The Constitution of Justice
Photo by Jose Bernal
The Constitution of Justice
In the Spring of 1994, a small country in Africa experienced one of the most horrific genocides in human history. Over one million individuals were ruthlessly hunted, tortured, and murdered as a result of perceived racial distinctions. When the resistance was eventually able to regain control of the government, they were faced with a judicial dilemma. In addition to addressing immediate safety concerns, how do you prevent future uprisings, enforce order, and provide closure to the victims of genocide? How can justice be served to the countless perpetrators? The solutions that the Rwandan Government created provide a valuable case study of communal forgiveness and creative homegrown solutions regarding justice.
Rwanda’s turbulent history began as a result of European “colonization” in Africa in the early to mid 1900s. In the Kingdom of Rwanda, what started out as two socioeconomic classes, Tutsi and Hutu, was misinterpreted by the Belgian rulers as distinct racial groups. The Belgians, who were bent on applying the sciences of race theory and eugenics to their constituents, perceived the Tutsis as the superior race. 1
After experiencing intense discrimination the Hutus were left vulnerable to internal extremist revolutionary propaganda which preyed on the divide between them and Tutsi. After the Belgians relinquished control of Rwanda at the end of the imperialist era, the Hutu extremists democratically took control of the government and maintained their distaste for the Tutsi. Decades of intense misinformation, the continued rise of racist ideology and Hutu power all culminated in April of 1994 in what is now known in Rwanda as the Genocide Against the Tutsis. During the genocide, many Hutus committed horrible atrocities: raping hundreds of thousands of women and the slaughter of nearly 1 million people who were their neighbors, friends, in-laws, and fellow countrymen. 2
During our time in the country, one genocide perpetrator informed my colleagues and I that the Hutu people were told by governmental and other extremists that they were obligated to cleanse the Tutsis from the land. They believed it because of the media brainwashing and internalized years of anger. This man, and many of his neighbors, spoke of how they were manipulated by fear and ingrained in violence to act rationally. That it was kill or be killed.
This is a common narrative, one that is echoed in places I visited, like the Kigali Genocide Museum and by local NGOs whose representatives who spoke to our group.3 However, the extent of cold brutality of the perpetrators can be uncovered if one takes a deeper dive. When walking through the Nyamata Church Genocide Memorial, I visited areas where countless women were raped, and where the walls have been stained red, even after decades of time, by perpetrators crushing the skulls of children against them.4
In the book Machete Season, Jean Hatzfeld tells the stories of nine perpetrators and their thoughts and actions during the genocide. One killer he interviewed said, “I don't remember my first kill, because I did not identify that one person in the crowd. I just happened to start killing several without seeing their faces. I mean, I was striking, and there was screaming, but it was on all sides, so it was a mixture of blows and cries coming in a tangle from everyone.”5
Many in Rwanda in the years following the Genocide Against the Tutsi were aggrieved, to the extent where extrajudicial killings were a problem for many years following the end of the genocide. Understandably so, as how many atrocities must one commit before their humanity is lost?
After the genocide there were few judges and even less lawyers left alive in the country. For years the Rwandan government attempted to convict and sentence the perpetrators through their courtroom system, but it quickly became apparent that it would take hundreds of years to process everyone. The people wanted justice sooner than was possible. Death sentences and life incarceration sentences were common, as those who played a larger role were judged and sentenced by the Rwandan Government or an international court. Many are still incarcerated today.6
However, the government needed an innovative solution for the more numerous, lower profile cases. The solution that was created was called the gacaca courts (pronounced “gah-cha-cha”). A solution like this was completely new and unprecedented in the legal world, especially on such a large scale. In Rwanda, the gacaca courts, derived from the Kinyarwanda word for grass, consisted of community members judging the self-represented perpetrators among them. Verdicts and sentences were based on what evidence could be collected, but largely relied on the oral testimony of victims. Lighter sentences were offered to defendants who pled guilty and cooperated with officials to uncover mass graves or investigations into other perpetrators. Sentences were usually made up of community service followed by reintegration into society.7
It was an innovative solution, but was it the best solution? Did the makeshift courts provide “justice”? While there is no certain yes or no answer to questions like these, there is evidence that Rwandans seem to be moving on from their bloody past. According to the Rwanda Reconciliation Barometer, a survey from the Rwandan Government, the factors that drove perpetrators like genocide ideology and racial stereotypes have had less influence in the years since the genocide.8 To supplement measures like the Reconciliation Barometer, Prison Fellowship Rwanda (PFR), a non-profit that focuses on rehabilitation of perpetrators and victims, reports that there have not been any incidents of violent outbreaks in its two decade history.9 Non-profit organizations similar to PFR, like the Global Initiative for Environment and Reconciliation, have education programs for neighbors to help each other through trauma, lessons in working together on subsistence farms, and living in close quarters.10 Countless individuals that I had the opportunity to speak with are willing to testify about the success of these programs, how their lives have transformed, and that they now look to the future with hope.
I attribute Rwanda’s success in dealing with the perpetrators of genocide to the power of community, empathy, mercy and love. The ability of a majority of the population to reach an estimated 94.7% reconciliation rate speaks volumes about humanity’s ability to forgive.11
Since visiting Rwanda and the few months I’ve had back in the United States, I often wonder if the same reintegration policies that reflected forgiveness and acceptance could be applied here in the US. A commonly cited statistic is that the US has the highest incarceration rate per capita.12 I think it is worth considering that instead of incarcerating people by the masses we prescribed community service, and when appropriate, relocation to a better community?
If we put more of an emphasis on valuing community and acceptance rather than individualism, I think people's mental health and feelings of safety would improve. There are distinct differences in the world on how justice can be reached. But one small country in Africa shows that through creative homegrown solutions, a population broken and fractured, can forgive and heal.
Gourevitch, Philip. We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda. S.l.: Picador, 1998.
Gourevitch, We Wish to Inform
Hatzfeld, Jean. Essay. In Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak: A Report, 21. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005.
Rutikanga, Bernard. “Understanding the Genocide: The role of history, identity, and culture.” Kigali Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, 2022. Lecture.
“Republic of Rwanda - NURC.” Reconciliation Barometer. Accessed August 21, 2022. https://www.nurc.gov.rw/fileadmin/Documents/Others/RWANDA_RECONCILIATION_BAROMETER_2020.pdf
Reconciliation Barometer
Incarceration rates by country 2022. Accessed August 25, 2022. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country.