Population’s perspectives on justice through gacaca
As they do regarding various objectives, the population's interpretations of justice through gacaca largely mirror the government's views, emphaÂsising the importance of retributive and deterrent, rather than restoraÂtive, justice.
For survivors in particular, the overriding concern regarding justice is desert: to see genocide perpetrators punished for their egregious crimes. Survivors rarely discuss ways in which punishment may facilitate restoration. As Romain, a survivor in Butare, said, â€?Punishment is absoÂlutely necessary at gacaca. We must punish the bad people for what they did. We can't simply let them go free after everything they did to us.'[560] Meanwhile, suspects and their families are highly aware of the nature of the legal processes and the likely punishments that the guilty will face at gacaca. â€?I know gacaca will punish me', said Vedaste, the detainee in the solidarity camp at Butare quoted earlier who had confessed to commitÂting murder during the genocide,but it will also reconcile me to those around me because I have confessed, because I have told them the truth... I will probably have to return to prison because of my crimes and I will probably do some community work as punishment.[561]
Some suspects believe that they have already served their punishments during their many years in jail. Arubier, a detainee in the ingando in Kigali Ville, said, â€?I was in prison long enough and now it is time for me to live in the community again. I have already paid my penalty.'[562] Of the three suspects interviewed along the gacaca journey, only Laurent believed there gacaca might convict and reimprison him, while Cypriet and Alphonse believed they would, at worst, have to perform commuÂnity service.
Like the government, though, large segments of the population, including some survivors, argue that punishment at gacaca may also help achieve restorative ends.
Michel, the president of the inyangamugayo in Butamwa district who earlier described gacaca as â€?real justice where we are all together', argued that punishing criminals in the communal setting of gacaca was also â€?important for reconciliation'.[563] Such a view encapsulates the sorts of processes at gacaca that some parts of the popuÂlation believe will facilitate restorative justice. Like the government, the population describes the forms of dialogue and collaboration that are attached to the pursuit of retributive justice as also helping the popuÂlation to â€?learn to live side by side again'.[564] Thus, negotiated justice is expected to facilitate restorative justice, particularly for individuals previÂously in conflict who constitute the focus of most popular discussions of restorative justice through gacaca.While many survivors described the importance of gacaca for restoraÂtive justice - especially in the early years of gacaca - many survivors increasingly criticise the lenient sentences handed down to many conÂvicted genocidaiτes. Chantal and Zephyr, the survivors in Alphonse’s community quoted during the gacaca journey, echoed widespread views among survivors when they criticised community service as insufficient punishment, given the gravity of crimes committed during the genocide. Chantal recognised that many detainees had already spent years in jail and that there were understandable, pragmatic reasons for not returning perpetrators to prison en masse. She argued, however, that the commuÂnity service demanded of some perpetrators - â€?you kill six or seven people and you spend only six or seven months doing TIG’ - was inadequate. In contrast to many human-rights critics’ claims that gacaca would lead to mob justice and draconian punishments for genocide suspects, many surÂvivors argue that convicted perpetrators have in the main benefited from the government’s need to rapidly empty the prisons and thus gacaca’s tendency towards lenient sentencing.
It appears that some perpetrators and their families share this view. As quoted in Chapter 4, Alphonse said, â€?Gacaca has been good here because most of the detainees are now back with their families. Some have gone back to jail but most are here now and working on their farms again.’One specific participatory process at gacaca that the government rarely discusses but the population argues is important for restorative justice is confession, as represented in gacaca’s plea-bargaining system. Some susÂpects such as Thomas quoted earlier and Alphonse during the gacaca journey argue that confession is not only important for decreasing their sentences, as public confession and apology are necessary for detainees to benefit from plea bargaining, but will also aid their chances of reconÂciling with genocide survivors. When they confess to their crimes, some detainees argue, they express their genuine contrition and a desire to help rebuild relationships with their victims. Especially when confession includes a public apology (and even a request for forgiveness) at gacaca hearings, some detainees believe that confession will aid the restoration of relationships with survivors and the broader community.
Not all suspects, however, view confession as contributing to restoration. Some detainees argue that confession is simply important instrumentally for decreasing their sentences. Antoine, a detainee in the ingando at Gashora who had confessed to being in a group of murderers during the genocide, though he denied directly taking part in any killings, said,
Why did I confess? Some people from the government came to the prison and showed us a booklet... [which] explained how we can reduce our sentences if we confess to what we did during the genocide. If we don't confess, the booklet said, we might receive an endless sentence. So we should help gacaca by confessing.[565]
Such a view emphasises, as we will see in greater detail in discussions of reconciliation in Chapter 10, the influence of external parties, such as government officials, on detainees’ confessions, and the extent to which notions of duty crucially affect many detainees’ participation in gacaca. In my interviews, suspects interpret confession as important for restorÂation and for decreasing their sentences in roughly equal numbers. Some suspects in fact argue that confession will contribute to both of these ends, identifying personal and communal benefits.[566]