posted on the web on April 20 2003

Country Data

Full Name: Rwandese Republic Capital: Kigali Population: 7,398,074 (2002 est.) Location: Africa Total area: 26,338 sq km Language: Kinyarwanda, French, English, Swahili Ethnic groups: Hutu 84%, Tutsi 15%, Twa 1% Religions: Roman Catholic 56.5%, Protestant 26%, Adventist 11.1%, Muslim 4.6% Currency: Rwandan franc IGO memberships: UN, WHO, WTO Internet site: Government of Rwanda Source: CIA World Factbook

In the summer of 1994, Rwanda suffered one of the swiftest and most brutal genocides in history. While a core group of Hutu Power extremists incited and led the killings, tens of thousands of Hutus took up the call to genocide. The killers exterminated 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus in the span of approximately one hundred days from April to July. In the wake of this massacre, Rwanda has sought to understand the meaning of its past, and find a way to move forward. Eight years after the genocide, Rwanda still searches for how to bring the many thousands of perpetrators to justice. And as Rwandans deal with the trauma, they seek to understand the truth about how the Hutu Power extremists could incite the genocide, and reconcile themselves with this truth.

Some have suggested that Rwanda should pursue a truth and reconciliation commission, a forum for society to deal with a bloody past, where survivors publicly tell of their unspeakable experiences and perpetrators testify on their suspected deeds. Considering the unique situation Rwanda has found itself facing in the wake of the 1994 genocide, I argue that a truth commission would benefit Rwanda, if structured and defined in a unique way. While truth commissions have recently sprung up worldwide in a spectrum of circumstances, there has been little to no discussion of whether Rwanda should pursue such a commission. The discussion that has emerged has been stunted by the fact that Rwanda’s genocide was fundamentally different from any other conflict. Since the end of World War II, few other countries have experienced the degree of wrenching, widespread violence that plagued Rwanda in 1994. If Rwanda is to pursue a commission, it must begin the process with an entirely new perspective. Replicating the type of commission that South Africa, or Chile, or any other country facing a scarred past has pursued would simply not make sense within the Rwandan framework.

A commission can be created in any image, and the process begins with addressing the commission’s goals, down to the very definitions of words like "truth," reconciliation," and "justice." Only when it is understood that Rwanda can pursue its own, unique path can a fruitful public discussion of a potential commission begin. The only paper that would truly do this issue justice would be an exhaustive historical analysis of Rwandan history, culture, politics; theories of justice, memory and collective identity. Thus I seek merely to shed light on where a productive consideration of a Rwandan truth commission should begin. I conclude that Rwanda should pursue a commission, under specific definition and formulation, that complements Rwanda’s judicial system and the International Criminal Tribunal. As Rwanda seeks to move forward, I believe that such a commission represents a crucial stepping-stone on this ravaged nation’s path toward healing and reconciliation.

The Genocide

In 1994, a barbaric contingent of Rwandan society murdered 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the span of one hundred days. The killers stripped entire villages of their Tutsi population, where merely a few years before Hutus and Tutsis had lived side-by-side, working with, learning with, and even marrying each other.

There were many underlying though interminably unsatisfying explanations for the genocide that engulfed the small, beautiful land of Rwanda. Some point to the "age-old" ethnic conflict, some to the poverty afflicting many Rwandans, still others to the malevolent intentions of the Hutu Power government under President Habyarimana. For generations the Tutsi population controlled the government and served as the aristocratic, intellectual leaders of the country. Many see the Hutu extremists who led the genocide to be acting upon a revolutionary reaction against what they saw as their long-standing oppression by Tutsis. Juvenal Habyarimana first came to power in 1973, after non-violent coup of the previous Hutu government. His paramilitary FAR (forces armées rwandaises) led a terror campaign against the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a Tutsi militant group that Habyarimana saw as an insurgent revolutionary threat.

On April 6th, 1994, President Habyarimana’s airplane was shot down as it was landing in Kigali. Everyone on board, including Habyarimana, was killed in the crash (1). It is now agreed that the plane was shot down by extremist members of Habyarimana’s own party, but the rest of Hutu Power government seized on the crash as an excuse to call the Hutu population to arms to exterminate the Tutsi population from its midst. Hutu Power took to the radio to incite the Hutu population to violence. Tens of thousands of Hutus heeded the call, took up machetes and other weapons, and began the swift, systematic murder of the Tutsi population. They would also kill any Hutus who stood in their way or even merely appeared reticent to participate in murdering Tutsis.

The barbarity of the widespread killings by ordinary Hutus is truly unthinkable to any of us outside Rwandan society. Even few Rwandans claim to understand how their country could descend into absolute anarchy and bloodshed. Our universal incredulity is compounded by the seeming blindness of the international community during the genocide. Despite documented pleas by Gen. Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who led the peacekeeping operation in Rwanda, not a single foreign government stepped forward with forces to quell the deadly violence.

Survivors and others who lived through the genocide recount the Hutu extremists’ unspeakable methods of killing. The ubiquitous tool of killing was the machete, and few were spared when a group of murderous, often intoxicated, Hutu extremists (called interahamwe) swept through the countryside. General Dallaire tells stories of perpetrators who would lure victims into a church under the guise of protection, only to lock the doors, torch the roof, and drive off amidst the blood-curdling shrieks of the burning victims (2). Philip Gourevitch, a correspondent who wrote of some of the atrocities during the genocide, describes one scene he witnessed when visiting Rwanda in mid-1995:

At Nyarubuye, tiny skills of children were scattered here and there, and from a nearly schoolyards the voices of their former classmates at recess carried into the church. Inside the nave, empty and grand, where a dark powder of dried blood marked one’s footprints, a single, representative corpse was left on the floor before the altar. He appeared to be crawling toward the confession booth. His feet had been chopped off, and his hands had been chopped off. This was a favorite torture for Tutsis during the genocide; the idea was to cut the tall people ‘down to size,’ and crowds would gather to taunt, laugh, and cheer as the victim writhed to death. The bones emerged from the dead man’s cuffs like twigs, and he still had a square tuft of hair peeling from his skull, and a perfectly formed, weather-shrunken and weather-greened ear (3).

The genocide did not spare any part of society; children, women and elderly were murdered alongside their fathers, husbands, and sons. Emmanuel Ngomiraronka, Director of Hope Unlimited, writes that "children were abused and killed like anyone else, children received machete blows to their heads, children were shot, children were stoned, children were executed after listening to long speeches proclaimed in front of them about why they must be killed as accomplices—children were witness to all these heinous and bloody events" (4).The genocide seared into the minds of the young a trauma that has proven to be one of the most elusive issues confronting Rwandans who undertook the tremendous task of helping their country to heal. The Rwandan government established the National Trauma Center in 1995 and has since vastly expanded its scope. Tutsi children who survived the murder of their families either returned to their homes alone or were taken in by orphanages. Approximately 85,000 children became members of "child-headed households" in which they had to fend off hunger, disease, and the many adults who tried to exploit them (5).

Though it lasted only one hundred days, the genocide’s main characteristic was that it pervaded every level of Rwandan society. Hutu Power leaders truly sought to "leave none to tell the story" (6). Hutu leaders considered any Hutus who did not join in the killing to be conspiring with the Tutsi population, and killed them just as they killed Tutsis themselves.

Officially, the genocide ended in July 1994, by which time 800,000 Tutsis had been killed. But in the countryside the killing continued. As late as 1998, despite the presence of many human rights groups, hundreds of people, Hutus and Tutsis alike, were killed in incidents ranging from small-scale machete attacks to large crackdowns by the RPA that left hundreds dead and wounded (7). Even in the refugee camps across the borders, interahamwe continued to organize and incite anti-Tutsi violence aiming to "finish off" the genocide (8). But the hundreds of thousands killed and the utter atavism of the killing lives on in the psyches of the survivors, shapes Rwandans’ collective memory, and sears the soul of the international community.

The International Backdrop For A Rwandan Truth Commission

The justifications for and goals of truth commissions can be separated into three categories: justice, truth and reconciliation. Situations lead people and societies to interpret the three in strikingly divergent ways, and often people do not realize that differences of opinion regarding truth commissions can be traced to nuances in definitions. To begin to understand the potential benefits and drawbacks of truth commissions in post-genocide Rwanda, we consider the meanings of truth, reconciliation, and justice as they pertain to the country’s collective healing. Along the way we must recognize that various truth commissions have interpreted these terms differently, thus complicating our analysis. So while we can certainly learn from other truth commissions’ accomplishments and shortcomings, we have to realize that Rwanda experienced an unprecedented social trauma, and thereby must mold a potential commission solely for itself.

Nonetheless, a Rwandan truth commission would be part of the relatively recent boom in the number of commissions worldwide. In 2000 there were at least 20 commissions in operation, doubtless in some of the many countries experiencing complex, difficult transitions (9). Calls for truth commissions worldwide reveal that during transitions from abusive regimes, many societies desire and require something more than the retributive justice that criminal trials provide. The most well known commissions were in Chile and South Africa, and many of the commissions formed subsequently were created in their images. Chile instituted its truth commission after the fall of General Augusto Pinochet’s authoritarian government. Since Pinochet lost power, it has come to light that he instituted a secret campaign of torture and violence to silence opposition. When he lost power, he managed to negotiate a pact with the new government that kept him in a position of power, and granted him and his advisors nearly unconditional immunity from future prosecution. And herein lay the primary differences from Rwanda’s situation—first, instances of torture occurred in secret, thus their truth commission sought to bring them to the public consciousness; and second, the main perpetrators maintained power and immunity, a tremendous roadblock to the commission’s success.

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), led by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, sought to bring to light the abuses of the country’s apartheid past. When F.W. De Klerk and Nelson Mandela succeeded in ending the apartheid regime, the country had to come to grips with the truth of its apartheid past, while moving on in the interest of reconciliation and healing. Under Reverend Tutu, the TRC promoted a message that focused heavily on the concept of forgiveness. He believed that the only way for South Africa to move on was for victims to "be moved to respond to an apology by forgiving the culprit… In forgiving, people are not being asked to forget… Forgiveness does not mean condoning what has been done. It means taking what happened seriously and not minimizing it; drawing out the sting in the memory that threatens to poison our entire existence. It involves trying to understand the perpetrators and so have empathy, to try to stand in their shoes and appreciate the sort of pressures and influences that might have conditioned them" (10). Tutu’s calls for forgiveness shifted much of the international focus of truth commissions, and figures strongly in the background of our discussion of reconciliation for Rwanda.

Having examined the genocide itself and considered some other truth commissions, we are left with the question of whether Rwanda should consider creating a truth and reconciliation commission. Undoubtedly a complex question, it tears at the fabric of Rwandan society, and inevitably reflects conflicting views on history, collective memory, and theories of justice and reconciliation. To understand the implications of a truth commission for Rwanda, we must separate its three components— justice, truth and reconciliation—and consider their meaning within the Rwandan context.

Justice

First we must understand the concept of justice as it stands in the wake of the genocide. The Rwandan genocide was one of the worst atrocities the modern world has seen. Its conclusion and the victory of the RPF brought many immediate questions, including how the country could possibly bring to justice those who had participated in the genocide. Within months of the end of the genocide, the Rwandan RPF government began arresting tens of thousands of suspects accused of participating in the genocide. At the same time, the United Nations began the process of forming a tribunal to try the leaders of the genocide. On 8 November 1994 the UN formed the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and a few months later it was determined that the tribunal would be located in Arusha, Tanzania.

The ICTR and the Rwandan government established four categories of detainees, under which both systems of justice continue to operate. Category 1 prisoners are those accused of leading, planning, and instigating the genocide; Category 2 prisoners are accused of intentional homicide or serious assault; Category 3 prisoners are accused of serious assault; and Category 4 prisoners are accused of crimes against property (11). In May 1998, the ICTR brought to trial Jean Kambanda, vice-president under President Habyarimana and Prime Minister during the genocide. A Hutu Power member, he pled guilty to the ICTR, and was sentenced to life in prison (12). Since issuing its first indictment on 28 November 1995, seventy suspects have been indicted, of whom sixty have been arrested. Nine have been tried, resulting in eight convictions. Even if we only consider the approximately 300 Category 1 detainees, the number of trials completed is minute.

After the genocide, as the government began rounding up thousands of suspects, Rwanda faced the task of rebuilding its justice system. Trials began within Rwanda at the same time the ICTR was being formed. Though various international groups criticized the Rwandan courts of unfair and hasty trials, the Rwandan judicial system has played a crucial part from the very beginning in bringing suspects to justice. But with an estimated 125,000 suspects in jails within a year of the genocide, the Rwandan judicial system and the ICTR faced a Herculean task. Many people within and outside Rwanda soon realized that unless tremendous resources were infused into the system, trying all the perpetrators would take hundreds of years (13).

As of the end of 2002, 115,000 suspects still wallowed in Rwandan and Tanzanian courts. André Sibomana, a priest who lived in Rwanda throughout the genocide, speaks of the horrendous conditions that many of the prisons, especially in late 1994: "After weeks of standing upright, day and night, in the mud, the prisons’ feet had started decomposing. When I visited Gitarama Prison for the first time, in early 1995, what I saw defied imagination… Within nine months, almost 1,000 detainees—13 per cent of prisoners—died in this way as a result of deliberate ill-treatment" (14). Since 1995 more prisons were built and conditions improved, but detainees soon realized they could have to wait years for a trial. That realization proved all too true, as eight years later, 115,000 were still detained.

Today, Rwanda has begun to realize the limits of its official justice system. On 7 January 2003, the Rwandan government announced that it would grant "provisional liberty" to between 30,000 and 40,000 prison detainees; they are still considered suspects and will be brought to trial, but are freed from their detention in prison. They include elderly and sick individuals who do not fall into Category I, that is, they were not involved in planning or instigating the genocide (15). Thousands of detainees still have not been formally charged with any specific crimes, despite the fact that they have spent over eight years in prison (16).

Jean Hatzfeld, who has collected survivors’ accounts of the genocide, has written that justice does not necessarily imply retribution; justice creates an atmosphere for healing. "After civil war or genocide," Hatzfeld writes, "the first job of justice–precisely because it has come too late–is not so much to punish as to tell the truth, to unravel the complex nature of responsibilities, and to acknowledge the victims’ suffering. Let everything be known, said and recognized! Let the victims voice their pain! Only then can the process of mourning begin, that crucial stage on the path to reconciliation" (17).

Since mid-2002, Rwanda has implemented a nation-wide program of gacaca courts. Created amidst the realization that only 7,000 detainees had been tried since 1996, the courts resemble traditional village courts, where local elders would determine guilt or innocence and assign an appropriate punishment (18). Literally, "gacaca" means "judgment on grass," and such courts consist of locally chosen members of the community who sit on a panel as "judges." Those accused of participation in the genocide are brought back to the locale of their crime, victims and witnesses may testify against the accused, and the panel of nineteen "judges" hand down judgments (19). The government admits that such is not an ideal way to administer justice, but rightfully claims that there are few alternatives.

Though far from representing a true and fair administration of justice, the gacaca courts represent a crucial turning point in Rwanda’s search for justice since the end of the genocide. Thousands of innocent and prisoners who have yet to be charged still continue to be detained, but hopefully the recent announcement that nearly 40,000 would be offered provisional liberty indicates that change is on the horizon. This is not to say that the detainees deserve to go free. On the contrary, many of them should serve long prison terms for their crimes. Victims and witnesses cannot heal without justice being served.

These two recent developments in Rwanda also lead us back to the essential discussion of a truth commission. In fact, the gacaca courts bear a distinct resemblance to many truth commissions. But they do not replace the vacuum that many people believe can only be filled by an official commission. Nearly everyone involved, whether in Rwanda or elsewhere in the international community, agrees that bringing the top perpetrators to justice is paramount. But a commission as I will soon describe would complement the ICTR, the Rwandan justice system, and the gacaca courts to truly help Rwanda reconcile itself with the truth of the genocide.

Truth

The meaning of "truth" seems to be universally taken for granted, but in a society rent by a violent past, its implications can at times appear ambiguous. Most truth commissions have emerged out of a violent past marked by secrecy and deception; the commissions are charged with exposing atrocities, such as the disappearances characteristic of repression in Argentina and Chile (20). But the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide killed in broad daylight and made no attempt to hide their intentions. Every survivor knows all too well the horrendous methods with which the perpetrators killed their victims. Nearly every Rwandan knew someone killed in the genocide, and even many victims knew specific killers personally. During the genocide, the Hutu Power leaders made no attempt to hide their calls to genocide when after Habiyarama’s death; the government took to the public airwaves to incite Hutus to kill Tutsis. Many Rwandans then ask: what would a truth commission accomplish when we are all aware of the truth, that government extremists incited tens of thousands of Hutus to unconditionally massacre the Tutsi population?

These are legitimate concerns, and reveal both how important it is that Rwanda begins the process of discussion over such a commission, and how complex and unique a Rwandan commission would have to be. Thomas Nagel, a professor of philosophy and law at New York University, grappled with the question of why many societies where the truth seems apparent have still implemented truth commissions: "It’s the difference between knowledge and acknowledgement," he stated (21). A conference organized by the United States Institute for Peace in September 1994 addressed this question. The report on the conference states that a commission’s purposes would include, "permitting a cathartic public airing of the evil and pain that have been inflicted, resulting in an official record of the truth" in order to "provide a degree of societal acknowledgement of their loss" (22).

Rwandans’ concern that they already know the truth, that a truth commission would be irrelevant, demonstrates that what little dialogue has occurred has been misguided. A commission would not necessarily be limited to exposing the actual events, whether numbers killed or methods used or even which of those accused actually conspired. While these would clearly represent part of its mission, a commission must focus on asking these deep, troubling questions: How could our previously stable and integrated society descend so rapidly into this barbaric abyss? How do we know that other extremists will not emerge at some point in the future to incite such a killing spree? These are the questions that Rwanda must answer to begin to come to grips with its recent history and reconcile itself with its bloody past. Thus a truth commission would be charged with exposing just how the Hutu Power leaders were able to incite the genocide. This is the truth that Rwanda should be seeking, and while trials expose some such motivation, a truth commission would play the critical role of reconciling Rwandans with their collective past.

Reconciliation

This brings the discussion to the other aspect of truth commissions—reconciliation. The first obstacle any work towards a commission must overcome is the gulf among people who define and interpret reconciliation in different and even contradictory ways. The Oxford English Dictionary’s primary definition is: "To bring (a person) again into friendly relations to or with (oneself or another) after an estrangement." Clearly no one expects a genocide survivor to become friends with a former Hutu killer; rather, discourse should focus on Rwanda’s finding a way to relate with itself and with its history. The OED later augments the definition of reconciliation: It is "the action or practice of rendering one account consistent with another by balancing apparent discrepancies." In the interrelations between these two definitions lies where and how Rwanda must seek reconciliation. Once a commission has explored the truth behind how the perpetrators incited the genocide, it must address the question of reconciliation.

One should note that nowhere does reconciliation necessarily mean forgiveness or confession. Jean Hatzfeld writes, "Reconciliation does not require forgiveness, but a sense that justice is being done. Deep down inside, the survivors know that life must get back on course" (23). Hatzfeld reflects the crucial connection between the ICTR and a Rwandan truth commission. Never will every Rwandan agree on the best course of action, but nearly all consider the ICTR and the Rwandan courts to be the essential institutions to uphold justice and hold the perpetrators accountable. Thus for many, a suggestion of a truth commission evokes images of killers being issued "get out of jail free" cards and government-appointed commissioners announcing what Rwandans know all too well, that Hutu extremists incited the worst government-sponsored genocide since the Nazi Holocaust a half-century earlier. These images, along with inconsistent interpretations of truth and reconciliation, lead groups like African Rights to grow understandably wary of international calls for "reconciliation" that "appear not only misplaced by a source of immense pain to the survivors and witnesses" (24).

There are undoubtedly people worldwide who expect Hutus and Tutsis to reconcile with each other, for Tutsis to forgive their Hutu killers and everyone to revert to the more peaceful times before the genocide. This sentiment has mostly emerged as a reaction to the mission of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, led by Reverend Desmond Tutu. Though well intentioned and largely effective on many counts, the TRC has faced some marked criticism. Philip van Niekerk, former editor of the Mail & Guardian, took aim at the religiousness of the confession and forgiveness inherent in the TRC’s mission and ideology. Some victims were practically forced to forgive their tormentors for the sake of "reconciliation," begging the question of whether such a religiously motivated methodology was truly the best way to heal South Africa (25).

The Way Forward

As I stated at the outset, I do not claim to grasp the intricacies of the Rwandan psyche, or to prescribe exactly the course Rwanda should take. I merely seek to expand the scope of the dialogue surrounding Rwanda’s search for justice, reconciliation, and healing. The most recent news of gacaca courts and provisional liberty reveal that Rwanda’s current leadership appears to recognize they country’s dynamic needs in this time of national healing. Hopefully Rwandans will soon begin the crucial debate over the need for a truth commission. In the interest of healing and progress, as Rwanda seeks to take the vital steps into its uncertain future, it must constantly reexamine the need for and the meaning of justice, truth, and reconciliation.

Adam Abelson is a student at Princeton University, USA.

Bibliography

1. Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995, 212.
2. Dallaire, Gen. Romeo. Lecture. Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University. November 5, 2002.
3. Gourevitch, Philip. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families: Stories from Rwanda. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1998, 202.
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7. Murphy, Dervla. Visiting Rwanda. Dublin: The Lilliput Press, 1998, 213.
8. African Rights. Rwanda: Killing the Evidence: Murder, Attacks, Arrests, and Intimidation of Survivors and Witnesses. London: African Rights, April 1996.
9. Christie, Kenneth. The South African Truth Commission. New York: St. Martin’s Press, Inc., 2000, 37.
10. Tutu, Desmond. No Future Without Forgiveness. New York: Doubleday, 1999, 271.
11. "Justice and Genocide." The Government of Rwanda. http://www.rwanda1.com/government/justice.htm.
12. Magnarella, Paul J. Justice in Africa: Rwanda’s Genocide, Its Courts, and the UN Criminal Tribunal. Altershot: Ashgate, 2000, 86-91.
13. Sibomana, André. Hope for Rwanda: Conversations with Laure Guilbert & Herve Deguine. London: Pluto Press, 1997, 101.
14. Ibid, 108.
15. UN Integrated Regional Information Networks. "Up to 40,000 Detainees to Be Granted Provisional Liberty." Nairobi, January 7, 2003. http://allafrica.com/stories/200301070261.html.
16. Ibid.
17. Hatzfeld, Jean. "Let the Victims Voice Their Pain." The UNESCO Courier, May 2001. http://www.unesco.org/courier/2001_05/uk/droits2.htm.
18. "Gacaca Takes Off Slowly." Hirondelle News Agency, Lausanne. October 14, 2002. http://allafrica.com/stories/200210150304.html.
19. "Gacaca Courts Begin Operating Nationwide." UN Integrated Regional Information Networks, Kigali. November 26, 2002. http://allafrica.com/stories/200211260218.html.
20. Goldstone, Richard J. "Exposing Atrocity." The American Prospect Online. Vol. 12, Issue 5. 12 March 2001. http://www.prospect.org/print/V12/5/goldstone-r.html..
21. Weschler, Lawrence. A Miracle, A Universe.
22. Special Report: Rwanda: Accountability for War Crimes and Genocide. A Report on a United States Institute of Peace Conference, September 1994.
23. Hatzfeld, Jean. "Let the Victims Voice Their Pain." See note 17.
24. Rwanda: Killing the Evidence. African Rights. See note 9.
25. Van Niekerk, Philip. Seminar, Princeton University. November 5th, 2002.