LAW SCHOOLS: UL Law student searches for justice in Rwanda
More than a decade after genocide ravaged their country, the citizens of Rwanda live among people they know killed their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and children. In some cases, they witnessed the murders.
Between April 6 and July 4, 1994, militias killed an estimated 800,000 to 1 million Rwandans. Most Americans know it happened, but few consider what it is like to live there today, said Becca O’Neill, a second-year University of Louisville law student who has seen firsthand the country’s struggle for “a sense of order and basic justice.”
O’Neil met hundreds of Rwandese while working for a human rights organization there in 2004 and this past summer as one of the first two Americans to intern at Rwanda’s National Service of Gacaca Courts in Kigali.
With this unique perspective on reconciliation, forgiveness and justice in the African nation, she wonders whether total reconciliation is possible there. “And, if it is,” she asks, “is that something the government can give its people?”
In the years immediately following the genocide, more than 120,000 people suspected of committing the murders were incarcerated, but many walked free, she said.
“Rwanda had to rebuild its legal system as well as attempt to maintain order,” O’Neill said, because judges and attorneys were among those targeted during the genocide.
Victims and perpetrators assumed the government would not be able to punish those responsible for carrying out the genocide, but the government was determined to try.
Rwanda launched the Gacaca court system in 2001 to expedite the trials of genocide suspects. The system is named for and based on the traditional practice of community hearings used to resolve local disputes. It merges the customary system with a more formal, Western court structure.
Cases are tried and heard at the local level, and the judges are laypeople, O’Neill said. There are more than 12,000 courts in Rwanda, and the entire Rwandese population participates. Judges can impose sentences as high as life imprisonment.
The system is controversial.
“The lack of attorneys and professional judges during trials has raised the ire of several leading international nongovernmental organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and Penal Reform International,” O’Neill explained.
Some argue that Gacaca violates international standards of fair trial and due process. The U.N. Convention on Human Rights allows for transitional justice systems that fall short of these standards in emergency circumstances.
As an intern, O’Neill served in Gacaca’s Legal Support Unit, which responds to any complaint and concern about how Gacaca is working.
“Complaints come from Rwandese civilians who feel they or their family member did not receive a fair trial, and from international organizations,” she said. “The legal support unit works with both prison and survivor organizations in an ongoing effort to oversee and improve Gacaca.”
Because she was from the outside, her coworkers saw her as a potential ambassador for Gacaca. Her first task was to read all of the legislation and attempt to understand it so she could explain it to legal communities in the United States.
Gacaca attorneys have a great desire for the American legal community to learn about the system, she said.
Her supervisors also asked her to review a series of reports by international organizations that evaluated phases of the court system. They then used her assessments to decide which aspects of the reports to address with international donors and aid organizations.
O’Neill also wrote proposals for potential donor organizations, such as the United States Agency for International Development, and a series of reports on Gacaca’s successes and failures.
For the latter, her supervisor, Andrews Kananga, an attorney in the legal support unit, recommended that she examine the system based on international standards of fair trial. He encouraged her to speak with genocide survivors and perpetrators to understand Gacaca’s effectiveness.
“Survivors are willing to forgive the perpetrators who are willing to ask for forgiveness,” Kananga said. “It’s a new form of justice, focusing on the restorative, reconciliatory aspects.”
Throughout her stay, O’Neill met several people who were able to make the prodigious leap to forgive the person who murdered a family member right in front of them.
“When I meet people like this, I am astounded by their grace and strength,” she said. “Of course, I have also met Rwandans who cannot find a way to forgive. When I meet them, it makes sense to me. I empathize with them and admire their ability to survive after such harrowing personal tragedies.”
O’Neill’s internship was funded in part by a grant from the UofL Student Bar Foundation. It was part of the law school’s Samuel L. Greenebaum Public Service Program.
(Excerpted from the Fall 2007, UofL magazine.)
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