelter suspects of the Genocide against the Tutsi to either prosecute them or extradite them to Rwanda.
The Rwandan community in Canada has written to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asking for radical change to the country’s view of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda. In a letter dated February 8, the community wants Canada to implement a UN resolution obliging all countries refer to the mass killings as “the 1994 genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda”.
“Genocide against the Tutsi has been one of the worst atrocities of our time. It was committed at the watch of the world and could not prevent it. We must make every effort to ensure that such a tragedy does not happen again,” Minister Flessel wrote in the Guestbook after visiting the Kigali Genocide Memorial. She also said that the world should accept its failure to have done nothing when the Genocide against Tutsi was happening in Rwanda.
The report was done by the Independent Inquiry into the actions of the United Nations during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. The report was done was done with hopes to contribute to building renewed trust between Rwanda and the United Nations, to help efforts of reconciliation among the people of Rwanda and to contribute to preventing similar tragedies from occurring.
The book is designed as a text for upper-undergraduate and graduate students, as well as a primer for non-specialists and general readers interested in learning about one of humanity’s enduring blights. Written in clear and lively prose, liberally sprinkled with over 100 illustrations and maps, and including personal testimonies from genocide survivors, Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction has established itself as the core textbook of the new generation of genocide scholarship
The article is on a conversation that President Paul Kagame had with Foreign Affairs managing editor Jonathan Tepperman in late February 2014. The discussion was on Rwanda’s success and the dark side that came with it: opposition politicians have been jailed or killed under mysterious circumstances, journalists complain of harassment, and Kigali has been regularly criticized for meddling in neighbouring Congo’s long-running civil war.
In “Instigation to Crimes Against Humanity The Flawed Jurisprudence of the Trial and Appeal Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR),” the author critiques the jurisprudence of the ICTR on instigation to crimes against humanity under Article 6(1).
The book comprehensively analyzes the full range of the transitional justice processes undertaken for the genocide against the Tutsi. Drawing on the author’s extensive professional experience as the principal justice policy maker and the leading law enforcement officer in Rwanda from 1996-2003, the book provides an in-depth analysis of the social, political and legal challenges faced by Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide and the aspirations and legacy of transitional justice. The book explores the role played by the accountability processes not just in pursuing accountability but also in shaping the reconstruction of Rwanda’s institutions of democratic governance and political reconciliation.
The hypothesis of this paper is that the sexual violence suffered by girl child during the genocide can be seen as emblematic of a general pattern of sexual discrimination in Rwandan society which was unleashed by the exacerbation of the ethnic conflict. The article studies the status of the girl child in international law and examines her status in Rwanda before and during the genocide, as well as in the transitional or post-conflict society she dwells in today. It also provides recommendations for her healing through a “childered” and gendered approach to recovery by establishing a restorative paradigm in terms of safety, remembrance, and reconnection.
This book is aimed at national bodies seeking to employ traditional justice mechanisms, and at external agencies supporting such processes. It is based on the findings of a comparative study examining the role played by traditional justice mechanisms in dealing with the legacy of violent conflict in Africa. It focuses on five countries—Burundi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Uganda—that are used as the basis for outlining conclusions and options for future policy development in the related areas of post-conflict reconstruction, democracy building and development.
This article talks about how Rwanda has been able to put itself back together after the genocide against the Tutsi and highlights lessons the rest of the world can learn. It addresses questions like; How do you mend a country when intimates killed intimates in such tightly knitted communities? How do you do justice when thousands of people were perpetrators and where you only have so much prison space? How do you do it?
This paper looks at the prospects for peace and justice in the aftermath of the gross abuses of human rights that occurred and, to that end, it considers the potential uses and limits of restorative justice initiatives in the process of healing and reconciliation in Rwanda. It argues that restorative justice initiatives have moved the country closer toward reconciliation than retributive measures, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
This article assesses ordinary Rwandans’ attitudes towards gacaca to better understand this institution’s contribution. The majority of survey participants expressed support in response to more global questions, but dissatisfaction with gacaca in response to more specific questions, including regarding security and the credibility of confessions. Rather than dismiss positive global assessments, it suggests that divergent attitudes show popular support for the idea of gacaca and aspirations for its legacy, but dissatisfaction with its actual operation.
Gacaca and Abunzi serve as significant evidence that homegrown initiatives in Rwanda provide a successful balance between a modern system and the Rwandan traditional ideals of unity, resolution, and reconciliation. It is necessary for Rwanda to maintain its traditional ideals after the devastating genocide for those traditional ideals are a critical part of rebuilding and modernizing.
This article examines two transitional justice mechanisms that were utilized in Rwanda’s post genocide era and assesses their contributions to reconciliation. The two principal approaches which emerged in the Rwandan context were the establishment of International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), via the international political community whilst grassroots efforts within Rwanda were channeled through the gacaca court system.
This article analyzes how the current framework of retributive justice pursued by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda fails to respect the human rights and to enable the well-being of Rwandan genocide survivors.
The author claims that the rationale behind the preference for prosecution is the assumption that atrocious human rights violations are in fact crimes, and the Western conceptual framework for dealing with ordinary crime revolves around prosecutors, judges, and trials. In this context, the author asks whether ordinary crime really is an appropriate analogy for massive human right atrocities or an extraordinary evil. She questions whether prosecutions constitute the best method of redressing criminal actions in the context of transitional justice.
In a gripping narrative that examines the power of the press and sheds light on how the media turned tens of thousands of ordinary Rwandans into murderers, the author traces the rise and fall of three media executives — Ferdinand Nahimana, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, and Hassan Ngeze. From crime to trial to verdict, Temple-Raston explores the many avenues of justice Rwanda pursued in the decade after the killing. Focusing on the media trial at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, she then drops down to the level of the hills, where ordinary Rwandans seek justice and retribution, and examines whether politics in the East African nation has set the stage for renewed violence.
The author offers a landmark book on our attempts to heal after such large-scale tragedy. Writing with informed, searching prose of the extraordinary drama of the truth commissions in Argentina, East Germany, and most notably South Africa; war-crime prosecutions in Nuremberg and Bosnia; and reparations in America, Minow looks at the strategies and results of these riveting national experiments in justice and healing.
The book examines calls for a truth commission to redress the brutal war during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, the decades-long armed conflict in Colombia, and US detention policies in the War on Terror. In so doing, it argues that transitional justice is an idea around which a loosely structured movement emerged and professionalized, making truth commissions a standard response to mass violence. It reveals how the malleability of transitional justice and truth commissions is both an asset and a liability for those hoping to ensure accountability, improve survivor well-being, and prevent future violence.
This book is the first volume to approach the politically sensitive subject of post-conflict or post-authoritarian justice from a theoretical perspective. It combines contributions from distinguished scholars and practitioners as well as from emerging academics from different disciplines and provides an overview of conceptual approaches to the field. The volume seeks to refine our understanding of transitional justice by exploring often unarticulated assumptions that guide discourse and practice.
This is a timely empirical study and review of the Gacaca Courts. Based on the author’s original field work which began in 2003 in Rwanda and which has been updated to the end of 2009, it includes responses from within the Rwandan population. Dr. Clark argues that, despite widespread international scepticism, the Gacaca process has achieved remarkable results in terms of justice and reconciliation, although this has often come at a price, especially the re-traumatisation of many Rwandans who have participated firsthand in hearings.
This volume contributes thoughtful and rigorous research to the fundamental question how to apply truth, justice, reparations and institutional reform to fundamental – and often ancestral – inequalities in each transitional society.
In the last twenty years, the field of transitional justice has gone from being a peripheral concern to an ubiquitous feature of societies recovering from mass conflict or repressive rule. The sprawl of transitional justice, however, has not always produced concepts and practices that are theoretically sound and grounded in the empirical realities of the societies in question. This book takes stock of this burgeoning field and explores the key concerns with current trends in transitional justice.
The authors analyse the political, legal and regional impact of events in post-genocide Rwanda within the broader themes of transitional justice and reconciliation. The book also contains an unprecedented debate between Rwandan President Paul Kagame and René Lemarchand on post-genocide memory and governance in Rwanda, and incorporates chapters from Rwandan academics and practitioners, such as Tom Ndahiro, Solomon Nsabiyera Gasana, and Jean Baptiste Kayigamba – all of whom are also survivors of the 1994 genocide – and draws on their personal experiences.
This volume aims to produce a better understanding of the relationship between tradition and justice in Africa. It presents six contributions of African scholars related to current international discourses on access to justice and human rights and on the localisation of transitional justice. The contributions suggest that access to justice and appropriate, context-specific transitional justice strategies need to consider diversity and legal pluralism. In this sense, they all stress that dialogical approaches are the way forward.
Noncombatants can be accidently or incidentally harmed or their properties destroyed without making that conduct a violation. Since reparation is tied to violations of existing laws of war, victims of lawful incidents (collateral damage) are excluded. This book discursively investigates the basis for this normative discrimination and examines the grounds (moral, legal, and policy) on which reparation to victims of collateral damage could be (un)justifiable.
The book emphasizes how children must be engaged during post-conflict transition. If children are excluded, they may become vulnerable to a continuing cycle of violence, affecting future generations. In contrast, through active involvement in transitions, children and adolescents can be the catalysts for justice, reconciliation, and peace-building within their own families and communities.
Doughty examines how Rwandans navigated the combination of harmony and punishment in grassroots courts purportedly designed to rebuild the social fabric in the wake of the 1994 genocide. Postgenocide Rwandan officials developed new local courts ostensibly modeled on traditional practices of dispute resolution as part of a broader national policy of unity and reconciliation. The three legal forums at the heart of Remediation in Rwanda—genocide courts called inkiko gacaca, mediation committees called comite y’abunzi, and a legal aid clinic—all emphasized mediation.
The book covers twenty new commissions formed in the last ten years, analyzing new trends, and offering detailed charts that assess the impact of truth commissions and provide comparative information not previously available. Placing the increasing number of truth commissions within the broader expansion in transitional justice, Unspeakable Truths surveys key developments and new thinking in reparations, international justice, healing from trauma, and other areas. The book challenges many widely-held assumptions, based on hundreds of interviews and a sweeping review of the literature.
The decisions by Judge Meron to grant early release to génocidaires who fail to even recognise the crimes for which they were convicted raises serious questions about the procedures in place. Once released there is no monitoring to keep track of them. What they are granted is an unconditional reduction in sentence and there is nothing to stop these génocidaires justifying their crimes and continuing to promote their racist ideology.
Rwanda’s High Commissioner in London, Yamina Karitanyi said that the Rwandan government has about 400 requests for the extradition of fugitives accused of taking part in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi that saw one million people killed in three months. She added that many of those requests were in Europe and thanked countries such as the US, Canada, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark and the Netherlands, which “have cooperated with our judiciary in extraditing, deporting, or putting perpetrators on trial.”
Former Hutu militia leader Bernard Munyagishari was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Kigali for his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. Munyagishari was arrested in the DRC in 2011 and transferred to Rwanda in 2013. The high court of Kigali judged Munyagishari guilty of “crimes of murder and genocide” but acquitted him of rape. Born in 1959, Munyagishari was tried over events in northwestern Gisenyi where he headed the notorious Interahamwe Hutu militia and where Tutsis were thrown into mass graves at a cemetery.
Tanzanian authorities have said that they have taken to commercial capital Dar es Salaam the former convict of the disbanded International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) for further questioning. The former convict, Innocent Sagahutu, was arrested recently in Kagera region by immigration officials while attempting to cross into Burundi without without valid documents. Sagahutu recently completed a 15 year jail sentence for his role in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
Eight fugitives suspected to have taken part in the mass killings of Rwandans during the infamous 1994 genocide against the Tutsi are still being hunted down and upon arrest, three of them will be tried in Arusha. “…and the other five will face their charges in Rwanda as stipulated in the United Nations agreement,” explained, Mr Danford Mpumilwa the Communication Officer with Arusha based International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals.
A court in Denmark has jailed a Danish national for four weeks pending a decision to extradite him to his native Rwanda where he’s suspected of committing crimes against humanity in 1994. Danish prosecutors will now decide whether Wenceslas Twagirayezu should be deported on suspicion of taking part in a massacre in a church and at a university where more than 1,000 people were killed.
Five years after the official closure of Gacaca courts, the Government is working to see that compensation cases are completed by the end of the year, the Minister of State for Constitutional and Legal Affairs, Evode Uwizeyimana, has said.
Prosecutor-General Jean Bosco Mutangana has urged his Kenyan counterparts to do everything in their power to ensure Rwandans suspected of various crimes, especially the Genocide against the Tutsi, are arrested and extradited. The two countries have an extradition treaty. The call was made during the National Prosecution Service Convention organised by the Directorate of Public Prosecutions of Kenya at the Kenya School of Government in Nairobi.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame has signed several agreements with Zambia. The agreements include one on extradition. In the past, the Rwandan government has accused Zambia of harbouring genocide suspects, allegations Lusaka denies but after the signing of this agreement, genocide fugitives will be extradited.
Rwandan High court has received new evidence pinning Ladislas Ntaganzwa – former Bourgmestre of Nyakizu Commune that he partnered with Burundian refugees to systematically execute over 38, 000 Tutsi during the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi. According to prosecution team (Claudine Dushimiyimana and Faustin Nkusi), Ntaganzwa used his authority to order killings of Tutsi that had sought refuge in these areas.
Nine Rwandans suspected of involvement in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi face extradition from Zambia to Rwanda following the signing of a treaty between the two countries. Rwanda says it sent the request to Zambia and anticipates collaboration when the extradition treaty becomes enforceable.
Identifying the guilty parties in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and bringing them into justice continues to this day despite limited resources and enormous legal and political obstacles. Determining who bears responsibility at the international level, still needs to be cleared. In June 2017, three human rights NGOs filed a lawsuit in the high court of Paris against the French bank BNP Paribas for the latter’s alleged complicity in committing genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes in Rwanda.
The National Commission for the Fight against the Genocide (CNLG), and the umbrella of genocide survivors’ organizations (Ibuka) have stated that the decision of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruling out the extradition of five genocide suspects for trial in Rwanda is akin to endorsing impunity by harbouring the suspects.
The National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG) has commended Germany for extraditing Jean Twagiramungu to stand trial for his alleged role in the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. He is accused of masterminding genocide in the former Gikongoro Prefecture (now in Southern Province) where he is said to have been active in planning and committing genocide in multiple areas.
Judicial experts meeting in Rwanda’s capital city Kigali called for blending formal and traditional justice systems to ease access to justice in Africa.
“We acknowledge the importance of justice institutions in promoting access to justice but also realize the limitations of this formal system,” said Abdulai Hamid Charm, the Chief Justice of Sierra Leone. He added that
legal professionals need to collaborate with community-based justice institutions.
Rwanda has said that the United Kingdom is reluctant in taking action against genocide fugitives who have found safe haven in the country that claims to have equity justice. Five fugitives of the 1994 Genocide against Tutsi that claimed more than a million lives in Rwanda have been appealing the extradition verdict for the last ten years which is making the case ‘Justice delayed, justice denied’.
The Great Lakes region in Africa has been a region prone to conflict for well over four decades. The region is made up of countries that have Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria passing within their territories, they are: Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Kenya, Republic of Tanzania and Rwanda. It is evident that the efforts of achieving sustainable peace for each states in that region has been compromised by factors external to their territory therefore regional factors.
This study deals with the problem of transitional justice in post-genocide Rwanda in the light of South African experience. Transitional justice, a kind of justice pertinent to societies in transition from dictatorship to democracy where the new democratic regime faces the challenge of how to redress the abuses of the past, varies according to each case.
This study is aimed at providing a comprehensive and compelling explanation of the process and the operations of the Gacaca tribunals. Thus by means of both historical and empirical analysis, the study hopes to determine the challenges confronting the system and the promise it holds, if any, and to recommend the need to adopt and adapt to an approach which is wider and more integrated in dealing with reconciliation in the region.
The extension of just war theory to include jus post bellum – with its emphasis on rules designed to end war justly – connects closely to debates surrounding transitional justice. Whereas jus post bellum concerns ending conflict in a just manner and establishing a durable peace through the law, transitional justice entails both legal and nonlegal methods for addressing past harm and securing a less aggressive future. This paper looks at the theory and practice of these two concepts in Central Africa.
Hybridity is an increasingly common theme in the study and practice of transitional justice and post-conflict reconstruction. This article clarifies the genesis and operation of, and situates within the broader realm of transitional justice, a local institution, which is also embedded within a hybrid structure for responding to mass crimes: the Rwandan system of gacaca.
The author argues that while we should be sceptical of the Rwandan government’s overly romantic depiction of gacaca as organic, decentralized justice and critical of other dimensions of state policy, we should be equally sceptical of characterizations of gacaca as simply another means for the state to entrench its power and influence in the countryside. This article contends that both perspectives are reductionist and fail to acknowledge the complex ways in which Rwandan citizens engage with the state and participate in government-initiated community-level processes such as gacaca.
This article engages with recent attempts to bridge the apparent divide between disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and transitional justice, and their implications for post-conflict environments characterized by large-scale displacement. Phil recommends that greater recognition of the challenges of diffuse violence, and more careful policymaking by national and international actors, are required in the pursuit of lasting peace and security after mass conflict and displacement.
This article provides the first analysis of the outcomes of the gacaca courts, a traditional community-based justice system that was greatly modified to address crimes of genocide. After briefly reviewing the creation of the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions, it explains the court process. Then, it presents an overview of the outcomes of the courts with a focus on the specific sanctions given to those found guilty.
Gacaca trials raise the question of whether a transitional justice mechanism instituted at the community level can successfully reconcile and bring justice to postconflict states. This article, assesses ordinary Rwandans’ attitudes towards gacaca to better understand this institution’s contribution. This 2011 survey of 504 Rwandans from Ngoma Commune is the first empirical study since the end of regular gacaca trials.
The paper looks into the international debate about the use of prosecutions in transitional justice which is focused on the conditions that permit prosecuting those who commit human rights violations. It takes into consideration the critics’ view that suggest that international law imposes a duty to prosecute a former regime’s atrocious crimes, and contend that states have overstated claims that prosecutions are impossible.
Transitional justice discourses have largely focused on “paradigmatic transitions.” Such analyses emphasize dealing with the human rights abuses committed by prior authoritarian or illegitimate regimes. This article explores these paradoxes and challenges. It further draws out a more nuanced understand of the transitional process by conceptually separating war/peace transitions from illiberal polity/democracy transitions.
The article examines the contribution of the ad hoc tribunals to the security, legal systems and administration of Rwanda and Sierra Leone. It argues that the two tribunals have the legal and physical capability to supplement efforts of the international community to sustain the stability of the two post-conflict societies
This article examines two transitional justice mechanisms that were utilized in Rwanda’s post genocide era and assesses their contributions to reconciliation. The two principal approaches which emerged in the Rwandan context were the establishment of International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), via the international political community whilst grassroots efforts within Rwanda were channeled through the gacaca court system.
This paper presents the proposals of Gacaca tribunals, which will be the subject of a debate at the level of the National Assembly and attempt at making a first evaluation of the major advantages, risks and limitations of the proposed use of these gacaca tribunals, which find some degree of inspiration in the traditional, indigenous dispute settlement and reconciliation mechanism.
In this essay, the author describes the almost exclusively judicial approach that, in the aftermath of the atrocities, Rwanda has adopted to deal with the past. In the course of this examination, Vandeginste also highlights some of the limitations of this approach. The intensity and scale of the violence, and their long-term devastation of Rwandan society, seriously challenge not only judicial efforts to deal with the past, but also initiatives to repair political systems and the social tissue of Rwanda.
This paper analyzes the efforts of Gacaca to achieve justice and reconciliation, in part by comparing the process to a typical trial in the United States. The author argues that the verdict on Gacaca’s success in achieving justice and reconciliation will not only be important in Rwanda, but will also be useful evidence for developing post-conflict responses in other regions
This thesis studies the importance of the aims of Gacaca and whether the Gacaca courts met their optimistic objectives in order to evaluate whether Gacaca succeeded in Rwanda. Research was conducted through interviews throughout Rwanda and much civil society research was studied as well as material discussing the objectives from a more conceptual perspective.
The aim of this article is to introduce forgiveness and reconciliation as an individual leadership competency within organizations that execute transitional justice and peacebuilding systems. This paper presents a definition and conceptual understanding of forgiveness and reconciliation within transitional justice and leadership disciplines.
In order to probe the current state of the field, this article argues against the current conception of transitional justice as a praxis-based interdisciplinary field. It suggests that there is a hidden politics to how transitional justice has been constructed as an interdisciplinary field that obscures tensions between the range of practices and goals that it now incorporates.
Transitional justice initiatives in post-genocide Rwanda include the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and national and local transitional justice initiatives by the Rwandan government. More than two decades later, it is important to take stock of the lessons learned through empirical research which is relevant for improving the understanding of post-conflict societies and the impact of transitional justice mechanisms.
This article engages with recent attempts to bridge the apparent divide between disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR) and transitional justice, and their implications for post-conflict environments characterized by large-scale displacement. It highlights these general problems by examining the cases of Rwanda and Uganda, neighbouring countries recovering from continuing cycles of mass conflict and forced displacement over the last two decades.
A France-based rights group that has over the years worked tirelessly to see Genocide suspects living in the European country brought to book has petitioned newly-sworn in President Emmanuel Macron to not permit mass murderers roam freely in the country. One of the questions posed by the petition partly titled, “Strike while the iron is hot,” asked the candidates running for presidency if they approved of French courts continuously snubbing efforts to have genocide suspects in France extradited to Rwanda where they committed the crime of genocide.
The aim of this communication is to present the state of knowledge on Gacaca. 10 years after the consultations held at the Village Urugwiro which are at the origin of the option for Gacaca and 5 years after the launching of the experimental phase. Gacaca has promoted practice and theoretical understanding of the transitional justice.
This paper assesses the reality of the Church’s influence in the genocide and in the overall reconciliation effort, using the theological foundations upon which the reconciliation movement is founded. It also looks at how faith-based reconciliatory efforts are influenced by Rwanda’s past and by the larger global Christian community and will evaluate how best to focus those influences into constructive solutions for the country.
The study concentrates on international assistance after the 1994 genocide when the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) ended a months-long period of ethnic killings that took the lives of approximately 1,000,000 people, predominantly Tutsi but also Hutu. The report traces the main political developments in the subsequent “transition” period (1994-2003) and analyzes the impact of international assistance on the creation of a civil society as well as governmental electoral, human rights, and media organizations in Rwanda.
The book analyses the political, legal and regional impact of events in post-genocide Rwanda within the themes of transitional justice and reconciliation. It includes chapters from scholars in this field, along with senior government and non-government officials involved in matters related to Rwanda and transitional justice.
The book is a review of the Gacaca Courts which were established in 2001 in Rwanda as an attempt to prosecute suspects involved in the 1994 genocide. Dr. Clark argues that, despite widespread international scepticism, the Gacaca process has achieved remarkable results in terms of justice and reconciliation, although this has often come at a price, especially the re-traumatisation of many Rwandans who have participated firsthand in hearings.
Emma is a young Tutsi girl who lost her mother during the genocide in 1994. When the country establishes gacaca courts to allow victims to face their tormenters in their villages, Emma is uneasy and afraid. But through her growing friendship with a young torture victim and the gentle encouragement of an old man charged with helping child survivors, Emma finds the courage to return to the house where her mother was killed and begin the journey to healing.
The International Criminal Court passed a verdict that 297 victims of a 2003 attack on a Congolese village should receive individual and collective reparations for the crimes of war committed by former Congolese militia leader Germain Katanga that they survived. They were awarded a compensation of $250 per victim, as well as collective reparations to help the community in the form of housing, income generating activities, education, and psychological support.
During the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, perpetrators used rape as a weapon. As a result, about 20,000 children were conceived and born the following year. According to policies in place, since they were born after December 31 1994, they are not considered as victims of genocide. The article argues that these children need more support from the government and non-government organisations and policies that address their issues need to be formulated.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame visited the Apostolic Palace on 20th March 2017. The Vatican acknowledged that the church itself bore blame, as well as some Catholic priests and nuns who “succumbed to hatred and violence, betraying their own evangelical mission” by participating in the genocide. Pope Francis asked for forgiveness and sought to create a renewed relationship with the Rwandan government.
This book focuses on the current study of victims of crime, combining both legal and social-scientific perspectives, articulating both in new directions and questioning whether victims really do have more rights in our modern world. It addresses challenging and new issues in the field of victimology and the study of transitional and restorative justice. As such, it will be of interest to researchers, practitioners and students interested in the fields of victimology, transitional justice, restorative justice and trauma work.
One hot May morning in 2003, a crowd of Hutus who had participated in the genocidal killings of April 1994 in Rwanda filed out of prison and into the sunshine, singing hallelujahs, their freedom granted by presidential pardon. As they returned to their old villages, Tutsi survivors watched as the people who had killed their neighbors and families returned to the homes around them. In The Antelope’s Strategy, Jean Hatzfeld returns to Rwanda to talk with both Hutus and Tutsis in order to find out how it is living side by side.
The author examines different forms of memorialisation with regards to the events of 1994, particularly focusing on the state-sponsored genocide commemorations of April 2004 and comparing it to Hotel Rwanda, the Hollywood film released in the same year. He investigates their unique distinctions, and their ability to memorialise and raise awareness of the Genocide, as well as the consequences of such memorials.
This paper examines ‘how political identities have been reconstructed since the genocide, especially from above’. It tackles the roles of History, law and politics in constructing a new social dynamic, and how this is important in terms of dialogue and reconciliation.
This viewpoint argues that international development aid agencies have failed adequately to address the rights and needs of genocide survivors in Rwanda. It illustrates that genocide survivors remain impoverished and marginalised, and that development aid agencies only tangentially, if at all, acknowledge their vulnerability and take steps to empower them to realise their rights. It provides examples of aid programmes that are reaching genocide survivors and urges development aid agencies in Rwanda to design and implement programmes explicitly for genocide survivors.
The author looks at the difficulties of a post-genocide peace in Rwanda, by evaluating the obstacles in place which stand in the way of true reconciliation. The key obstacle he focuses on is the nature of the end of the conflict; the challenges that the legacy of a one-sided victory that brought the war to an end, rather than a peaceful settlement.
After the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), an assessment of its achievements must be undertaken. Thus, the paper looks into ICTR’s role in fostering national reconciliation among Rwandans; and pays attention to the obstacles involved in the nature of the conflict that have proved to be a challenge.
Contributors of this book consider what justice means and how it is negotiated in different localities where transitional justice efforts are underway after genocide and mass atrocity. They address a variety of mechanisms, among them, a memorial site in Bali, truth commissions in Argentina and Chile, First Nations treaty negotiations in Canada, violent youth groups in northern Nigeria, the murder of young women in post-conflict Guatemala, and the gacaca courts in Rwanda.
Based on studies in ten countries, this book analyzes how some combine multiple institutions, others experiment with community-level initiatives that draw on traditional law and culture, whilst others combine internal actions with transnational or international ones. The authors argue that transitional justice efforts must also consider the challenges to legitimacy and local ownership emerging after external military intervention or occupation.
This paper argues that both justice and reconciliation are fundamentally significant goals that need to be addressed in the design of successful post-conflict peacebuilding processes and mechanisms, especially in the aftermath of genocide. This argument is based on theories that suggest the importance of reconciliation as a means to conflict resolution and transformation. It is supported by the results of field research in Cambodia and Rwanda, and preliminary analysis of experiences in Sierra Leone and East Timor.
Scholars and practitioners contend that psychosocial healing is an effective way to reconstruct and rebuild society with an improved quality of life. It is against this background, that the paper makes an analysis of the gacaca process in Rwanda as a method of culturally sensitive approaches to psychological healing. Its main objective is to examine the Rwandan case and present recommendations on policies, strategies and instruments for post-conflict capacity-building initiatives.
This paper explores the extent to which these tribunals are making individuals accountable for the widespread sexual violence against women and girls that often (if not always) occurs in times of armed conflict and genocide. In particular, the paper tries to assess the extent to which feminist hopes for justice for women victims of sexual violence have been met by the Tribunals.