Situation Report: The Gacaca Process: Eradicating the Culture of Impunity in Rwanda? Stephanie Wolters

Eleven years have passed since as many as one million people were killed in the 1994 Rwandan genocide. During that time several initiatives aimed at bringing the perpetrators of the genocide to justice have been under way. These include the efforts of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) headquartered in Arusha, as well as the efforts of Rwanda’s own justice system. The latter began prosecuting genocide-related crimes in 1996, and it soon became apparent that the Rwandan judicial system was incapable of handling the volume of cases involved. Although new judges had been trained to augment the large number who had already resumed their functions, there were still far fewer than would be necessary to handle the caseload with any kind of expedition. At this stage, there were already more than 100,000 prisoners in Rwanda’s jails accused of participating in the genocide, and many more suspects were still at large. Most prisoners had been incarcerated in the months and first few years after the genocide, but there were few with case files. Even fewer had had their cases heard. At the rate matters were going, it was estimated that it would have taken the Rwandan judicial system up to 150 years to try just these 100,000 cases.

Faced with this stark reality, the Rwandan government began to look for other ways of bringing to justice the perpetrators of the genocide. These efforts culminated in the promulgation on 26 January 2001 of the law creating the gacaca jurisdictions tasked with investigating and prosecuting crimes committed between 1 October 1990 and 31 December 1994.