Human Rights Watch under scrutiny over controversial Gacaca report

Human Rights Watch, the New York-based rights group, is long accustomed to drawing controversy in Rwanda. Whether branding President Paul Kagame’s regime as dictatorial or highlighting purported press freedom abuses, the well known and respected organization is often derided by Rwandan government officials as bias and misleading.

Its new report, entitled, “Justice Compromised: The Legacy of Rwanda’s Community-Based Gacaca Courts,” has not only helped to cement this reputation amongst local officials, but has also drawn the suspicion of an international diplomat whose own country is known for being critical of the Kagame regime.

The drama commenced on May 31, 2011 during the release of the report. In her opening remarks, Leslie Haskell, researcher at the HRW Africa Division and author of the report, told reporters that Gacaca courts had truly achieved a lot, but also left a lot to be desired.

Gacaca courts, largely built on the Rwandan community philosophy of settling disputes through truth telling and forgiveness, were introduced in 2004 to reduce the backlog of genocide cases for approximately 130,000 suspects who were languishing in prisons as they waited for their trial.

Among other achievements, Haskell said Gacaca courts helped with “locating and identifying bodies of victims and a possible easing of ethnic tensions.”

However, Haskell also said that she found in “many cases that potential witnesses failed to speak out in defence of genocide suspects because they feared prosecution for perjury, complicity in genocide or ‘genocide ideology’,” a term the report alleges is a, “vaguely defined crime prohibiting ideas, statements, or conduct that might lead to ethnic tensions or violence.”

When Haskell opened the floor she was bombarded with heated questions and comments not only from government and genocide survivors, but also from members of diplomatic missions in Kigali.

At one point, a representative of Haguruka, an association of genocide widows, asked Haskell whether she thought Gacaca was a failure. Haskell said, contradicting parts of her report, that she believed Gacaca was not a failure, but added that the courts had violated some rights.

Surprisingly, when asked if HRW thought of an alternative to Gacaca courts, Haskell said the Gacaca courts were actually the best solution to the challenge Rwanda was facing.

Things turned even more sour when the Dutch Ambassador, Frans Makken, whose country was the main funder of the Gacaca courts, questioned the researcher’s methodology and her views on the review of the courts.

“350 cases is a small number to base on to come up with a conclusive view on Gacaca compared to the many cases the courts dealt with,” said Makken. “The title and timing of the report is not appropriate…It comes at a time when the government has promised to evaluate Gacaca courts and review cases that did not go well. I find it harsh, unfair and imbalanced.”

As Makken continued to question the intentions of the researchers’ report, he said the donor community, including the Netherlands, had monitored and supported the Gacaca process, which proved to be a great success, thus making HRW’s accusations “unfortunate.”

Makken’s position, analysts say, is especially interesting considering the Netherlands in October last year stopped providing Rwanda with its promised 44 million Euros of aid.

At the time the aid was cut off, MP Klaas Dijkhoff of the liberal party was quoted saying, “In Rwanda we have some concerns about the judicial system and the way politics and democracy are carried out.”

Consequently for the Dutch Ambassador to come out and question the authenticity of the HRW report indicates how misleading the report might have been.

Within its report, drawn on investigations stemming from 2005, HRW alleges some trials were used, “to settle personal scores,” while in other cases it witnessed, “judges’ or officials’ intimidation of defence witnesses; and corruption by judges and parties to cases.”

It also claims that Gacaca courts included “restrictions on the accused’s ability to mount an effective defence; possible miscarriages of justice due to using largely untrained judges; trumped-up charges, some based on the Rwandan government’s wish to silence critics.”

However, the report is not entirely negative. It acknowledges that Rwandans have welcomed the courts’ swift work and the extensive involvement of local communities; that Gacaca has helped them better understand what happened in the darkest period of the country’s history; and that it has eased tensions between the country’s two main ethnic groups, Hutus and Tutsis.

It goes on to indicate that through their findings, the Gacaca courts were able to achieve swift trials with popular participation, a reduction in the prison population, and a better understanding of what happened in 1994. Nevertheless, the report has angered the government of Rwanda, prompting officials in Kigali to denounce it as “abusive and misleading.”

The Minister of Justice Tharcisse Karugarama issued a statement accusing HRW of “citing a handful of cases which went wrong and then implying that the whole 1.2 million (cases) can be assessed in the same light.”

According to Karugama, by publishing such a report HRW explicitly intended to make “a mockery” of Rwanda’s efforts to promote justice and reconciliation.

Although Gacaca might have not been perfect, the government maintains that it was the best option available after the devastating genocide. The decision to apply Gacaca courts was reached after the government consulted many legal and social experts who eventually agreed that conventional court structures would potentially take up to 100 years to complete the trials.

The Gacaca system was therefore deemed as an ideal structure that would foster national reconciliation, since there was no alternative. Besides, Rwanda was not well equipped to handle the conventional system since it had no trained personnel. There were only 67 people trained in legal matters, and only 18 trained prosecutors.

Not only had Rwanda lost over one million people during the genocide but the RPF inherited a mess where all systems of governance had been completely shattered. For example within the justice sector alone, the effects were evident even years after the genocide.

“Gacaca reflects a justice sector that is inherently unique,” said Karugarama, arguing that the system “must be seen in context.”

“After the genocide, the country ... had very few people with a legal training. Gacaca was a response to this,” he said in a statement. “People have received prison sentences of between five and 10 years, life sentences constitute just five to eight percent of verdicts while between 25 and 30 percent of cases have ended in acquittal.”

“The community work ruling as an alternative to prison has allowed people to live in their homes and carry out their sentences about twice a week, learning to live together and move on,” he said.

The HRW report also criticised the government’s decision to exclude from the jurisdiction of the Gacaca the crimes committed by soldiers of the current ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

“One of the serious shortcomings of Gacaca has been its failure to provide justice to all victims of serious crimes committed in 1994,” said Africa director Daniel Bekele. “By removing RPF crimes from their jurisdiction, the government limited the potential of the Gacaca courts to foster long-term reconciliation in Rwanda.”

Bekele’s statements drew a particularly sharp rebuke from RPF veterans who said HRW accusations undermined the soldiers’ heroic acts by equating them to genocide perpetrators.

Defence Minister General James Kabarebe, one of the architects of the war against Rwanda’s genocide, told The Independent that HRW’s accusations are an “old story of double genocide proponents.”

“[HRW] must be confusing X-FAR (genocide forces) with our army,” added Denis Karemera, a retired soldier. “That is how [HRW] work…manufacturing stories that would give them relevance.”

Moreover, some observers of Rwandan politics wonder why HRW always appears to finds something wrong in Rwanda’s policies.

A media expert based in Kigali who spoke to The Independent wondered why Haskell would “refuse to answer questions or comment on concerns raised about her report...It almost seemed like she was afraid of something. Why would HRW, which arguably is a flag barer for fighting for freedom of the press and freedom of expression, would she then act like that?”

As of now, Gacaca courts have wrapped up the vast majority of their cases. Their official close has been repeatedly pushed back, with the latest date given by Justice Minister Tharcisse Karugarama being at the end of 2011.

The suspected masterminds of the genocide have been tried in the International Criminal Court for Rwanda (ICTR) in the north Tanzanian town of Arusha.

However, the ICTR has been under criticism for its slowness in prosecuting perpetrators. With a budget of approximately $2billion, about 80 times more than Gacaca budget, the UN court has only tried only 54 cases with dozen more still in the cue.

Other Rwandan officials, whose cases were not deemed serious enough for the ICTR, were for some years tried only in Rwanda’s traditional court system. An amendment to the law allowed them to also be tried in the Gacaca.


(2011-6-11/independent.co.ug)