Vol 16 | FALL 2002
 
Rwanda Movement Toward Justice:
Undergraduates Explore Gacaca Community-based Courts
Amanda Pearson
Six Harvard College students spent part of last summer in Rwanda to observe and record how the Rwandan government is seeking justice for the estimated 800,000 mostly minority Tutsis who were killed in 1994 when the small African nation erupted in widespread ethnic violence. The Weatherhead Center supported this group, comprised of Alfa Tiruneh, Leila Chirayath, Justina Hierta, Catherine Honeyman, Shakirah Hudani, and Andrew Iliff, for their proposal on a stunningly important topic—researching transitional justice in Rwanda. Tiruneh, an undergraduate student associate of the Weatherhead Center, received supplemental financial support for her senior thesis, proposing to compare the Rwandan Gacaca system of transitional justice with a traditional Ethiopian mechanism of conflict resolution.
These undergraduates came together through an informal network of those interested in African development. Several of the students had completed a fall 2001 class taught by Robert Bates, Eaton Professor of the Science of Government and faculty associate of the Weatherhead Center. Under his guidance, and with the assistance of Jens Meierhenrich, lecturer in the Departments of Government and Social Studies, who accompanied the students to Rwanda, the students organized the trip and planned their research strategy. The research team obtained additional backing from Harvard’s Center for International Development, Department of Government, Undergraduate Committee on Human Rights, Committee on African Studies, and the Harvard College Research Program.

Rwanda: A historical snapshot
A country slightly smaller than the state of Maryland, Rwanda had a pre-genocide population of approximately 7.5 million. The two major ethnic groups in Rwanda have endured long-standing tensions and decades of conflict. The majority ethnic group, the Hutus, overthrew the ruling Tutsi king in 1959, and many of the Tutsi minority fled to neighboring countries. The children of these exiles later formed the Rwandan Patriotic Front, and the rebel group returned to Rwanda in 1990. This sparked a civil war that along with several political and economic upheavals exacerbated ethnic tensions in the country, culminating in the outburst of genocide in April 1994. The Tutsi rebels defeated the Hutu regime and ended the killing in July 1994. During these three months upwards of 800,000 Tutsis, Hutu moderates, and government opponents were killed, leaving few unaffected by the violence.

Innovative Justice: the Gacaca Courts
In the aftermath of the genocide, the newly formed Rwandan government was faced with bringing to justice the huge numbers of participants in the genocide. According to the draft report written by the student research team, over 120,000 people have been incarcerated, of whom only a tiny proportion has been tried in the eight years since the war ended. At its current pace, the government estimated that it would take over 200 years to try all prisoners within the conventional court system. In response to this situation, with the participation of representatives from the military, academia, and the NGO community, the government launched a new system of transitional justice: Inkiko-Gacaca, or the Gacaca Jurisdictions. Inkiko-Gacaca (pronounced “in-khi-ko ga-cha-cha”) is based in part on a form of community-based conflict resolution indigenous to Rwanda named gacaca after the practice of settling disputes while sitting together “in the grass.”
The students reported that in 2001 a significant number of communities nationwide elected 19-member panels of judges from among their own adult residents, and these inyangamugayo, or “persons of integrity,” were trained a few months later. In mid-June 2002 the pilot phase of the transitional justice system commenced, in which selected communities met weekly in order to contribute and document the information needed to determine property damages, victims, and perpetrators of the genocide. Despite the absence of some basic guarantees of due process for the accused, the innovative system offered the only hope of trial within the foreseeable future for the tens of thousands detainees. The difficulty that the reconciliation process poses cannot be understated. The system must address the challenges of establishing just and consistent judicial standards and a reliable infrastructure in an impoverished country, and of reintegrating a significant percentage of the prisoners to the communities where their crimes were committed.

Destination: Rwanda
The students spent part of the summer in the Rwandan capital of Kigali, where they interviewed NGOs and foreign government representatives, including President Paul Kagame. They also spent time searching for documentation on the structure of the Gacaca courts, as most updated documents are not available outside of the country. When Gacaca opened on June 19, the students observed the first meeting in a Kigali suburb, and in the more rural Byumba, north of the capital. Soon after, the group focused its Gacaca observations on Butare Province, where the National University is located. Their observations of the Gacaca
meetings were supplemented by visits to prisons around the country to conduct interviews of those in detention for genocide-related crimes.
At the end of the six weeks Tiruneh traveled to Ethiopia, and Honeyman and Hudani stayed in Rwanda to complete a draft of their report for the Rwandan Supreme Court. The report includes a host of logistical suggestions—such as providing shelter for the proceedings during inclement weather—as well as more in-depth recommendations on judicial procedures and on handling crimes of retaliation. Honeyman, the primary author of the report, noted that a potential problem with the Gacaca courts relates to a larger concern about the general sense of community ownership of and participation in the Gacaca judicial process. For instance, one of the greatest obstacles to obtaining complete and accurate testimonies during Gacaca is that survivors and witnesses are concerned that their participation will result in retribution from perpetrators, if they are still free, or from their relatives. The judges worry that their leadership positions and roles in crime categorization make them vulnerable to certain people within the community, thereby greatly reducing their ability to act impartially. The judges are also subject to outside coercion and pressure, especially from governmental and other influential figures. The families of perpetrators believe that the confession or indictment of their relatives may lead to retaliation against them. The perpetrators themselves are concerned that they will be subject to crimes of vengeance. Finally, many within the prisons wonder if they will be eligible for compensation, if they are found to be innocent.

Reflection and Revision
The students have returned to campus and are now engrossed in the fall semester’s coursework. They plan to update their interim report because many of its findings were based on preliminary observations of the courts and the judicial proceedings. Although they were present during the crucial first stage of the judicial process during which the communities compiled lists of the deceased and the accused, the students acknowledge that some of their conclusions may have to be amended as the next stages (categorization of the accused, followed by trial) evolve. The Weatherhead Center looks forward to monitoring the students’ further engagement in this process.