![Sample our Social Sciences journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/110822/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Social-Sciences.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The gacaca transitional justice process in Rwanda has strong proponents and sharp critics. At the core of these critiques is the argument that gacaca has been used by the government in Rwanda to consolidate political power around a single narrative of the conflict and the dominant political party. This article advances this critique by arguing that it was not simply the implementation of gacaca which was used for a specific political purpose, but rather the process itself which was structured in a way to consolidate political order for the Rwandan Patriotic Front government. Through the Rwanda case, this article advances an understanding of transitional justice adoption which focuses on the 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.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. For a review of the legal and human rights critique against gacaca, see Clark (Citation2009).
2. I focus my argument exclusively on the government use of transitional justice following armed conflict.
3. UNDP’s “Governance for the Future” report highlighted Rwanda for its “innovative methods in search of justice” and argued that gacaca was a potential transitional justice model for other nations (UNDP Citation2006, 130).
4. While culpability has never been determined, evidence suggests that the plane was deliberately targeted by heavily armed individuals (or troops).
5. The total number of people killed and the ethnic composition of that number are highly debated (Straus Citation2004). Early estimates emerged from Human Rights Watch and African Rights of around 500,000 people killed; however, later it was admitted that this was a conservative number. At one point, IBUKA, the Rwandan survivor organization placed the number around 1.2 million. The quoted figure of 800,000 people represents a median consensus in the literature. Original sources believe this number to be made up almost entirely of Tutsi victims; however, recent work has suggested that a large part of this figure, over 50 per cent, could have been Hutu deaths (see Davenport and Stam Citation2009). Due to the nature of the data, this work is inconclusive.
6. Interview, Bernadette Kanzayire, November 8, 2013.
7. Final report from Urigwiro Reflection Meeting 1998.
8. See also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/4726969.stm. Accessed December 30, 2010.
9. For an overview of the international community’s role in the construction of gacaca, see Oomen (Citation2005).
11. Author interview, Philbert Kagabo, November 8, 2013.
12. Author interview, Jean de Dieu Mucyo, November 8, 2013.
13. Author interview, Tito Rutaremara, November 7, 2013.
14. Author interview, Paul Rutayisiri, November 11, 2013.
15. Rwandan Organic Law 40/2000.
16. Author interview, Paul Rutayisiri, November 11, 2013.
17. Of note, this principle was later contradicted by gacaca’s plea-bargaining scheme (Clark Citation2010).
18. While the Rwandan government tried a limited number of RPF soldiers accused of crimes during the civil war, the focus of their justice policy was on crimes of genocide.
19. Author interview, Abdul Karim Harelimana, November 9, 2013.
20. The ‘double genocide’ hypothesis emerged in recent literature on Rwanda, suggesting that there were two genocides, one committed by the Hutu against the Tutsi and another committed by Tutsi (specifically the advancing RPF) against the Hutu. For a detailed explanation, see Verwimp (Citation2003).
21. The psychology and transitional justice literature actively debates the benefits of public testimony (Stover and Weinstein Citation2004).
22. This is not to say that all genocide survivors agree with RPF policies towards justice and reparations nor that all survivors feel that all their post-conflict needs are addressed by the government.
23. In 2009, there was a shift in the name of the conflict from “The 1994 Genocide” to the “Genocide Against the Tutsi”. There is speculation that this change was made to exclude Hutu political moderates from the national narrative (Author’s Interviews, 2009).