Gacaca Continued

As I concluded to myself earlier, regardless of how effective Gacaca has been in bringing about justice, I believe that it has done one right. It has instilled a culture of forgiveness in Rwanda. Regardless of what the scenario is, Rwandese deeply value forgiveness and I believe that’s really important for a society and has brought fruit many different ways.

But back to my original dabbling, has Gacaca brought justice? This is a quite delicate issue that if one person starts talking about it, I am sure to have at least two or three others interject their opinion. Although it’s unexpected, I think it’s been good to get vastly different perspectives.

I’m first going to give you the gist according those living and experiencing Gacaca. So those in jail who have committed various crimes from murder to theft had the option to leave jail and go to the Gacaca Courts if they admitted that they took some part in genocide and would agree to apologize. Those who contributed to the planning or higher officials in the army were not given this option.

All in all over 40,000 people chose to confess and forgive handing them down to Gacaca. Everyone in the community came out to Gacaca and several trusted members of the community were judges. In a very formal way, one by one people who witnessed the perpetrator commit a crime came forth and explained what they saw. After several hours, the story was set straight. The information was out. The confession was had. The perpetrator had been accused and confessed to those actions agreed upon by the community judges and himself.

The sentencing usually had to do with retribution to the victims. Agreeing to rebuild a home for them, pay their surviving children’s school fees, help with growing crops or tending to cows.

Many believe that the Gacaca Courts have been an absolute blessing to Rwanda. Instead of holding prisoners in the crumbling jails and the government paying lots of money to keep them there, many believe that the perpetrators of genocide are now helping to rebuild the country and the country’s infrastructure.

On the other hand, apparently there have been many more reprisal killings than the government would lead you to believe. (I find this fact interesting because nobody really disbelieves the government and most wouldn’t say anything bad about it but many will speak out on this issue) Not only have there been reprisal killings, many also fear for the health of the survivors. Even though they have been through the Gacaca Trials, they still have a lot of pain in their heart and see the one that might have killed their family members everyday reminds them and brings back even more pain.

Overall, I think Gacaca was an extremely risky move by a country and in many ways, it has been vastly effective. I have met people on both sides of the aisle. I met a boy my age whose entire family was killed by one man. They went though Gacaca and through time became great friends and now live together. They live together. Can I just tell you how amazing that is? Just think for a second, your entire family is killed, could you live with the man that admitted to doing it? That’s an astounding story of forgiveness.

The other side is different though. A young student in one of my classes has told me on more than one occasion that she hates going home for holiday because she has to see the man that killed her father and brother. Her entire demeanor changes as terms finish up. I can see the pain in her heart and can’t really do much about it.

I want to close with a quote from one of my students describing the effectiveness of Gacaca. She explained to me in simple English, “if we want to truly live, we have to learn to forgive”.