This article argues that the gacaca courts represent the darker side of transitional justice in seeking to impose a specific form of justice and reconciliation on its intended beneficiaries – Rwandans who lived through the violence of the genocide. My purpose is to illuminate the formal structures of power that shape individual participation before the gacaca courts to nuance the general consensus that local justice is better than its international counterpart. Analysis of the power dynamics behind Rwanda's gacaca courts not only illustrates the near-total state control of the process, but also provides a bottom-up analysis that centres the lived-through experiences of violence of those individuals who survived it as a critical, yet largely absent, component of the transitional justice toolkit – of national and international actors alike. While international donors and diplomats recognize that implementing an effective transitional justice strategy is a formidable challenge given the intimacy, scale and sheer brutality of the 1994 genocide, they fail to appreciate adequately the power relations that structure individual participation in traditional justice mechanisms like gacaca – which they praise as a model for other post-conflict societies to emulate in re-establishing the rule of law through trust, truth telling and access to justice for all (UN-OHRLLS 2006: 130).
An impressive body of literature heralds the gacaca courts as a viable alternative to punitive, procedural, Western-style justice (for example, Clark Reference Clark2010; Longman Reference Longman, Roht-Arriza and Mariezurrena2006; Meyerstein Reference Meyerstein2007; Venter Reference Venter2007). These glowing assessments are based on the idea that gacaca is a local, traditional and restorative judicial mechanism – rather than on the way that the gacaca process, as a key part of a broader regime of state power defined by the post-genocide government's policy of national unity and reconciliation, actually plays out in the lives of ordinary people. While it is currently fashionable among many scholars of transitional justice to praise locally forged and culturally relative justice as more effective and legitimate, such claims are made without knowing nearly enough about the broader power dynamics that influence local justice mechanisms like gacaca. Without a local-level perspective, grounded in the individual lived experiences of participants in the gacaca processes, the darker side of how the courts work in practice at the level of the everyday person is hidden from view. This is because international academics and journalists laud the outcomes of gacaca – ending impunity and promoting reconciliation – as national policy accomplishments rather than recognizing gacaca as central to a state-run legal system that produces a particular version of justice and reconciliation that reinforces the power of the post-genocide government at the expense of individual processes of reconciliation.
The few available empirical studies that address Rwandan attitudes toward gacaca, and towards the government's policy of reconciliation, are the exception rather than the rule (see Burnet Reference Burnet2008; Chakravarty Reference Chakravarty2006a; Human Rights Watch 2008; Ingelaere Reference Ingelaere, Huyse and Salter2008; Reference Ingelaere2009; Rettig Reference Rettig2008; Waldorf Reference Waldorf2006). Despite their excellent and important contributions – drawing on the lived experiences of Rwandans to illustrate how gacaca has institutionalized a state-imposed narrative to deal with both the past (the root causes of the genocide) and the future (truth telling and forgiveness to promote reconciliation and justice) – these studies do not locate the functioning of the courts within the broader structures of power that shape and delimit how the courts work at the level of the ordinary individual. It is premature for international actors and analysts to proclaim gacaca as a model to be replicated without a detailed analysis of the power dynamics that shape how ordinary individuals understand their role in securing justice and promoting reconciliation in their local ‘traditional’ courts (cf. Brounéus Reference Brounéus2008; Chakravarty Reference Chakravarty2006b). When the power relations that structure how gacaca operates are highlighted, a less rosy picture of gacaca as an effective and legitimate form of local transitional justice emerges. Such analysis also provides an important first step in demonstrating that any transitional justice mechanism operates within a defined system of institutional power that in turn influences how processes of post-conflict reconciliation play out at the level of the ordinary individual.
In the first section of the article, I detail my research methodology, since asking ordinary Rwandans whether the gacaca courts are promoting a sense of national unity and reconciliation in their everyday lives is unlikely to provide reliable answers. Criticism of government policy is not only taboo; it subjects Rwandans – elites and ordinary folk alike – to considerable sanction, including harassment, intimidation, imprisonment and, in extreme cases, disappearance and even death. Thus the question of gaining access to rural Rwandans in their home communities to discuss politically sensitive topics matters, as does the process of interpreting their lived experiences in context.
I then dissect the policy of national unity and reconciliation to illustrate that it is the defining feature of state power in post-genocide Rwanda as it structures the interactions of individual Rwandans with the state as well as with each other. Far from achieving the official goal of promoting unity and reconciliation between Tutsi and Hutu in creating one Rwanda for all Rwandans, I argue, the policy disguises the government's efforts to control its population by using the language of ethnic unity and social inclusion while working to consolidate the political power of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).
In the third section, I illustrate the nature of state involvement in and control of the gacaca process in the name of national unity and reconciliation. Specifically, this section examines the extent to which state agents seek to control the gacaca process, the many constraints that the policy of national unity and reconciliation imposes on individuals, and how these constraints limit opportunity for action. It also demonstrates how the policy of national unity and reconciliation forces individuals to participate at gacaca in ways that promote a sense of fear and insecurity in their everyday lives.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This article draws on ethnographic research I conducted in 2006 with thirty-seven ordinary Rwandans resident in the south of the country. In addition, I consulted approximately 400 others from across the country through participant observation on the themes of national unity, justice, peace and reconciliation. Semi-structured interviews with state authorities, from members of the Office of the President down to local gacaca judges, resulted in almost 80 hours of recorded interview data. My life history sample – the 37 Rwandans mentioned above – consisted of three ethnic Twa, 20 ethnic Hutu and 14 ethnic Tutsi, all of whom lived through the 1994 genocide. Only two of the 37 hold formal employment; the majority are subsistence farmers or day labourers. The sample is representative of Rwandans at the lowest rungs of society, as it is comprised solely of individuals who live on less than US$1/day, accounting for approximately 66 per cent of the country's population (Howe and McKay Reference Howe and McKay2007: 200).
I identified the individuals who participated in the research through their social and political networks rather than on the basis of their residence in a specific community. The breadth of the material collected through this method (representing a variety of regional contexts and subject positions) makes for better generalizations about the role of the state in the gacaca trials and the impact of participation on the lives of average Rwandan citizens. The research is also informed by participant observation of 31 individual gacaca trials in 12 jurisdictions across central, southern and western Rwanda, in which 29 of our 37 informants were present. It is further bolstered by my observation of seven gacaca trials as a guest of the government in September 2006, which provided behind-the-scenes insight into the power relationships between representatives of the Ministry of Justice (MINIJUST), the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdications (NSGJ), local government officials, military and police officers, and gacaca judges before and after the proceedings.
Since ‘open criticism of authority remains a taboo’ for most people (Jones Reference Jones, Gready and Ensor2005: 84), simply asking ordinary Rwandans about their experiences before the gacaca courts is unlikely to produce reliable results. Researchers cannot reasonably expect frank and forthcoming answers from the individuals they consult, since asking and answering too many probing questions about socio-political realities since 1994 can draw the unwanted attention of the Rwandan authorities (Ingelaere Reference Ingelaere2010: esp. 49–50; Thomson Reference Thomson2010; Reference Thomson, Straus and Waldorf2011). Two key factors explain the willingness of ordinary Rwandans to speak openly with me. The first was that I let trust and emotional engagement drive the research relationships I developed with each of the individuals who participated in my project. I thus spent most of my time building human relationships, which meant that I listened more than I spoke (sometimes through a translator, but usually not), and met folks where they lived as early as 4 a.m. to avoid the watchful eye of local officials. Second, the emotional relationships I was able to establish with ordinary Rwandans helped to create a safe space in which they were willing to share their secrets with a foreigner who had no formal ties to the country.
My knowledge of everyday life, buoyed as it was by my extended periods of residence in the country from 1996 to 2001, as well as my working knowledge of the local language, meant that I was able to dig deeper into the life worlds of ordinary Rwandans when the government-sanctioned official (and often consensus) version of events inevitably arose: I was able to go beneath the standard responses dictated by what could be safely discussed with an outsider. Most interesting were the very different versions of the ‘truth’ that arose as ordinary Rwandans proved more than willing (given the right introduction and conditions) to talk to me about their lives before, during and after the genocide. In highly politicized research environments like post-genocide Rwanda, researchers must be able to recognize the government's version of events, as well as the narratives of other actors, and to understand how each version of the truth may influence research findings, notably accessing possible respondents and then interpreting the information they share with you.
The narratives collected from the Rwandans I consulted reflect a methodology that allowed them to express themselves in their own words and as ‘knowers’ of their own life stories. This approach privileges the locally situated knowledge that Rwandans possess by employing narrative tools that uncover, rather than presuppose, individuals' motivations and behaviours before the gacaca courts in ways that quantitative survey data may not capture. Instead, I acknowledge that individual narratives of life before, during and after the genocide are historically situated and are enmeshed in relationships of power. I also appreciate that each individual narrative can be shaped by each person's selective and often self-interested memory.
DECONSTRUCTING THE POWER DYNAMICS BEHIND THE GACACA COURTS
A deconstruction of the various mechanisms of the policy of national unity and reconciliation helps to illuminate the social and political differences it masks from a variety of subject positions, while illustrating the power of the Rwandan government to ensure that its vision of justice and reconciliation is implemented without much opposition. My analysis looks beyond who has power (that is, state elites), to focus on what kind of power is being exercised and by whom (Foucault Reference Foucault1980). Analysing the relational aspects of power makes sense because political and social change rely on the institutional practices of the ruling elite, but also on the nature of social and political relations between individuals and the state – in this case between ordinary Rwandans and the ruling RPF and its local officials. Such an approach also allows for an examination of power from the perspective of ordinary Rwandans as the weaker or ‘powerless’ members of the relationship.Footnote 1 In analysing state power from the perspective of those subject to its demands, we learn of the ways in which the policy of national unity and reconciliation exerts oppressive force on the lives of ordinary Rwandans at the lowest rungs of the social hierarchy.
The policy of national unity and reconciliation is a social engineering project that the RPF believes will forge a unified Rwandan identity while fostering reconciliation between survivors of the genocide and its perpetrators. The official narrative of unity and reconciliation argues that the combination of a docile and obedient population, a legacy of authoritarian government, and colonial policies of ethnic divisionism caused the 1994 genocide. The official narrative holds that ‘Rwanda cannot recover from the effects of the genocide until national unity is restored’ (Interview, senior RPF official, Ministry of Culture, 2006). Reconciliation will ‘definitely occur once Rwandans are able to recover the national unity that existed before the white colonizers arrived’ (Interview, National Unity and Reconciliation Commission official, 2006). Ethnic unity is a ‘traditional value which must be reasserted, reinforced and taught to all Rwandans’ and is considered to be ‘the basis of future peace and security’ (Office of the President 1999: 16).
The RPF uses the apparatus of the state to try to ensure that survivors express themselves during their individual appearances before the courts – seen as the basis of forgiving and forgetting what happened to them during the genocide – and that perpetrators tell the truth about what they did. For Rwandans who try to step outside the prescribed roles of national unity and reconciliation, the reaction from the government and its agents is quick and relentless: imprisonment without charge, disappearance, intimidation, even death. The cost at the community level is just as steep, but is registered on a different scale: gossip, character assassination, denunciation, shunning, and casting out serve to isolate, ostracize and demonize individuals on the basis of where they were during the genocide, and whether they experienced, witnessed, resisted, or acted the bystander to the violence.Footnote 2 This means that survivors (read Tutsi) and génocidaires (read Hutu) have been cast into essentialist categories of victim and killer, and are the main protagonists of national unity. For example, the policy of national unity officially substitutes génocidaire for ‘Hutu’, and is thus able to exclude from public life those Hutu who were victims or bystanders, or who will not confess to their real or imagined crimes. While the policy appears to be inclusive and conciliatory, Hutu can in fact participate only as génocidaires, not as victims of the genocide, of civil war, or of revenge attacks. The official position is that reconciliation between these two groups is ongoing and successful; Rwanda is both peaceful and safe. Survivors can speak of their experiences in sanctioned settings, such as during mourning week or gacaca trials. Génocidaires can hang their heads in shame and ask for forgiveness once they have told the truth about what they did.
The broader power relations that shape individual interactions with the state through mechanisms of unity and reconciliation like the gacaca courts are also determined by several additional levers of control. In post-genocide Rwanda political power is firmly held by the state. When exercised at the local level, it takes the form of directives from ‘on high’ (the regime in Kigali) and strict monitoring of the ability and willingness of individuals to ‘implement government orders effectively and efficiently’ (Interview, Ministry of Local Government official, 2006). Local leaders in turn keep an eye on the activities and speech of individuals within their bailiwicks. Compliance with the requirements of the policy of national unity is paramount. Individuals are constantly and consistently reminded by local officials of the need to ‘unify and reconcile’ in order to consolidate present and future security. The RPF maintains a climate of fear and intimidation through the deployment of security personnel at all levels of the administrative structure. In addition, it does not tolerate any form of political dissent; instead, it works to maintain ‘total control over the political landscape’ (Reyntjens Reference Reyntjens2006: 1007).
Another strategy of control that is played out in the gacaca courts is the RPF's collectivization of Hutu guilt for the 1994 genocide. In labelling all Hutu as probable perpetrators of the genocide, guilty until proven innocent, effectively the RPF has chosen a strategy of maximum prosecution. The RPF arrested anyone who took part in the genocide without regard to individual motivations for participating in the killing. Interahamwe militias and other state agents of the previous regime forced many ordinary Hutu men to participate. In assigning collective guilt to the Hutu population, the policy of national unity and reconciliation makes no distinction among different types of participation in the 1994 genocide (see Straus Reference Straus2006: 113–18, 135–40, 163–9 for analysis). The government's assignment of collective guilt to Hutu men does more than silence discussion on these other forms of violence that occurred before, during and after the genocide; it also limits individual participation of Hutu in community life. Opportunities for paid employment are scarce at best, and the difficulties that Hutu face in finding work are compounded by others' suspicions that those who fled into neighbouring countries must be guilty of genocide. Full participation in community life is also limited because the perception that all Hutu are guilty of genocide shapes individual opportunities to reintegrate into one's hill. Many Hutu men told me that it is better not to participate in community life than to be regarded with suspicion. Consider Thomas's experience:
When we go to umuganda [community work] everyone knows which of us is a released prisoner. Tutsi neighbours tell the [local official] that they are too afraid to work next to us [Hutu], particularly when we work with pangas [machetes]. Then you see them later and they laugh because we had to do their umuganda labour. I was released for lack of evidence but that does not matter. I am Hutu so I must be guilty.
The RPF has also politicized Tutsi victimhood. Under the policy of national unity and reconciliation, only Tutsi are able to call themselves ‘survivors’. This has the effect of negating the lived experiences of the Hutu and Twa men and women who also risked death in Rwanda in 1994. It also silences the experiences of individuals from ethnically mixed families who lost some family members but not others on the basis of ethnicity before, during and after the genocide. According to one RPF official, ‘Hutu cannot be survivors because they were not targeted for dying’ (Interview, Ministry of Culture official, 2006). While this interpretation accords with the legal definition of genocide, it is also an effective technique for silencing non-Tutsi about the violence they suffered before, during and after the genocide at the hands of the RPF. It also ‘maintains in practice the ethnic division which the RPF-led government denounces in theory’ (Pottier Reference Pottier2002: 126).
Part and parcel of the Hutu–Tutsi divide that the policy of national unity and reconciliation maintains is the politicization of national mourning ceremonies, as these events do not correspond to the lived experiences of most Rwandans who survived the 1994 genocide. The genocide means more to ordinary Rwandans than just the idea that only Hutu killed only Tutsi: some Tutsi killed Hutu, some Hutu protected Tutsi; Twa also participated; and just as some from each group joined in the killing, others stood by. The single state-sanctioned version of events hardly captures the multiplicity of individual experiences, few if any of which correspond to the official version of what happened during the genocide. Many ordinary Rwandans that I spoke with in 2006 felt that the RPF was manipulating the way the genocide was remembered in order to maintain the positions of power and wealth of its leaders and functionaries rather than to unify the country. Others, particularly Tutsi survivors, acknowledged the reburials as ‘a little bit necessary for national healing’ but would prefer to do it in private, ‘away from the spotlight’.Footnote 3 In homogenizing the diverse lived experiences of victims of the genocide – Hutu, Tutsi and Twa – as well as those of individuals who lived through the violence of the 1990–4 civil war, and the emergency period after the genocide (1995–2000), the RPF is stage-managing and politicizing individual mourning.
Ordinary Rwandans told me they feel that the politicization of Hutu guilt, Tutsi victimhood and national mourning most acutely shapes their lives during their mandatory participation in community gacaca trials. Article 29 of the 2004 gacaca law requires ordinary Rwandans to participate, and individuals are cast into the following stock roles: (1) citizen spectators; (2) judges; (3) witnesses; (4) prisoners who have confessed to acts of genocide; (5) prisoners who have not confessed to their crimes; or (6) survivors. Individuals who do not perform according to the assigned script fall foul of the post-genocide state and its agents, and are subject to a variety of sanctions. For example, Tutsi survivors can lose their membership in civil society organizations that provide free health care or subsidized school fees. Prisoners who confessed in hopes of receiving a reduced sentence can find themselves with sentences of life imprisonment. Community spectators and witnesses can run into trouble with government officials if they speak out of turn or off topic. Judges must oversee and implement the gacaca process in accordance with government standards; those who do not can be imprisoned and/or denounced, which often means a loss of social and economic status. The constant threat of sanction means that some ordinary Rwandans adopt a tactical approach to performance before the gacaca courts, as local officials and other state agents actively work to suppress any challenge to the policy of national unity and reconciliation. In order to get an official rendering of justice via the gacaca courts, local officials constantly remind ordinary Rwandans to ‘watch themselves’ (Interview, RPF representative in a community in Southern Province, 2006). Self-sanctioning behaviour is the result of this surveillance, which in turn narrows the ability and willingness of survivors and perpetrators to reconcile outside the official mechanism of gacaca. The last section of this article demonstrates how individuals are expected to perform certain roles before the gacaca courts in accordance with the script of the policy of national unity and reconciliation.
THE GACACA COURTS AS A MECHANISM OF STATE POWER
The gacaca courts are at the heart of government efforts to achieve national unity and reconciliation within a social fabric ruptured by the 1994 genocide. Gacaca started as a pilot project in June 2002, was later refined in 2004, and was launched nationwide in January 2005, with the government estimating that it would take ten years for the courts to complete the process. At the time of writing in the summer of 2010, an estimated 400 cases remain to be held. In 2006, the gacaca trials at the sector and cell levels were taking place throughout the communities where the ordinary Rwandans that participated in my research live. Trials in these communities had already passed the first stage of gacaca, the information-gathering stage,Footnote 4 and the courts were involved in the second and final stages of judgement and sentencing.
The gacaca process is a top-down and highly centralized process that is overseen by the National Service of Gacaca Jurisdictions (NSGJ). Its primary task is to coordinate the transmission of prisoner dossiers between the cell- and sector-level courts, and to connect these courts to the local offices of the NSGJ, which are housed in the capital of each province. Each district-level office is linked with other government offices, including the Prosecutor's office, the prison, and the relevant line ministry, and with the central coordinating office in Kigali. The NSGJ also has the requisite legal authority to monitor and advise the gacaca courts, including oversight of the election process of judges, as well as the ability to intervene at the local level when judges ‘are not in control of the proceedings’ (Interview, local NSGJ official, Southern Province, 2006). NSGJ staff at the lower levels of the bureaucracy must remain abreast of activities at the community level and report these to authorities at the provincial and national levels.
Local NSGJ staff also work with senior government officials from the Ministry of Justice and NSGJ in Kigali to ‘sensitize the population’ and to ensure that nyumbakumi – the lowest administrative officials, each responsible for ten houses – assist gacaca judges to investigate the involvement, or not, of individuals in committing acts of genocide in 1994. Sensitization campaigns target rural populations to encourage people to participate out of self-interest and in the interest of national unity and reconciliation. This quote from a local official reveals the extent to which the full participation of the population is required: ‘As for you saying you will not forgive him or that you will not do this or that, that is very bad. Whether you like it or not, that is the law’ (Quoted in Penal Reform International 2002: 23).
Mass participation is crucial to the success of the Rwandan state in generating the image of national unity and reconciliation: génocidaires must provide truthful information about what they and their accomplices did during the genocide or serve a prison sentence of at least 15 years. Before any truth telling takes place, a panel of nine judges (inyangamugayo) has already amassed a dossier of evidence against which the ‘truth’, in the form of oral testimony, is adjudicated. Witnesses corroborate, revise or reject the evidence presented by the inyangamugayo or the testimony of survivors and/or génocidaires. Citizen spectators observe the proceedings and their en masse presence adds an air of credibility and legitimacy. The performance of survivors is critical to the spectacle: they act both as accusers and, once the truth has been established, as magnanimous individuals who are able to forgive.
In practice, however, gacaca courts are a contested and conflicted state space and are characterized by discord and tension between the various actors. Citizen spectators spoke to me of the ways in which local authorities – usually one or more of the nyumbakumi, the cell or sector coordinators – demand individual attendance under threat of official sanction. Consider this statement from Béatha, a Hutu widow and survivor of the genocide:
He came [the cell coordinator] and he asked me why I didn't attend the gacaca. I told him because my son is sick and I stayed home with him. He wrote something in his book and said, ‘Next time you have to come. I don't care the reason.’ So I got scared because my son wasn't sick at all! It was that I had no money to spare for transport but I didn't tell him because I know that is no excuse. The radio says we have a responsibility to participate.
But I didn't see anything so what can I say? I heard people getting killed but I was in hiding. We all hid in those days [during the genocide]. I don't know who saw what but I say that I saw nothing. I heard the official tell someone whose name I know to kill but I didn't see it. So why go if I have nothing to say and if I have no money? How do I get money to go? Now I have a big headache because he knows I did not go and gacaca is again next week. And now my neighbours know he [the cell coordinator] has come so I have to go.
Béatha's experience as a Hutu woman is representative of the stresses and strains faced by those who, in the eyes of the government, are peripheral to the success of gacaca as a tool to generate national unity and reconciliation. As a Hutu woman, her role in the gacaca is limited since she is not expected either to testify as a Tutsi survivor or to tell her truth as a génocidaire; instead her role is to act as a citizen spectator in order to give the appearance of popular support for the courts. Her words are also symbolic of the self-monitoring behaviour that characterizes post-genocide processes of justice and reconciliation. In addition to the strain of meeting the official requirements of gacaca, the participant refers to the knowledge that her neighbours may hold about her reason for not attending the gacaca session. Official state-based sanctions (fines, imprisonment) for non-participation matter, but so do the watchful eyes of friends, neighbours – and, in some instances, family – in ensuring the full participation of the population at gacaca. There may indeed be other reasons why Béatha prefers not to attend the weekly gacaca session. She may want to avoid being falsely accused by neighbours, or she may know more than she is willing to share, and does not want to participate to avoid forced contact with her neighbours. For many ordinary Rwandans, the gacaca process represents an oppressive form of state power that forces individuals to participate in ways that are not necessarily in line with their own lived realities.
Key actors in assuring the smooth operation of the gacaca courts are the judges, the inyangamugayo (persons of integrity). They are officially ‘elected’ in queues made by members of the communities they are to serve under local authorities. Judges are constantly balancing their privileged role as elected (unpaid) officials with the requirements of living as a member of the community they are to serve. They have little autonomy when it comes to rendering judgement. Any confusion about the scope of the gacaca law or the relevant procedures is decided upon by an NSGJ official in Kigali. Judges are simply to conduct the gacaca trial in a fair and impartial way. In theory this means that, in the course of assessing evidence, weighing individual testimony from survivors or génocidaires, and assuring the procedural integrity of the trial, judges can draw on their own personal experiences and insights for the gacaca process. In practice, ‘fair and impartial’ means that judges are under constant surveillance by both local government authorities and community members – and any error or wrongdoing, real or perceived, is liable to be reported to state authorities. The gacaca law itself is also a constraint, as judges are duty-bound to respect its rules and regulations at all times, even though training and support in how to do so are minimal. Judges, because of the important role they play in facilitating the smooth operation of the gacaca courts, are expected to spur génocidaires to tell the truth, and also to ensure survivors are able to offer an act of forgiveness. Because of this power, judges are often reminded by the state of their duty to ensure the active participation of the population at gacaca.
Ensuring the active participation of the population is not without its attendant risks. The lament of Didier, a 47-year-old Tutsi survivor and gacaca judge, is an example of what the lay judges I consulted told me:
It is a most difficult thing to be a judge. And no one understands. There is no one I can share my difficulties with. I am a survivor like the other survivors but even they look at me differently. I feel isolated since I became a judge. And because I have a family, I have responsibilities to them. My wife even asked how I could let my family starve when it was time to harvest. But I couldn't do that work because being a judge takes at least two days a week. If I don't undertake my duties as a judge, I can get into serious problems with [he names the local government official that he reports to].
Last year, we acquitted a Hutu who was accused. We didn't have enough evidence or information to do anything but let him go. Truly before God I did not think he was guilty. And no one spoke up about his role. It didn't sound like he did anything. And he was sorry. He fell on the ground [in front of his accuser] and said ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.’ The survivor accepted and we all felt happy about the power of gacaca at that moment. I was proud to be a judge; really proud. Then, the day after, the IBUKA lady requested to see all of us judges.Footnote 5 I was in my field trying to feed my family the few beans we had left. She said that the survivors around me [in his community] were so angry with us. Then she raged against me and I felt like I did the best I could in deciding how the accused was telling his truth. I said I was sorry but I don't think it [the evidence against the accused] was enough. I fear now that I am going to be denounced because I was told [by the other judges] that she [the IBUKA representative] is very powerful with many connections in Kigali. … What if something happens to me? Who will take care of my family?
Didier's narrative is reflective of the additional challenges that judges face in the performance of gacaca; they must uphold its rituals while ensuring that their behaviour does not compromise the ability of others to participate. Indeed, the penalties for falling foul of the post-genocide order of national unity and reconciliation are too high to permit him or anyone else a margin for error. The most marginal of the participants in gacaca processes seek to avoid contact with local officials and other Rwandans. And the fear of being ‘denounced’ expressed by Didier, who felt himself to be under the real and present threat of such a fate, is common – for the good reason that denouncement is a common survival strategy that both elites and ordinary folk employ under the policy of national unity and reconciliation. Of course, it is itself a high-risk strategy. It requires both a sense of imagination to craft an appropriate story that the authorities will believe as well as a sense of showmanship to deliver the tale successfully. If poorly rendered, tales of denunciation can result in the shunning or casting out of the teller by his/her community.
Women are more likely to denounce as the result of poking and prodding by male members of their families. For example, male relatives force many Tutsi survivor women to testify in ways that support interests outside those of delivering justice or promoting reconciliation. In one case, the local official who had business relations with the brother of a Tutsi survivor, named Esther, instructed her on how to deliver her testimony. Esther, a 40-year-old Tutsi widow, had never previously encountered the accused, who was detained on allegations of genocide crimes ‘only’ in 2001, which suggests that he was targeted for economic reasons rather than his actual involvement in the genocide:
My brother was in business with [the local official]; they knew [the accused] had a house and a good job [with an international organization]. [The official] told me to denounce him. [The official] said if I didn't I would end up dead or in prison, even though [X] is my brother! I didn't know what to do; he is my blood brother but he grew up outside. He wasn't even here during the war! I denounced him. He got life [in prison]. I never saw him before but I denounced him. I am an unmarried woman so I have to do what I am told. What would happen to my children?
Male survivors, as well as Hutu and Twa women, rarely practise denunciation as they are not subject to the same levels of surveillance as are Hutu men. Both officials and other Rwandans subject Hutu men to surveillance in three main forms: (1) those tried and convicted of acts of genocide, either through the modern or gacaca courts, and imprisoned for 25 years to life, are under scrutiny not only in prison but through their economic and social networks, particularly those who visit them in prison; (2) those who have never been imprisoned for committing acts of genocide remain under observation for any evidence of harbouring genocidal ideologies or of making revisionist/negationist statements about the genocide; and (3) those who have been imprisoned on charges of committing acts of genocide and have either been acquitted (domestic courts) or released following judgement at gacaca sometimes remain subject to suspicion in their communities, particularly if they are seen to ‘have it too easy’. At the level of the ordinary rural and peasant Hutu, scenario three is most likely, as the other two apply mainly to urban, educated and well-resourced individuals. For ordinary Hutu men, the surveillance tends to be exercised by friends and neighbours. Witness this representative statement from Félicien, a 33-year-old imprisoned Hutu man:
I returned to [my community] after gacaca and I confessed everything I did. I even told them about things some others did because I was told this would help me get home. … When I got home, my wife and kids were living with a survivor! He wouldn't let me talk to her. I didn't know what to do because he was in my house. I had nowhere to go. So I stayed with my parents. Then his relative denounced me! She said I didn't tell my truth. But I did. I did what I said. But I ended up back in prison for life. …
For génocidaires, the challenges and constraints of participating in gacaca are multiple. There are Tutsi women who have testified against their Hutu husbands. There are Hutu who admit to killing in a context of duress by the authorities of the previous regime. There are Hutu who claim innocence despite sometimes overwhelming evidence that they actively participated in the genocide. Hutu who voice concern about the impartiality and fairness of gacaca can be imprisoned for providing false testimony or for harbouring genocide ideology. Hutu who question why members of the RPF who killed civilians during and after the genocide are not being tried in the gacaca courts also run the risk of life in prison, or other fates including forced exile, disappearance or death (Human Rights Watch 2008; Penal Reform International 2010). That Tutsi might be guilty of serious crimes against Hutu is publicly unimaginable and is something that is rarely discussed among Rwandans in private, let alone in a public space like gacaca. Joseph looked at me wide-eyed when I asked him if he thought the RPF or any other Tutsi had committed any crimes in 1994. He hushed me and said, ‘I thought you understood this country. You better just stop talking with questions like that. …’ Many individuals invoked the historical oppression of Hutu by Tutsi and scoffed at the idea that there could be national unity and reconciliation delivered by such a skewed practice as gacaca. Another common theme in the narrative of Hutu adults, men and women, is the idea that gacaca is a state-sanctioned pretext to persecute Hutu for the genocide of Tutsi. The remarks of Anselme, a sixteen-year-old boy whose three uncles are in prison on allegations of genocide crimes, are characteristic of the sentiments of the Rwandans I consulted:
You know, I don't think there is an adult Hutu inside this country that doesn't fear the gacaca. I don't fear it because I was only four years old at the time of genocide, but my uncles do and so does my older brother. And I fear because if something happens to them, what will happen to me? I haven't even finished school yet. How will I make my living? I wouldn't be surprised if something happened to one of them though. … That is how things work around here.
One of my uncle's friends was denounced [for acts of genocide] but he knows people in Kigali and his wife's brother is important in our local church [a priest]. He knows people. That and he is already important to the community because his brother [the priest] will protect him. Not because he is religious but because he also knows people. Right after our return [in 1996 in the mass repatriation of Hutu refugees from Zaïre by the RPF], he denounced many Hutu. We don't know anyone important. For me, gacaca is just a way for the government to put us Hutu in prison, and to make sure we don't make more genocide for them. Genocide could happen again because Hutu are no longer welcome here. My uncle says that he thinks even there could be genocide but the RPF won't allow it!
Several participants spoke at length to me during our interviews about the onerous demands placed on Hutu who stand accused before the gacaca courts. Chantal, a Hutu woman who was called to act as a witness and then found herself in prison accused of acts of genocide, said,
… and then I got denounced. I mean I am telling the truth and I get denounced from someone in the audience. He said that all Hutu are killers and challenged my version [of events]. I was truly amazed. No one, not the judge, not the survivor, no one said anything. Someone said that Hutu are all in it together. I didn't even know what that person meant when he said that. … I am innocent but am in prison now. I have no way out.
Survivors are just as constrained, if not more so, in their action and speech as génocidaires. The role of survivors in the gacaca process is critical to the promotion of national unity and reconciliation. The deep well of hope and resilience that survivors, particularly female survivors, display on a daily basis is ‘an inspiration to all Rwandans and evidence that unity is within reach’ (Interview, National Unity and Reconciliation Commission official, 2006). Despite an apparent ability to ‘forgive’ spontaneously, a common thread in the narrative of survivors when speaking about gacaca is the constant sense of personal insecurity they feel. Feelings of insecurity are widespread, particularly with regard to the act of testifying against the accused at a gacaca session and in their daily lives as they come into contact with family, friends and neighbours of the accused. Witness this statement from Jeanne, a 47-year-old Tutsi widow, who was required by the cell coordinator to testify against the individual accused of killing her entire family:
I had a visit from [the nyumbakumi] who told me that [the accused] had made a statement that he killed my family. I was amazed. It was like God struck me down. How could this be? I was very nervous but also very excited. I wanted to know what happened to my family but not really. I mean I am alone now. I was raped and I know that I will not remarry. I am too old. Who would marry me?! So I know that I am alone and I try my best to stay silent so that I can live the rest of my days in peace. I just want peace. I am a member of [survivor's organization] and they give me some small money and I still have my land. So I was as happy as I could be after the genocide.
Then, I am told they found the man who did this to my people. I was horrified. Now I have to relive all of that bad memory. I know how my people were killed. I was there! I was younger then and was able to run away you know. I just ran into the [banana] grove. Other women talk about how they made efforts to protect their children. Me? I just ran. I didn't want to confront the man. I would like to have the remains of my people buried at home, but I would rather stay out of the way of gacaca if I could.
Of course, I could not say no because it is my duty to forgive. Participating comes with nothing for nothing. Maybe I would accept more easily if I could get some kind of settlement.Footnote 6
Equally, non-Tutsi women think of themselves as survivors but are unable to be recognized as such. For example, Hutu women bristle at the thought that they are not also considered survivors. The experience of Aurelia, a 39-year-old Hutu widow, is a common one:
I was married to a Tutsi. He died trying to save me and the children. We all survived but one. I was targeted because the father of my kids is Tutsi. I mean how can I not be considered a ‘survivor’? The authorities say it is because I am a Hutu. But my people [male members of my family] are gone; who cares for me? And I have these kids to feed, to send to school.
Adult male survivors feel unwilling to forgive in any sincere way as many report feeling culturally bound to reconstitute their family life as husband and head-of-household as quickly as possible. Participation in gacaca has the possible effect of upending the relative stability and peace they have been able to recapture in their private lives. The words of Emmanuel, a 27-year-old Tutsi survivor, are representative:
I remarried as soon as she [the new wife] said yes. She is also a [Tutsi] survivor but is deeply traumatized. She needs a lot of support. So I care for her and our home. We have no children because she is unable to carry any since she was damaged [by rape]. But I don't care. Together, we are a family. I fear gacaca because what if someone says something to trigger her trauma? What if someone accuses me of being an accomplice? I am a man who survived the genocide. For some people, that means I am an accomplice of the génocidaires! If I was a ‘real’ Tutsi, I would be dead right now!
This brief survey of individual experiences with the gacaca process from a variety of subject positions reveals the climate of fear as well as the distrust of the government that the courts have created in the lives of many ordinary Rwandans. Individual action before the gacaca courts is a performance that does not constitute or even indicate the presence of actual unity and reconciliation in the daily lives of most people. Instead, individual performances of gacaca highlight the extent to which the policy of national unity and reconciliation creates an atmosphere of fear and distrust in relation to the RPF-led government. Instead of creating ‘one Rwanda for all Rwandans’, which is the stated goal of the policy, gacaca is a mechanism of state power that helps the government consolidate its hold over the country, albeit in a highly coercive and therefore unstable manner. In instrumentalizing the gacaca courts and individual performances of gacaca, the government squarely places the responsibility of appearing to embrace the demands of its policy on the shoulders of ordinary Rwandans. The government has also carefully crafted a state space that makes individual non-compliance difficult.
CONCLUSION: WHY A POWER ANALYSIS MATTERS
In this article I have argued that the praise of legal and political analysts who perceive Rwanda's gacaca courts as a model of locally grounded and culturally relevant transitional justice is unfounded without consideration of the broader socio-political power dynamics in which justice is delivered. Drawing on life history interviews with 37 Rwandan peasants resident in the south-west of the country, I have also argued that the claims of the Rwandan government that its gacaca courts are promoting peace and reconciliation must also be tested by the impact of local justice mechanisms from a variety of subject positions. In the case of these courts, a power analysis illuminates a darker and largely unexamined aspect of transitional justice: local power dynamics and the social and political inequalities that the pursuit of justice and reconciliation not only masks but also in some cases exacerbates. A bottom-up, subject-centred scrutiny of the gacaca process lays bare more than the injustice of justice rendered through the courts. A power analysis also demonstrates the ability of gacaca to simplify and impose a top-down sense of national unity and reconciliation despite its destabilizing effects as a traditional justice mechanism that is both a producer and product of power relations.
Critics of my bottom-up power analysis may counter that my approach does not contend with the intractable question of alternatives to local justice mechanisms like the gacaca courts. Such criticism misses the point of my contribution. Part and parcel of my argument is that traditional justice mechanisms embody specific socio-cultural constellations of power, just as other state-based judicial instruments do. I am not critiquing the gacaca process as a normative or theoretical ideal; my focus is on its actual functioning as part and parcel of a particular regime of power.
This article also provides important methodological and empirical insight for scholars of transitional justice to consider when assessing the claims of governments like the RPF who control the post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation processes in their countries. When government claims about peaceful and stable national unity and a successful reconciliation process are located within the broader context of state power and how it operates, much is revealed – and not only about the myriad ways in which the Rwandan government is imposing a specific form of justice on its citizens. The approach I have undertaken here reinforces the importance of directly questioning government claims of a successful and ongoing reconciliation process at the level of the ordinary individual. Further, it illuminates the politics that underlie transitional justice – demonstrating, for example, the extent to which the post-genocide government seeks to control the process in ways that reinforce its political legitimacy and authority. It is imperative that consideration of this darker side of transitional justice become a part of both academic and policy analyses, lest we overlook the politics that motivates post-conflict governments to adopt seemingly inclusive, culturally appropriate and traditional justice mechanisms.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank Africa's anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments in finalizing this article. I also thank Lee Ann Fujii, Rhoda Howard-Hassman, Rosemary Nagy, Villia Jefremovas, Joanna Quinn and Melissa Williams for comments on earlier versions. For financial support I thank the Canadian Consortium on Human Security, the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Dalhousie University, the International Development Research Centre and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. This publication was made possible by my research assistants (all of whom requested anonymity), as well as individuals resident in southern Rwanda who participated in my research: I thank them all.
