(Page 1 of 11) - "What Do We Do When Things Fall Apart?" Rwanda's Attempt at Restorative Justice Through the Gacaca Courts authored by Calhoun, Lindsay.

Case Study: “What Do We Do When Things Fall Apart?” Rwanda’s Attempt at
Restorative Justice Through the Gacaca Courts.

Introduction

Historian Gerard Prunier (1997) writes that “Genocide is a value-laden word, it is a
tragic word, and its use, infrequently applicable in the history of mankind, cannot be
made without serious justifications,” (p. 237).  Despite his conservative assessment
of when and where the language of genocide should be applied both contemporarily
and historically, he is unequivocal in his assessment of Rwanda as a genocide of
modern times.  Prunier argues that genocide consists of “the systematic
organization of the killing and the attempt at completely erasing the targeted
group…,” and, when examined carefully, applies to the Rwandan case, where “…all
the preconditions for a genocide were present: a well-organized civil service, a small
tightly-controlled land area, a disciplined and orderly population, reasonably good
communications and a coherent ideology containing the necessary lethal potential,”
(p. 238).

Despite the equivocation by the US State Department and other governments at the
time of the genocide and the media’s assessment that Rwanda’s killings were a
form of “primitive tribal warfare” and not systematized destruction, extensive
research and inquiry into the case of Rwanda over the last fifteen years has
produced a significant consensus both within the academic community and even
within mainstream media outlets and forms of public opinion that Rwanda was,
indeed, a genocide. Moreover, the international community’s failure to intervene in
the face of such overwhelming evidence, was morally reprehensible and tragic.

Conflict in the Great Lakes Region, which includes the states of Uganda, Burundi,
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), and Rwanda can trace its
roots back to colonial times.  Van Leeuwen (2008) notes that “colonial policies in
Rwanda and Burundi resulted in an institutionalized antagonism between Hutu and
Tutsi populations.  During and after the decolonization process, this resulted in
several rounds of ethnic violence and refugee flows to neighboring countries,” (p.
399).

The genocide in Rwanda took place beginning in April of 1994 and the
consequences to the state of Rwanda and even surrounding nations were
enormous.  The vast majority of the victims were people belonging to the Tutsi
Social Group (Prunier, 1997).  The people who carried them out were the
Presidential Guards in the capital of Rwanda early on, followed by the Interhamwe
and Impuzamugambi militias, poor to lower middle class groups that were fueled by
class differences and racial ideologies and organized and supported by a small tight
group of military, political and economic elites resistant to political change.  It is
important to note that Hutu and Tutsi designations were and are particularly