Africa News
May 16, 2005 Monday
Rwanda;
Gacaca: Rwanda’s Truth And Reconciliation Authority
The New Times
The concept and institution of the Gacaca justice system comes
through as one of the most enduring in Rwanda, not only in conflict
management through restorative justice, but in serving as a lubricant
to the ideology of Rwandanicity that ensured unity and cohesion in
the society since the pre-colonial times.
By definition, Rwandanicity was an idea and a philosophy that guided
the people’s conduct and perceptions. As an ideology, therefore,
it is what the people of Rwanda understood themselves to be, what
they knew about themselves, and how they defined and related to each
other and their country as a united people (Ubumwe). Thus, other than
giving identity, Rwandanicity is also the medium in which Rwandans
got their world view.
Gacaca, on the other hand, are by definition traditional councils
and tribunals made up of elders to resolve conflict and administrate
justice. Gacaca literally means ‘a resting and relaxing green lawn
in the Rwandan homestead’ where family members or neighbours met to
exchange views on issues directly affecting them. Being communal and
participatory, the Gacaca derived its impetus and legitimacy from
ubumwe bw’ Abanyarwanda (the unity of Rwandans), in as much as it
complemented the same unity by being the cement that strengthened
social relations in the name of justice.
Traditional Gacaca
The administration of justice in Rwanda followed the natural social
structure that began with the nucleus family, followed by the lineage,
the clan and eventually the nation under Mwami (the king), who was the
guarantor of justice for all. Because of that hierarchy the king was
referred to as Sebantu (father of the people, also Umuryango mugari bw’
Abanyarwanda, i.e., the head of a larger national family). The family
heads settled all simple cases within the family, and would represent
the family in case of a dispute with another family in the Gacaca.
In essence, every Rwandan knew all the channels of arbitration to
resort to in case of any litigation, starting from his own family
head up to the king. This would include the political administrators,
such as the Prefets of the Soil or Pastures (Abatware b’Ubutaka and
b’Umukenke) depending on the case, whether it was about land or cattle
and pastures.
There also would be the military prefet who would settle socio-military
cases and traditionally would be of a higher authority than the
Prefets of the Soil and Pastures in case of an appeal. The king would
be the final arbitrator in case of any sustained dispute through the
established channels.
The saying was that “The king does not kill; it is his entourage who
are the conspirators (Ntihic ‘Umwami, hica rubanda).” This emphasized
that he was above personal, petty issues and trivialities in the
society. He was the caretaker of justice among his people in all
matters and was easily accessible to all. And being at the top of the
hierarchy as the head of all families and the people, under whom they
found their unity (Rubanda rw’Umwami), the king could never conspire
against his people or subvert justice.
Given the foregoing, justice in the Gacaca system would only be
possible because of ubumwe (unity), first within the family and on
to the nation as a unified whole. And it is this national unity with
the administration of justice as one example that, as we have often
noted, is the actualization of Rwandanicity, the ideology informing
all that is Rwandan, and that has ensured the nationhood and prosperity
of Rwandans as a people.
Indeed, Gacaca, like most traditional African justice systems, is
collectivist, where the individual has no rights or duties other than
within his or her group. The individual and the group are mutually
complementary. This collective aspect was an indispensable medium in
which individuals lived out their relations with each other, and with
the wider society. Gacaca therefore molded and defined the performance
parameters expected of each individual in the Rwandan society.
Impfura z’u Rwanda
The family being the foundation of the nation, each family head had
to be impfura y’ i Rwanda (a gentleman of Rwanda). To be impfura
meant adherence to socio-cultural standards and values in a moral
fibre that made a proud and incorruptible nation. By the same token,
it may also be noted that impfura also referred to the first born in
the family and, as such, to call someone Impfura y’ i Rwanda referred
to him as a positive role-model, who was exemplary in all aspects
living out the ideals of Rwandanicity.
It is thus that even today in a betrothal or wedding ceremony, for
instance, one’s moral uprightness has to be tested and found to be
above reproach. This, indeed, was and still remains Gacaca in action,
in which the family-to-be would be founded on a clean slate. It was
therefore the hallmark of impfura that one must not have committed
any offence or shameful act in his past that had not been righted in
the Gacaca; otherwise he was not worth a wife. This indicated that
he could not be allowed to tarnish the name of the family he was
marrying into. Any such offence tarnished not just the individual,
but the entire family. It can therefore be seen that everyone had
to morally conduct himself, not just for his own sake, but also for
those most close to him – whether family members, peers or agemates.
It was thus imperative that one had to clear his name in order to
exonerate all the others related to him in the social structure. And
the place to clear one’s name was in the Gacaca following the relevant
legal channels. It is this ideal that is today being replicated in
reconciliation and conflict management in the wake of the 1994 Rwanda
Genocide, that wrought the artificial division in a historical process
we are today trying to resolve in the Gacaca process.
The Rwanda Genocide
This division, as symbolized by the ultimate act of the Genocide,
can be seen in the analogy of the proverbial hippopotamus in the
Rwandan myth. The hippo, it is said, has an effective strategy of
neutralizing a perceived enemy. When confronted by the enemy the
proverbial lake, it unleashes its considerable power and in one bite
cuts the enemy into two halves to which it proceeds to separate as
widely as possible. One half of the decapitated enemy is placed on one
shore of the lake and the other on the opposite shore. The hippo then
keeps vigil between the two separated parts of the doomed enemy to
ensure they don’t join together. The hippo, in its foolish reasoning,
symbolizes the genocide that has fostered the false division among
Rwandans by keeping vigil between them.
Yet what sustains ‘the hippo?’ The answer, it will be recalled, lies
in our colonial history with the racial ideology that enabled the
construction of ‘ethnic’ identities among an otherwise one people,
and the entrenchment in the social psyche of this ideology through
such as the Roman Catholic Church, Hutu populist political parties
(i.e., Parti du Mouvement pour l’Emancipation des Hutu – PARMEHUTU,
and Coalition pour la Defence de la Republique – CDR) and misguided
governments of the First and Second Republics that institutionalized
the division through, for example, the quota system.
This entrenchment took a span of a hundred years (1894-1994) leading
up to the Genocide, beginning with the coming of colonialism. If one
considers that this is also a span of three generations of Rwandans
living through colonial and neo-colonial indoctrination in the First
and Second Republics, it may be seen how even today many still believe
in this falsehood of ‘ethnic’ division.
This includes some of our most respected intellectuals, such as Prof
Ali Mazrui and possibly his hosts here recently, comparing Rwanda
with Kosovo and other dual societies such as Belgium, Cyprus and
Sri Lanka. As one observer noted, the professor portrays Rwanda as a
conflict laden dual society of the Hutu and Tutsi with “a long history
of ethnic divide going back generations, if not going back centuries.”
The observer further notes, as he wrote in a New Times article:
‘Imagine, … , the professor telling it to the face of an enlightened
Rwandan audience that the “worst African cases of dual societies
are indeed Rwanda and Burundi, each of which has a majority Hutu and
minority Tutsi.” And that, at “the moment, the minority Tutsi are in
power in both Rwanda and Burundi.”
By talking about “minority Tutsi” and power, here is a scholar
apparently not quite aware of what is happening in Rwanda, or quite
appreciative of the sheer effort at national reconciliation to erase
the fiction of “ethnic” division and the many institutions in place
to accomplish this.’
Mazrui, the observer points out, is an influential scholar who
therefore may seem to not quite appreciate that by making such
assertions he may unwittingly be giving credence to the Interahamwe
or those unrepentant genocidal ideologues bent on dividing a people
and plunging, not just Rwanda, but the region into further chaos.
A man of his international stature and intellectual authority has
a following of serious scholars and intellectual pretenders alike,
some of whom would likely quote him as an authority on Rwanda and
the region to prove whatever argument.
He does not sound any different from eighty year-old Mzee Petero
(not his real name) I met in my ongoing research in the Sector of
Bizu, Gisunzu District in Kibuye Province. Describing himself a Hutu,
he explained that “things were okay when we were in power.” This is
the so-called ‘happy slave mentality’, for the old man had nothing
during the First and Second Republics, yet he had been manipulated
to feel that he owned the world, when all he was doing is keep an
oppressive regime in power.
If things were okay then, “they are bad now, because Kagame and the
Tutsi are now in power.” This comment by Mzee Petero exemplifies the
entrenchment in the social psyche of the ‘difference’ between Rwandans,
in which the Mzee sees the Tutsi as the cause of his physical and
economic deprivation. This warped view of the reality does not make
Mazrui any different from Mzee Petero, if the belief is one of two
different peoples, which there never was.
By insisting on a dual Rwanda, the Mzee and, more so, Mazrui seems
not in touch with who we are as a people. It is worth recognizing
that a divided Rwanda was easy to manipulate, and therefore the
inevitability of the Genocide. And thus it is that ‘the hippo’ and
the unwitting support of scholars such as Mazrui and many others,
that the genocide may seem to keep a people from reconciling eleven
years on, through untenable racism.
However, the continued denial by many of the fact of the Genocide and
the factors that led to it constitute the main challenge in the ongoing
Gacaca process. With many among us still unconvinced of the lie of
‘ethnic’ division and the wrong done to Rwandans by the Genocide, it
remains a difficult issue in the ongoing debate about the legitimacy
and effectiveness of this process.
Moreover, the complexity and peculiarity of the Rwandan genocide
was that it was between close relatives, in which siblings set on
each other and neighbour killed neighbour. Contrasting it to the
Holocaust or the Armenian genocide, the Germans decimated the Jews
and the Turks the Armenians. In both these cases there is a genetic
and socio-cultural difference between the victims and perpetrators,
as opposed to Rwanda which had no genetic or socio-cultural difference
between its people. Therefore, other than the sheer numbers of the
perpetrators, one of the complexities in the Gacaca process is in
getting a brother to testify against a brother or, in the case of
judges, judge against brother or neighbour.
Though these may appear teething problems, the Gacaca still provides
the best possible solution as a conflict management strategy in the
current obtaining realities. As a strategy, it therefore requires
delicate handling and understanding of the forces at play among
Rwandans if it is to achieve its objectives.