Government’s perspectives on peace through gacaca
How do government sources interpret the role of gacaca in facilitating peace? An examination of public pronouncements by government offiÂcials shows first that a rather confused interpretation of the nature of conflict in Rwanda underpins the official perspective of peacebuilding through gacaca.
On the one hand, as we saw concerning popular particiÂpation, some officials view gacaca as a form of â€?facilitated problem-solvÂing', aimed at providing a template for future conflict resolution.[519] Such a view anticipates continued conflict in Rwanda, whether the government interprets â€?problems' as simply minor, day-to-day disputes or something more extreme; a distinction between low-level and major conflict that is rarely clear in official discussions. In this instance, the government believes that a significant level of conflict is natural and inevitable in society and that it is therefore necessary to find peaceful ways to handle it. On the other hand, as we saw earlier, the government's nationalisÂtic rhetoric surrounding the need to regain a lost sense of unity implies that conflict is an aberration in a prevailing state of communal togetherÂness. The natural state of affairs, according to this view, is the peaceful coexistence of different groups in Rwanda, a coexistence that external forces have historically undermined but that the population can regain by drawing on traditional practices and values inherent in Rwandan culture.The two views - one of gacaca as overcoming inevitable minor conÂflicts (in order to avoid major conflict in the future) and one of gacaca as restoring a natural sense of unity that was forfeited temporarily during the genocide - are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Although the govÂernment rarely discusses conflict in these terms, it is realistic to assume that even within the view of peaceful coexistence as a natural state of affairs, the government believes that low-level disputes are inevitable in communities around Rwanda.
The key difference is one of emphasis, with the initial view underlining the need to cultivate new negotiation methods to avoid violence in the future and the latter invoking a sense of historical cohesion that Rwandans should rediscover in the present. Both perspectives sustain the idea that low-level conflict is unavoidable in any community, especially one recovering from mass violence. The government's rhetoric of national unity, however, emphasises one point that the view regarding ongoing problem-solving does not, namely that mass conflict in Rwanda is an aberration and that a broader sense of social unity is the natural state of affairs.The government's interpretation of how gacaca facilitates peacebuildÂing follows from the view that low-level conflict in society is inevitable. One of the main ways in which the government attempts to teach the civic virtues of â€?facilitated problem-solving' to the population is through the guidelines governing speech during gacaca hearings, as outlined in the Gacaca Manual. These guidelines include allowing more vulnerable members of the community (such as the elderly) to speak first and emphaÂsising the need for all members of the community to tell the truth and to argue constructively without threatening violence.[520] These guidelines display the government's belief that conflict during gacaca hearings - and presumably in day-to-day life - is unavoidable, thus necessitating methods to ensure more peaceful, constructive interactions.
As enshrined in the Gacaca Law, gacaca's emphasis on consensual decision-making, as occurs among the inyangamugayo when deciding the guilt of suspects, underlines the importance of consultation and open deliberation rather than force when resolving conflicts.[521] Coupled with the common official argument that one broader aim of gacaca is to teach civic virtues to the population through ingando, gacaca and other mechanisms, these modes of �problem-solving' offer a model for deliberation and conflict resolution outside of gacaca, with the long-term aim of building peace in Rwanda.
Thus, the government views gacaca as providing for both negative and positive peace, allowing the populaÂtion to deal with past and immediate problems and to cultivate virtues that will encourage peaceful problem-solving in the future. A similar perspective drives the government's current use of abunzi to deal with common infractions arising in the community and the potential use of gacaca beyond the completion of the genocide caseload to deal with these problems.The outcome of peacebuilding at gacaca, according to government officials such as Augustin Nkusi, will be the â€?stabilising' of Rwandan sociÂety and ensuring citizens' security by teaching them how to resolve their conflicts peacefully.[522] According to this view, peace resulting from gacaca is largely negative, defined as non-violence or maintaining the situation that prevails directly after the cessation of conflict. The government's interpretation, however, also incorporates a conception of positive peace by establishing forward-looking measures through gacaca to ensure that the population can deal calmly and collectively with conflicts in the future. A second component of positive peace in this interpretation is the government's emphasis on gacaca's role in helping to eradicate the culture of impunity by actively deterring future criminals. As the introÂduction to the Gacaca Law states, one of the government’s key motivÂations for establishing gacaca is the â€?necessity to eradicate forever the culture of impunity in order to achieve justice and reconciliation in Rwanda, and thus to adopt provisions enabling rapid prosecutions and trials of perpetrators and accomplices of genocide, not only with the aim of providing punishment, but also reconstituting the Rwandan Society that had been destroyed by bad leaders’.[523] In this view, the punishment of genocide perpetrators is not only a necessary response to past crimes - that is, giving perpetrators what they deserve (i.e. retributive justice) - but also a means of deterring similar crimes in the future (i.e. deterrent justÂice). Such prospective interpretations of peacebuilding through gacaca cohere more readily with the government’s view of conflict in Rwanda as unavoidable rather than with its view of an innate national unity.