Population’s perspectives on reconciliation through gacaca

In contrast to the government’s interpretation of reconciliation through gacaca as primarily group-to-group, genocide suspects, sur vivors, gacaca leaders and the general population all describe reconciliation on an individual basis. More than any other source, the population articu­lates the crucial personal, emotional issues involved in reconciliation. For many Rwandans, reconciliation is less an issue of community-wide or national importance than a question of rebuilding relationships with other individuals, many of whom were their neighbours before the genocide. For much of the population, the nature of the face-to-face interactions that occur at gacaca indicates the likelihood of achieving reconciliation in the future. As Eugene, a detainee in the ingando in Kigali Ville, said, �At gacaca I will tell the family members of those I killed what I did during the genocide. They will listen and respond to what I tell them. These will be the first steps toward our living together again.’^[710] When asked what sort of reception he expected upon returning to his original community, Eugene gave a mixed response, saying ini­tially, �I have no reason to be scared of my community’, then admitting, �I am not too sure about how my neighbours will react when I go home.’^[711] In my interviews, most genocide suspects argue that they will need to be reconciled to the friends and families of their victims but that this will not be easy, given the feelings of anger and resentment that per­vade communities of survivors. As described in Chapter 4, as the gacaca journey progressed for Cypriet and Alphonse, they expressed increasing doubts over their ability to reconcile with survivors, especially as they had experienced intimidation and discord with survivors following their return from prison and ingando.

Survivors and inyangamugayo also emphasise the importance of rec­onciliation between individuals, stressing the need to rebuild fractured relationships on a personal rather than a group basis, though they also mention the latter form of reconciliation to a lesser extent. As quoted in Chapter 7, Michel, the president of a judges' panel in Butamwa district of Kigali Ville, described reconciliation through gacaca as occurring pri­marily on an individual-to-individual basis. �Gacaca is important for rec­onciliation', he said, �because what happens here is real justice where we are all together, criminals and the innocent, and people can talk to one another face to face'.^[712] After the same hearing, Solomon, a survivor who had lost the majority of his family during the genocide, expressed disap­pointment that those suspected of killing his family were not brought to the hearing to give evidence as the gacaca judges had promised the week before. �The reason I came to gacaca today is because I want to speak to the killers', Solomon said. �Talking to them face to face is important for our reconciliation. How can I live with them again unless I can talk to them first?'^[713] Solomon said that he wished to engage the suspects indi­vidually, to hear them describe what they had done during the genocide and to answer his questions regarding their actions and motives. He con­ceded, however, that

it is very hard to talk to the killers because they usually lie about what they have done... They tell many kinds of lies to try and make us believe they are innocent - �I was sick at the time [of the genocide]', �I was in a different community', �I didn't kill'. The truth may come one day but we will have to wait.^[714]

This difficulty in convincing suspects to tell the truth about their crimes, Solomon said, made it hard to countenance living with them in the future. Benoit Kaboyi, then-Senior Legal Adviser to (and now Executive Secretary of) Ibuka, argued that many survivors felt that they would never be able to completely trust those accused of committing genocide crimes and that this was the biggest barrier to reconciliation:

As an organisation, we encourage survivors to participate in gacaca, but some survivors simply don't want gacaca.

While members of all groups within Rwandan society discussed here emphasise the individual nature of reconciliation through gacaca, the population also describes two other forms of reconciliation: between groups and between individuals and groups. Many survivors and gacaca leaders echo the government’s interpretation of reconciliation as a group-to-group process. As in the official discourse, the population rarely defines group-to-group reconciliation in terms of building better rela­tions between Hutu and Tutsi but rather between genocide perpetrators and survivors. The popular discourse surrounding group-to-group rec­onciliation also regularly slips into a discussion of the need to regain a lost sense of unity. A common description of the main aim of gacaca was expressed by Edouard, a member of the general population in Kigali Ville, who said that gacaca was important for �helping us learn to live side by side again’.^[716] Faustin, a gacaca judge in Nyamata, argued, �Gacaca is vital for us because it will help us live together again, both the guilty and the survivors of the genocide.’^[717] These views express a fundamen­tally community-oriented perspective of reconciliation, founded on the assumption that the community previously displayed a sense of whole­ness that the genocide destroyed but gacaca can restore.

Many detainees describe a third form of reconciliation through gacaca, arguing that individuals need to reconcile with groups, and more specifically they as suspects need to reconcile with the communities in which they are accused of committing genocide crimes.

previous communities, rather than with rebuilding broken relationships with certain individuals.

A common articulation of suspects' desire for individual-to-group rec­onciliation connects reintegration with confession. In the ingando in Gashora, for example, a detainee named Serestini said that he wanted to confess in front of his community during a gacaca hearing so that he could �live peacefully with others' in the future.^[718] Many detainees whom I interviewed expressed a hope that they would be able to regain a sense of belonging, which they felt they had forfeited as a result of committing (or having been accused of) genocide crimes. As quoted in Chapter 4, Alphonse said several weeks after returning to his home community after prison and ingando, �I will tell the truth and the victims will forgive me. There is no question about that. I expect only good things at gacaca, no more punishment, just cohabitation.'

For most detainees, however, discussions of individual-to-group rec­onciliation reflect their desire to avoid direct reprisals from genocide survivors when they return to their home communities, rather than a genuine desire to reintegrate fully into - or to belong to - these com­munities. Their main motivation is fear rather than a sense of loss of meaningful relationships. It is not always possible to discern which of these two motivations lies behind detainees' expressed desire to experi­ence individual-to-group reconciliation. However, it is evident that fear motivates many detainees' hopes of achieving reconciliation with their previous communities.

The four groups within the population - genocide suspects, survivors, gacaca leaders and the remainder of the general population - also articu­late different interpretations of the degree of reconciliation that they believe is desirable or possible through gacaca.

The most important thing about gacaca is that it will bring reconcili­ation... It will help us all [suspects and survivors] return to the family. Survivors have the right not to forgive us [suspects], but we can hope that the family will be brought together again.^[720]

Most survivors, gacaca leaders and the wider population, though, rarely speak of restoring unity (and are sometimes deeply sceptical of this rhet­oric) and express instead, to varying degrees, the view that gacaca must facilitate the creation of a new dynamic between groups previously in conflict. They argue that reconciliation must be forward-looking rather than seeking to reinstate a lost sense of social cohesion. Survivors gen­erally describe more cautiously than gacaca leaders how forward-looking they should be in predicting the degree of reconciliation that is possible through gacaca. Many survivors express a pragmatic view of reconcili­ation as peaceful cohabitation, in which deep engagement between genocide perpetrators and survivors may not be possible but where none­theless gacaca may help facilitate a more peaceful coexistence between these groups. Patrice, a genocide survivor in Ruhengeri, expressed this pragmatic version of reconciliation when he argued, �Gacaca may help us live side by side one day, but not now. There is still too much pain and anger in the community. We won't be able to live together for a very long time.'^[721]

Most gacaca judges are more optimistic about achieving forward­looking reconciliation through gacaca, emphasising the ways in which popular participation in gacaca fosters a new form of group dialogue in Rwandan society, thus providing a new means of conflict resolution which these groups may employ outside of gacaca. Alice, a gacaca judge in Ruhengeri, argued, �Gacaca gets people to talk together, often for the first time. We are building the unity of our people by getting them to come together in this place and to solve problems together. This is how gacaca is able to help us achieve reconciliation.'^[722] Oscar, a gacaca judge in Musanze district, said, �Gacaca's main contribution has been to build new relations between people. It has shown that not all Hutu are implicated in crimes and that they can now live with survivors, resolve problems with them and eat at the same table. Now you're seeing real reconcili­ation happening here.'^[723] These views hold both that a reversion to a pre­existing unity is not viable, hence the emphasis on building unity or new relations, but nevertheless that something more than mere coexistence may be possible. Therefore, according to this perspective, it is necessary to pursue the creation of a new social dynamic through gacaca, hoping that the more open, collaborative processes of gacaca will allow different groups to discuss their tensions and conflicts in a more constructive fash­ion than they have in the past.

Although different groups in Rwandan society interpret the degree of reconciliation through gacaca in very different ways, their interpretations draw on a similar understanding of the types of reconciliation processes employed in gacaca. The population generally views these methods in a similar fashion to the government, emphasising the importance of internal collaborative processes at gacaca which encourage a more con­structive dialogue between groups and thus facilitate reconciliation outside of gacaca. These notions of collaboration constitute important forms of engagement, emphasising the need for parties to work closely together on common goals, such as resolving disputes or verifying the facts of legal cases heard at gacaca. This engagement is often highly con­frontational. Participants regularly debate deeply emotional issues face to face in a public forum. This level of personal engagement concerns many suspects and survivors, who worry that they will be forced to make themselves too vulnerable. �I have already experienced so much pain', said Augustin, a survivor in Gisenyi whose parents were killed during the genocide.

The government has given us no explanation for why the prisoners have been released. Why are they back here now? Gacaca will be dangerous for us survivors because we will have to see them face to face. This scares 31

me.^[724]

Not all participants, though, express concern over the demanding forms of engagement that gacaca requires. Eugene, the detainee in the Kigali Ville ingando quoted earlier, said,

There is no reason for any of us [detainees] to be scared at gacaca... I don't know how my neighbours will respond to me when I return to my community. But I know that for us gacaca will be like taking our first steps towards reconciliation. We will have to take many steps if we are going to learn to live together again.^[725]

In my interviews, it is not always clear how genuinely suspects express this level of confidence in gacaca. It is possible that some detainees, for example, express confidence in gacaca because they wish to please the officials who oversee the ingando or other state officials, or because they wish to convince themselves that they will receive a warm welcome from the community.

The popular interpretation of gacaca's reconciliatory processes dif­fers from the government's by contending that gacaca will incorporate fundamentally long-term processes, involving a difficult, protracted dia­logue between suspects and survivors. This view of gacaca's methods is consistent with the population's overall belief that there is little �unity' to which it can revert and that reconciliation will require the creation of new dynamics between individuals and groups. In particular, individ­uals who have been in conflict cannot simply return to more harmoni­ous relationships which they are assumed to have shared in the past. In many cases, these relationships never existed and, where they did, they have been so damaged by the genocide that it will be impossible to ever rebuild them to their previous shape and depth. Viewing reconciliation as a largely individual-to-individual dynamic ensures that the process towards reconciliation appears more arduous, making concrete and more visceral what - in the state's discourse - appears abstract and detached from the personal lives of everyday Rwandans. According to the popu­lar perspective, reconciliation is an ongoing process, as expressed in the view above of gacaca representing the first steps in a long series towards reconciliation. This process may find its genesis at gacaca but it will require further positive engagement between parties to restore relation­ships in a meaningful and sustainable manner.

Two crucial dynamics that heavily influence the population's views on both the degree and methods of reconciliation through gacaca are almost entirely neglected in the literature on gacaca: first, people's reli­gious beliefs and, second, their involvement in unofficial versions of gacaca heavily influence how they interpret gacaca generally and rec­onciliation as an objective of gacaca specifically. In my interviews with suspects and survivors, religious believers regularly describe gacaca and its objectives in theological terms, despite this language never appearing in gacaca's governing legal documents. Individuals who subscribe to a particular religious worldview, especially one founded on Christian prin­ciples, usually speak more positively about the need for, and the level of, reconciliation they believe is possible through gacaca.

The basis of their optimistic expressions regarding reconciliation, however, varies greatly, underlining the different ways in which differ­ent individuals interpret the same religious principles and in turn how they deploy these principles in interpreting gacaca. For some Christian adherents, optimism about achieving reconciliation through gacaca stems from their feelings of solidarity with other believers. �Because the people at gacaca are Christians, they will forgive us, and we will be able to live together again', said Vedaste, a detainee who, before arriving in the ingando in Butare, had confessed to committing murder during the genocide.^[726] Some detainees assume that others in their community will subscribe to their Christian values and therefore the community will be ready first to forgive, and second to reconcile with, them when they appear at gacaca.

Some survivors also argue, on the basis of their Christian principles, that reconciliation is an important and likely outcome of gacaca. It is not always clear, however, what degree of reconciliation they believe is pos­sible after the genocide. Some survivors agree with Vedaste's perspective and invoke a perceived religious obligation to forgive, and subsequently to reconcile with, those who have committed crimes against them and their loved ones. Marie-Claire, a survivor in Nyamata quoted earlier, said,

I have already forgiven the killers. God forgives, therefore we must forgive... There is no one pressuring me to forgive the people who killed my family. It is only the word of God that tells me to forgive.^[727]

Marie-Claire argued that she did not need to attend gacaca in order to forgive those who had murdered her family. However, she said that at gacaca there would be a �chain of revelation' that meant that �the guilty will receive their justice', after which she could countenance liv­ing with the convicted criminals again in the community.^[728] Similarly, Jean-Michel, a university student from Nyamirambo district in Kigali Ville, whose older brother and three younger sisters were killed during the genocide, said, �I can forgive because God forgives. Gacaca is like a classroom where the judges will show us how to forgive and how to live together again.'^[729] Because God has forgiven, and reconciled with, them after they have sinned, many Christian believers argue that they must be willing to display grace and mercy to genocide perpetrators as a sign of gratitude for the mercy they have received from God.

It is not clear what degree of reconciliation is implied in Marie-Claire's and Jean-Michel's idea that forgiveness will allow survivors and perpetra­tors to one day �live together again'. That forgiveness is at all considered a part of the reconciliation process suggests that a deep sense of engage­ment between survivors and perpetrators is necessary at gacaca. Implicit in this view is the understanding that a survivor will not forgive a per­petrator without an intense interaction first occurring between them. However, whether the reconciliation that follows from this is assumed to be of equal meaning and intensity, or whether it implies that survivors and perpetrators are likely to accept coexisting peacefully rather than engaging with one another at a deeper level after gacaca, is uncertain.

Some survivors who claim that their Christian beliefs are the primary motivation for their willingness to reconcile with suspects argue that Christian gacaca hearings in their churches encouraged them to adopt this positive attitude. In particular, some survivors argue that Christian gacaca teaches them that they have an obligation to forgive, and to rec­oncile with, those who have caused them harm in the past. Missionary organisations such as African Enterprise have also encouraged many Christian survivors to participate in gacaca and to seek reconciliation with genocide perpetrators.^[730] Simon, the survivor in Nyamata quoted in the previous chapter who found his wife dead in his house but never recovered the bodies of his two children, said, �God helped me keep my mind and heart intact. It wasn't easy to stay calm or sane.'^[731] He said that after the genocide he attended regular Christian gacaca sessions after morning mass at his church, where the priest told those in attendance that �God forgives us, so we must forgive one another.'^[732] Simon claimed Christian gacaca convinced him that it was necessary to reconcile with the murderers of his wife and children.

As suggested by Simon's experiences of Christian gacaca, the second key influence on the population's views on reconciliation is its partici­pation in unofficial versions of gacaca. Many detainees claim that their experiences during pre-gacaca hearings, in which they have come face to face with survivors in the community in a test run of official gacaca before they are released from the ingando, reinforced their confidence about achieving reconciliation. Vedaste said that attending pre-gacaca hearings in his home village increased his confidence in being able to engage meaningfully with his community during official gacaca:

When I was allowed to leave [ingando] to visit the people in my village, it was very good. I have visited my community five times now and each time I talked with the families there as we had before the war... This is why gacaca is important: it brings all the people together again. There is no doubt that gacaca will punish me but it will also reconcile us.^[733]

Some detainees express greater confidence on the basis that at pre- gacaca hearings they were able to prove their innocence to survivors and government officials. Five detainees interviewed in the ingando at Ruhengeri argued that they had been exonerated at pre-gacaca hear­ings and that this gave them confidence concerning their welcome upon returning to their communities and their ability to engage meaningfully with survivors during official gacaca hearings.^[734] Matiyasi, a detainee in the ingando at Butare, derived an even greater sense of confidence from the pre-gacaca hearings he attended. While in prison, he had confessed to being present for, though not directly involved in, a murder during the genocide. At the pre-gacaca hearings, he argued, he had �already been judged', which meant that he would not have to appear at official gacaca after his release from the ingando because his was considered a �com­pleted case'.^[735] This conclusion is in fact legally incorrect, as all detainees who are found guilty of genocide crimes at pre-gacaca hearings must still face official gacaca; only detainees who can prove their innocence at pre- gacaca can avoid appearing at official gacaca.^[736]

Some detainees express similar attitudes concerning their experiences during prison gacaca hearings. Antoine, a fifty-two-year-old detainee in the ingando at Gashora, who confessed while in prison to being in a group of men who committed murder, though he denied being directly involved in any killings, said that he expected â€?a warm welcome back in the village after I am released' because he had already met the families of some of his victims when they attended prison gacaca hearings.^[737] â€?My crimes are in the open', Antoine said, â€?so I already know how I will be received when I go back to the village. Some of the victims' families even brought me gifts after I came to the ingando because I had confessed to them what I did during the genocide.¹⁴⁵ During the gacaca journey described in Chapter 4, Alphonse also stated that his experience as an urumuri during prison gacaca would allow him to more easily negotiate the official gacaca process.

Not all detainees who have attended pre- or prison gacaca, though, express this confidence. Cypriet, whose personal experience of the gacaca journey was also described in Chapter 4, initially expressed opti­mism about the community’s welcome upon his release from the camp on the basis of positive experiences at pre-gacaca. When interviewed after his release from the ingando, however, he expressed doubts about meeting survivors in his community, saying, �it is difficult to know the state of survivors’ hearts.’

Some survivors also argue that pre-gacaca hearings encouraged them to pursue reconciliation with perpetrators. Simon, the survivor quoted above, claimed that - along with Christian gacaca - his participation in a pre-gacaca meeting encouraged him to begin reconciling with the murderer of his wife: �I am not worried about detainees coming back from the camps because I have already met the man who killed my wife when the authorities brought him to my house’, Simon explained.^{[738] [739] During this pre-gacaca meeting, the man who killed Simon’s wife was brought from the ingando at Gashora to confess his crime directly to Simon, to apologise and to ask for his forgiveness.[740] Simon said that he had for­given the detainee because the man expressed contrition for his crimes and because he believed that God wanted him to forgive. He asked the detainee whether he had also killed his two children, to which the man responded that he had not. �There were two officials from the camp who came with the man to my house’, Simon said. �But this was only about two men talking - the guilty man and me.’[741] Simon said that this pre- gacaca meeting made him more confident about participating during official gacaca hearings after detainees were eventually released from the ingando. In such cases, direct contact between the parties concerned beyond the confines of official gacaca appear crucial for the improved relationships between them.}

It is clear that the rhetoric of duty and obligation, first discussed regard­ing the theme of popular participation in Chapter 5, is important for encouraging different groups in Rwandan society to participate in gacaca and to pursue outcomes such as reconciliation. Furthermore, unofficial versions of gacaca are important for increasing many individuals’ sense of duty. As argued concerning popular participation, some groups in society - usually suspects - claim that, by participating in gacaca, they are fulfilling a duty to the government and thus helping it achieve cer­tain social and political outcomes after the genocide. Similarly, other sources - usually survivors - view reconciliation as a Christian duty, an obligation to God that manifests in a readiness to reconcile with others. Parallel practices of gacaca, particularly pre- and Christian gacaca, cru­cially influence popular interpretations of gacaca and cultivate a sense of obligation to pursue reconciliation through gacaca. State and church leaders advise participants more readily in these unofficial versions of gacaca than in the official version, where elites are excluded from run­ning gacaca, although as previously discussed they also play an import­ant role in the latter. My interviews with suspects and survivors suggest that church leaders have been particularly effective at inculcating in participants in Christian gacaca a rhetoric of the obligation to forgive and reconcile, which consequently heavily shapes their understandings of official gacaca.

Despite legal restrictions upon their involvement in gacaca, church leaders also wield a significant influence over the running of official gacaca hearings. On occasions, church leaders have intervened in these hearings to impart Christian principles to the general assembly. During a gacaca hearing I attended in Butare province, a local pastor stood at the beginning of the hearing and exhorted the general assembly to �welcome all the detainees home when they are released and show them that we are ready to forgive and that we can live together again’.^[742] The methods of reconciliation that many church leaders advocate in the context of gacaca involve intense engagement between participants during hear­ings. Their emphasis on survivors’ need to forgive their transgressors, in particular, requires parties to engage in a difficult, protracted dialogue at gacaca, with a view towards interacting meaningfully with one another outside of gacaca.

It is not clear from official and popular sources’ discussions of par­allel practices of gacaca whether there is a deliberate, simultaneous campaign by state and church officials to communicate a rhetoric of the population’s obligation to participate in gacaca and to pursue outcomes such as reconciliation. Interviews with Ndangiza and Rutinburana at the NURC suggest that the government and churches encourage rec­onciliation through gacaca for different - though ultimately mutually reinforcing - reasons.^[743] As noted in the Introduction to this book, many historians argue that in the past Rwandan culture has displayed clear and worrying signs of systematic social and political control by elites. The state and church have been instrumental in creating this culture of control, sometimes acting separately, at other times in concert. The Catholic Church in particular closely aligned itself, both socially and politically, with Hutu governments after the middle of the twentieth century.^[744] Without clearer evidence of deliberate coordination between the government and church leaders concerning gacaca, it is possible only to conclude that the rhetoric of gacaca as a duty expressed by these two groups of elites is largely coincidental. Nevertheless, the govern­ment is acutely aware of the important role that the churches play in encouraging their members to participate in gacaca. Aloysie Cyanzayire, Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, speaking at the National Summit on Unity and Reconciliation in 2002, highlighted the work of church leaders visiting detainees in prison: �Considering that religious organizations have been encouraging their faithful to plead guilty’, she argued, �[my workshop] group recommended that religious organizations should have it on their agenda to help Government sensitize people on the need to be responsive to, and supportive of, the Gacaca tribunals and to say the truth.’^[745]