CRITIQUE OF THE DOMINANT DISCOURSE ON GACACA

Most interpretations of gacaca and its objectives in the existing litera­ture, particularly from non-Rwandan human-rights critics such as AI and HRW, are highly unsatisfactory. My critique of the dominant discourse takes two forms, one methodological and one focused on the particular objectives of gacaca that the discourse advocates.

Second, largely on the basis of their flawed methodology for inter­preting gacaca, most commentators interpret gacaca too narrowly and neglect aims other than the form of deterrent justice that constitutes their sole lens of analysis. The objectives-based critique identifies two problems with the dominant discourse on gacaca: (1) the unconvincing view held by its proponents that justice, which is determined formally to facilitate exclusively deterrent outcomes, is an adequate response to the legacies of the genocide, thus ignoring the other aims of gacaca explored above, which respond more fully to the population's needs; and (2) these commentators' mistaken assumption that gacaca fails to provide for impartial decision-making and to guarantee important legal safeguards;

virtues which they claim result solely from a strict due process approach to justice.

Regarding part (1) of the methodological critique, the discussion of several objectives in this book highlights the flawed analytical method­ology behind the dominant discourse on gacaca. Focusing exclusively on gacaca's legal statutes, the prevailing view belies the importance of concepts of public collaboration, negotiation and engagement through­out the daily running of gacaca. The often unpredictable outcomes of popular participation in gacaca, and consequently the dynamic nature of the institution as a whole and its effect on the public's evolving inter­pretations of, and involvement in, gacaca, cannot be captured in its legal documents alone. For example, the idea expressed in Chapter 10 of gacaca as a test run of reconciliation, where collaboration and engage­ment during hearings help facilitate meaningful interactions in the future, stresses the openness of discussions at gacaca. Notions of build­ing peace through collaboration, communally negotiating justice and truth and achieving healing as belonging all rely heavily on the idea of gacaca as a participatory process. The important (though not entirely) undirected method by which the population pursues these objectives necessitates an exploration of the population's practices and subsequent reinterpretations of gacaca and its objectives. By not only ignoring the effects of popular involvement in gacaca, in terms of the population's shaping of the institution according to local needs and beliefs, but - as we saw in Chapter 5 regarding gacaca's modus operandi of popular par­ticipation - by also viewing popular involvement as anathema to impar­tial justice, proponents of the dominant discourse fail to recognise the kinetic nature of gacaca. They assume that gacaca operates in practice as it appears on paper. Most human-rights critics therefore fail to analyse gacaca on its own terms.

Furthermore, even if we agree that gacaca should be analysed solely through its legal statutes, the dominant discourse remains unconvincing.

Part (2) of the methodological critique shows that, because the dom­inant discourse ignores the importance of popular interpretations of gacaca, it inevitably overlooks the influence of external social, cultural and political factors on the daily running of gacaca. Human-rights crit­ics neglect three factors in particular that heavily shape the popula­tion's interpretations of gacaca's objectives: many Rwandans' worldview; religious principles; and parallel, unofficial practices of gacaca. First, as my exploration of truth and healing through gacaca shows clearly, a discernible Rwandan worldview influences popular interpretations and expectations of gacaca. When women brought framed photographs to the gacaca hearing at Nyarufunzo, in search of communal recognition and a sense of healing as belonging, they underlined the importance of communal identity. Because personal attachments to the commu­nity are so crucial in shaping Rwandans' sense of their own identity - as expressed in some sources' descriptions of engaging as a �family' at gacaca - overcoming feelings of estrangement resulting from trauma is crucial for participants' sense of restoring their own humanity and regaining the unity of the self.

Second, this book has shown that people's religious, particularly Christian, principles influence their interpretations of gacaca and that this observation finds almost no mention in the existing literature. Christian conceptions of grace, mercy, redemption and atonement in particular manifest in much of the population's connection of gacaca with the pursuit of reconciliation, healing, forgiveness and truth. The most enthusiastic expressions of a desire to pursue reconciliation and for­giveness, among suspects, survivors and the general population, come from those who subscribe to Christian beliefs. The language with which many detainees describe the importance of confession at gacaca for their sense of healing or with which survivors describe the �cure’ of discovering the precise fate of their loved ones during the genocide, with emphases on notions of �release’ and �cleansing’, appropriates Christian concepts of redemption and renewal. Exploring the population’s use of religious concepts in gacaca is vital to understanding some of the major social and cultural influences on the institution.

Third, many of the population’s views about official gacaca draw on its participation in unofficial, parallel practices, especially traditional, pre-, prison and Christian gacaca. The population’s expectation that gacaca will constitute open, participatory hearings and pursue reconcili­ation and modes of punishment that facilitate restoration all draw heav­ily on the methods and objectives of the traditional institution.

I turn now to the objectives-based critique of the dominant discourse on gacaca. Part (1) of the objectives-based critique argues that the sole objective that proponents of the dominant discourse ascribe to gacaca - formal, deterrent justice - is, on its own, an inadequate response to the problems and challenges facing Rwanda after the genocide. Part (1) of this critique deals separately with the inadequacies of only taking a for­mal approach to transitional justice and only pursuing deterrent out­comes. I have already explored in detail the deficiencies of an exclusively formal approach to justice in my response to human-rights critics in Chapter 6. To summarise those earlier arguments, the formal approach is inadequate in political and operational terms, because it defies the spirit of gacaca by severely limiting the population’s participation in the sorts of open, largely undirected dialogue that most Rwandans expect from gacaca.

The view central to the dominant discourse, which holds that non- legal pursuits are inappropriate at gacaca, in turn assumes that deterrent justice is an adequate response to the legacies of the genocide. It is clear, though, that punishment of perpetrators alone will not fulfil the needs identified in gacaca’s profound objectives. The key problem with a sin­gular focus on punishment is that this response amounts to the physical separation of perpetrators and survivors, thus undermining the potential for their meaningful engagement. As we have seen, engagement - and its related processes of negotiation and collaboration - is crucial for the pursuit of positive peace, restorative justice, forgiveness and reconcili­ation. By failing to assemble perpetrators and survivors to discuss face to face the causes of, and solutions to, their conflicts, deterrent justice, on its own, fails to provide the benefits that the pursuit of profound object­ives through gacaca can facilitate.

Proponents of the dominant discourse imply, for example, that pun­ishment contributes to peace by deterring future criminals. As argued earlier, however, it is not only doubtful that punishment will deter future perpetrators but, more importantly, something much more than deter­rence is necessary to produce lasting peace. Positive peace requires that parties deal with the root causes of their conflicts; a process that requires lengthy, messy discussions. Such interactions are impossible without the sense of engagement that gacaca facilitates. More importantly, gacaca shows how punishment can be shaped towards wider, reconciliatory ends, fulfilling survivors’ need (and many human-rights critics’ desire) to see perpetrators punished while also contributing to rebuilding fractured personal and communal relationships. Focusing solely on deterrent just­ice, as proponents of the dominant discourse advocate, is therefore an insufficient response to the needs of the population after the genocide.

Finally, part (2) of the objectives-based critique of the dominant view of gacaca maintains that its proponents mischaracterise gacaca as a form of mob justice, which fails to protect innocent suspects. Human-rights critics ignore the important legal safeguards enshrined in the Gacaca Law, for example the need for nine judges to meet in camera and to reach a consensus about the evidence presented before passing judgments, and the ability of those found guilty at gacaca to appeal any decisions to a higher jurisdiction. Such provisions afford suspects a vital layer of legal protection at gacaca. The Gacaca Law also affords judges significant powers to control the content and tenor of evidence during hearings. Judges may halt individual testimony, banish destructive participants or stop hearings altogether if any participants are threatened with violence. Proponents of the dominant discourse, while basing their interpret­ations of gacaca solely on its legal documents, again offer a selective read­ing of these texts by failing to recognise the substantial legal safeguards which they enshrine and which resulted principally from government concessions to international concerns during the Urugwiro negoti­ations. Consequently, these critics ignore gacaca's formal boundaries, which limit the negotiated aspects of hearings, and protect the rights of suspects.