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ABSTRACT
Due to its remote location, language barriers and the overall complexity of judicial trials, the proceedings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) are generally not well known nor positively perceived in Rwanda. In response to such criticism, the ICTR pioneered in setting up an outreach programme, mandated to improve the Rwandan population’s understanding of the work of the Tribunal, and to facilitate more positive attitudes towards the ICTR and its theorised contribution to reconciliation. This article sets out to discuss and provide an empirical evaluation of the effectiveness of such outreach activities by the ICTR on the community level. Through integrating novel empirical data deriving from focus group discussions with participants of community-based outreach activities in Rwanda, this article provides a nuanced assessment of the Rwanda Tribunal’s outreach efforts. Evaluating the level of knowledge about the ICTR and perceptions towards the Tribunal and its expected effects on reconciliation among outreach participants, and contrasting these findings with control groups who did not participate in outreach, reveals that community-based outreach activities by the ICTR did contribute to a more nuanced and advanced knowledge level regarding the Tribunal. Such an increased understanding, however, contrary to theoretical arguments, did not translate into more favourable perceptions towards the ICTR or the Tribunal’s contribution to reconciliation.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the journal’s editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their immensely helpful comments. Special thanks to Roland Kostic at the Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala University, for the tremendous support to conduct this study, and to Karen Bronéus at the Department for Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University, for useful comments.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Respondent in Focus Group Discussion, conducted by Author, 9 July 2013.
2. Report of the Expert Group for the ICTR and the ICTY, 1999.
3. Gallimore, The ICTR Outreach Programme, 6.
4. See Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
5. Schulz, “Justice Seen is Justice Done?”
6. See van der Merwe, Assessing the Impact of Transitional Justice.
7. For more information about transitional justice processes in Rwanda, see: Clark and Kaufman, After Genocide.
8. See Gahima, Transitional Justice in Rwanda.
9. ICTR Statute, UNSCR 955.
10. See ICTR Website, see: http://unictr.unmict.org/sites/unictr.org/files/publications/ictr-key-figures-en.pdf [last accessed 16 March 2017].
11. See Parent, “Reconciliation and Justice after Genocide.”
12. See Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
13. Gallimore, The ICTR Outreach Programme.
14. Ibid.
15. ICTR, Outreach Report 2010.
16. Interview by author, 11 June 2013.
17. See Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
18. Gallimore, The ICTR Outreach Programme.
19. Interview by author, 22 June 2013.
20. Gallimore, The ICTR Outreach Programme.
21. For example, in 2011, the outreach unit released a cartoon book titled “100 days – In the Land of The Thousand Hills,” primarily addresses at youth.
22. See ICTR, Outreach Report 2011.
23. See ICTR, Outreach Report 2012, 1
24. Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
25. See Kamatali, “The Challenge of Linking International Criminal Justice and National Reconciliation.”
26. See Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation”; Moghalu, “Reconciling Fractured Societies”.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid.
29. Clark “International War Crimes Tribunals and the Challenge of Outreach”; Clark “The Three Rs”.
30. Kamatali, “The Challenge of Linking International Criminal Justice and National Reconciliation.”
31. Peskin, “Courting Rwanda”; Clark, “International War Crimes Tribunals and the Challenge of Outreach,”
32. For a more elaborate theorisation of the impact of outreach activities, as applied to the ICTR, see: Schulz, “Outreach and the ICTR.”
33. Balthazard, “Cambodians’ Knowledge and Attitudes.”
34. Ibid.
35. Vinck and Pham, “Outreach Evaluation.”
36. Lambourne, “Outreach, Inreach and Civil Society Participation in Transitional Justice.”
37. Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.; Lambourne, “Outreach, Inreach and Civil Society Participation in Transitional Justice.”
42. Gallimore, The ICTR Outreach Programme, 2.
43. Clark “The Three Rs,” 334.
44. In their early years, the ICTR as well as the ICTY only operated in French and English as their official language. Only since the early 2000's, with the establishment of official outreach programmes, did both tribunals initiate to translate key documents into local languages. However, the primarily official working languages remain to be French and English, court proceedings are primarily conducted in these official languages and not all relevant documents are being translated.
45. See Weinstein, Pham, and Longman, My Neighbour, My Enemy.
46. Kamatali, “The Challenge of Linking International Criminal Justice and National Reconciliation,” 120.
47. Similarly, empirical evidence from the former Yugoslavia demonstrates that in 2002, only a small minority of respondents in Serbia, for example, claimed to be sufficiently informed about the ICTY, including its mandate and recent developments; cf. Clark, “The Three Rs,” 343.
48. Cina and Vohrah, “The Outreach Program,” 550.
49. Mogalu, “Reconciling fractured societies,” 216.
50. Vinck and Pham, “Outreach Evaluation,” 2.
51. Ibid.
52. See Balthazard, “Cambodians’ Knowledge and Attitudes,” 34.
53. Peskin, “Courting Rwanda,” 952.
54. Vinck and Pham, “Outreach Evaluation,” 2.
55. Parts of these findings have previously been discussed in more detail and in a comparative approach in Schulz, “Outreach and the ICTR.”
56. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 12 July 2013.
57. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 8 July 2013.
58. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 20 June 2013.
59. Ibid.
60. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 12 July 2013.
61. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 20 June 2013.
62. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 8 July 2013.
63. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 27 June 2013.
64. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 20 June 2013.
65. These numbers somehow paradoxically show that the number of respondents who knew about the Tribunal (44) is slightly lower compared to the number of respondents who agreed that the ICTR had a positive impact on reconciliation (45). I suspect that the one divergent respondent with positive views but who previously did not to know about the Tribunal must have formed his/her opinion during the course of the FGD, indicating how easily perceptions and opinions can be shaped.
66. Respondent in FGD, conducted by author, 8 July 2013.
67. Weinstein, Pham, and Longman, My Neighbour, My Enemy.
68. Ibid.
69. CCM, Assessing Rwandan Public Opinion on ICTR.
70. Weinstein, Pham, and Longman, My Neighbour, My Enemy; CCM, Assessing Rwandan Public Opinion on ICTR.
71. For more information about the ICC outreach programme, see: https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/interacting-with-communities/Pages/default.aspx [last accessed 3 July 2016].
72. Clark, “International War Crimes Tribunals and the Challenge of Outreach”; Clark, “The three Rs.”
73. Peskin, “Courting Rwanda.”
74. Ibid.
75. Participant Observation, 13 June 2013
76. Interviews conducted by author, 8 June 2013; 3 July 2013; 8 July 2013.
77. See Ramirez-Barat, Making an Impact.
78. Interview conducted by author, 13 June 2013.