Gross Violation Of Fundamental Human Rights -a Case Study Of The Rwandan Genocide

Rwanda was deeply destroyed in 1994. Among an endless host of problems, highly complex questions and dilemmas of justice, unity, and reconciliation haunt Rwanda to this day. The basic question confronting Rwanda is how to deal with the legacy of the conflict that culminated in the genocide of the Tutsi and in the massacres of Hutu opponents of the genocide. The UN set up an International Criminal Tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, and Rwanda has its own courts. In both cases, the process of trying accused genocidaires is long, laborious, and frustrating. Only eight convictions have been handed down in Arusha after five years of work, while in Rwanda only some 3, 000 cases have been disposed of. At least 120,000 detainees are in Prisons around the country, the vast majority of who are accused of participation in the genocide. At the present rate it is estimated it will take anywhere between two and four centuries to try all those in detention. The Rwandese government has developed a new procedure called "gacaca," lower-level tribunals that attempt to blend traditional and contemporary mechanisms to expedite the justice process in a way that promotes reconciliation. The impact of gacaca remains to be seen, and as a process, it certainly needs an evaluation or, at least, an attempt to evaluate its possible contribution to the perplexing questions of justice, unity and social reconstruction in the aftermath of genocide. This dissertation mainly aims to analyse the draft legislation en the gacaca jurisdictions. Further, this essay attempts to examine the impact of criminal trials in the after math of mass violence and genocide. Although conventional wisdom holds that criminal trials promote severel goals, including uncovering the truth; avoiding collective accountability by individualizing guilt; breaking the cycle of impunity; deterring future war crimes; providing closure for the victims and fostering democratic institutions, little is known about the role that judicial intervention has in rebuilding societies. The present essay deals only with criminal trials. By definition, these are focused on the perpetrators of abuses and their allies.