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Abstract
Rwanda's genocide trials through the gacaca community courts, between 2002 and 2012, have attracted substantial critique and also become a key vehicle for analysing wider political and social dynamics, including policy-making under the Rwandan Patriotic Front. A common criticism of gacaca is that it allowed the Rwandan state to deploy the language of devolved, popularly owned justice while further centralizing and consolidating state power. Based on fieldwork conducted over ten years, including more than 650 interviews and observations of 105 gacaca hearings, the article responds to this criticism and 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.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the Open Society Justice Initiative, the Fetzer Institute and SOAS, University of London, which funded much of the field research on which this article is based, as well as two anonymous reviewers who provided invaluable comments on drafts of this paper.
Notes
1. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts.
2. For example, CitationRepublic of Rwanda, Manuel Explicatif.
3. CitationNewbury and Newbury, “Bringing the Peasants Back In.”
4. CitationDurkheim, Rules of the Sociological Method, p. 45.
5. CitationWeber, Economy and Society, p. 4.
6. CitationGiddens, Constitution of Society, p. 25.
7. CitationGiddens, Constitution of Society, p. 25.
8. For example, CitationArcher, “Morphogenesis versus Structuration,” pp. 459–60.
9. CitationBourdieu and Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology.
10. CitationBourdieu and Wacquant, Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, p. 126.
11. For example, CitationAlexander, Fin de Siècle Social Theory, p. 135.
12. For a detailed discussion of this issue, see CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, chs 3, 8.
13. For example, CitationReyntjens, “Constructing the Truth”; CitationPurdekova, “Even if I am Not Here”; CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power.”
14. CitationReyntjens, “Constructing the Truth”; CitationIngelaere, “Do We Understand Life after Genocide?”; CitationIngelaere, “From Model to Practice”; CitationFierens, “Gacaca Courts”; CitationAyoub, “New Book on Rwanda”; CitationSeay, “ Challenges of Researching Rwanda.”
15. CitationPottier, Re-Imagining Rwanda, p. 207.
16. CitationIngelaere, “Do We Understand Life after Genocide?,” p. 46.
17. CitationReyntjens, “Constructing the Truth,” p. 2; CitationIngelaere, “Do We Understand Life after Genocide?,” p. 44.
18. CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity”; CitationIngelaere, “From Model to Practice”; CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power.”
19. CitationIngelaere, “‘Does the Truth Pass Across,’” p. 24.
20. CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity,” p. 21.
21. CitationIngelaere, “Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” p. 54.
22. CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity,” p. 3.
23. CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity,”, p. 12; CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power,” p. 5.
24. CitationIngelaere, “Mille Collines, Mille Gacaca.”
25. For example, CitationAmnesty International, Rwanda – Gacaca: A Question of Justice, pp. 30–40.
26. CitationIngelaere, “Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” p. 49.
27. CitationIngelaere, “Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,”, p. 19.
28. CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power,” p. 11.
29. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts.
30. CitationReyntjens, “Le gacaca ou la justice du gazon,” p. 32.
31. CitationReyntjens, “Le gacaca ou la justice du gazon,”, p. 38.
32. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, chs 2, 5.
33. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, chs 5, 7.
34. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, chs 5, 7.
35. CitationDauge-Roth, “Testimonial Encounter”; Citationde Brouwer et al., The Men Who Killed Me; CitationDoughty, “Contesting Community”; CitationKarekezi et al. “Localizing Justice”; CitationInstitute for Research and Dialogue for Peace (IRDP), Ethnic Identity and Social Cohesion.
36. For example, CitationFierens, “Gacaca Courts”; CitationBolocan, “Rwandan Gacaca.”
37. For example, CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity”; CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power.”
38. For example, CitationHuman Rights Watch (HRW), Law and Reality.
39. CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power,” pp. 3–4.
40. CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power,”, p. 5.
41. CitationThomson, “Whispering Truth to Power,”, p. 7. The internal quote is from CitationScott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p. xiii.
42. CitationIngelaere, “Mille Collines, Mille Gacaca.”
43. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, ch. 2.
44. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, ch. 2.
45. For a detailed synthesis of these meetings, see CitationRepublic of Rwanda, Report on the Reflection Meetings.
46. Author's interview with Protais Musoni, Kigali, June 13, 2006.
47. Author's interview with Paul Kagame, Kigali, June 13, 2006.
48. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, ch. 2.
49. CitationLongman, “Genocide and Socio-Political Change,” pp. 18–21; CitationStraus, Order of Genocide, chs 3, 5; CitationFujii, Killing Neighbors, chs 3, 5.
50. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, ch. 5; CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity.”
51. CitationDes Forges and Longman, “Legal Responses to the Genocide,” p. 62.
52. CitationLongman, “Justice at the Grassroots?,” p. 215.
53. CitationUnited Kingdom High Court, Brown and Others vs. Government of Rwanda and Another.
54. Author's email correspondence with UK government officials, London, February 26, 2010.
55. Author's interviews with Martin Ngoga, Kigali, April 12, 2010; and with Domitilla Mukantaganzawa, Kigali, April 21, 2010.
56. Author's interviews (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Tharcisse Karugarama, Kigali, September 3, 2008; and (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Martin Ngoga, Kigali, September 5, 2008.
57. CitationClark and Palmer, Testifying to Genocide.
58. Author's interview (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Jeannette, Huye Town, April 10, 2012.
59. Author's interview (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Jeannette, Huye Town, April 10, 2012.
60. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts; CitationPalmer, “Transfer or Transformation?”
61. CitationIngelaere, “Mille Collines, Mille Gacaca,” p. 38.
62. Author's interview (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Solange, Huye District, April 13, 2012.
63. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts.
64. Author's interview with Valence, Kigali Ngali, Bugesera, September 10, 2008.
65. IRDP, Ethnic Identity and Social Cohesion, p. 28.
66. For example, author's gacaca observations, Kigali Ville, Kacyiru, May 11, 2003.
67. Author's gacaca observations: Kigali Ville, Butamwa, May 21, 2003; Kigali Ville, Remera, June 13, 2006; and Kigali Ville, Mwendo, August 16, 2008.
68. Max Rettig, for example, states: “The Rwandan government obliges every citizen to attend gacaca. As of April 2007, citizens must carry a booklet in which local authorities mark attendance”; CitationRettig, “Gacaca: Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation,” p. 37. Local officials may have enacted such a policy in Sovu, the community in Southern Province where Rettig conducted his gacaca fieldwork, but it was not a national policy and attendance books were never employed in the communities across the different regions where I conducted my fieldwork.
69. CitationWaldorf, “Mass Justice for Mass Atrocity,” p. 20.
70. Author's interviews (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Francine, Northern Province, Musanze, August 29, 2008.
71. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts.
72. CitationClark, Gacaca Courts.
73. Author's gacaca observations, Kigali Ville, Butamwa, May 21, 2003.
74. For a longer discussion, see CitationClark, Gacaca Courts, ch. 9.
75. Author's Solidarity Camp interviews, Butare (no. 8), April 29, 2003 (author's translation).
76. Author's gacaca observations: Ruhengeri, May 6, 2003; Gisenyi, May 23, 2003; and Gisenyi, June 14, 2006.
77. Author's gacaca observations: Western Province, April 26, 2009; Northern Province, April 17, 2011; and Western Province, April 20, 2011.
78. Author's interview (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Philippe, Bugarama District, August 2012.
79. Author's interview (conducted jointly with Nicola Palmer) with Bienvenue, Huye District, April 9, 2012.
80. Author's interview with Claver, Gisenyi, Nyabihu, June 14, 2006.
81. CitationIngelaere, “Mille Collines, Mille Gacaca,” pp. 34–8.
82. Author's Solidarity Camp interviews, Kigali Ville (no. 9), April 12, 2003 (author's translation).
83. Author's gacaca observations, Butare, Save (author's translation).
84. Author's Solidarity Camp interviews, Butare (no. 19) (author's translation).
85. Author's interview with Jean-Baptiste, Kigali Ngali (author's translation).
86. CitationKarekezi, “Juridictions Gacaca,” p. 34.
87. Author's interviews with Simon, Kigali Ngali, Nyamata, May 19, 2003; Butare (no. 19); and Jean-Baptiste, Kigali Ngali.
88. Author's interviews with Karugarama, 2008; and Ngoga; 2008.
89. CitationGacaca Law (Modified 2004), Articles 33–38.
90. CitationGacaca Law (Modified 2004), Article 13.
91. CitationGacaca Law (Modified 2004), Article 30.
92. Author's interview with Fatuma Ndangiza, Kigali, June 10, 2006.
93. CitationGacaca Law (Modified 2008), Articles 15–20.