WUNRN
Rwanda – Women’s Leadership in Peace & Nation Building – Village Courts +
March 19, 2015 - By S.E. Jalbert
Balanced
gendered ideals draw us toward peace and toward supporting women’s leadership
in nation building. Peace is not only absence of violence, but is also a just
rule of law and equitable economic well-being.
Without
bread and milk on the table for children, women are hard pressed to work for
peace, security, equal rights, property rights, human rights, environmental
integrity, rule of law, justice, or much else. When the tummy is empty, the
brain is not working. And yet, out of the utter chaos of the Rwandan genocide
grew one of the most powerful examples of women’s leadership.
Rwanda is
a small, land-locked country that was put to the greatest human test 20 years
ago. Genocide against the Tutsi claimed more than a million lives in just 100
days and left the social fabric destroyed.
To move
forward, people injured by conflict must be included in decision-making,
healing and justice processes. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
proved slow, expensive and ineffective at accelerating local reconciliation. At
the national level, thousands remained in prison as alleged genocide
perpetrators pending trial. The judiciary had been incapable of expeditiously
processing the large number of cases.
Local
transitional justice is the re-establishment of a traditional, community-based
justice mechanism called the Gacaca court. The Gacaca system is designed to
enable all citizens to participate directly in justice, reconciliation,
forgiveness and community healing.
Rwanda
does not claim diamonds, gold or oil as its natural resources (at least not
yet). The vast treasure from Rwanda, Justine Mbabazi, author of This is your
time Rwanda, proudly notes, is her people with their robust resilience and
leadership spirit. In today’s Rwanda, people are solution-driven. This modern
attitude is the genesis of transitional justice and rebuilding the tattered
social tapestry ripped to bare threads by horrific atrocities.
A
trusted, venerable village model known as Gacaca was revisited to assess its
application for justice. Could this ancient Rwandan system solve Rwanda’s
modern problems?
In the
Kinyarwanda language, the word gacaca is the name of a short thick
grass. When managing disputes between neighbors in pre-colonial times, Rwandans
traditionally sat on grass mats, protected from sand and dirt. Gacaca was
applied to moderate quarrels concerning land use and rights, cattle, marriage,
inheritance rights, loans, damage to properties, and petty theft.
Gacaca
occurred at a meeting place convened by elders. The problem was settled only
with the agreement of all parties. Even though genocide against the Tutsi was
certainly more capricious than traditional Gacaca courts could handle, it
proved the best model to:
1)
Accelerate trials,
2) Eradicate impunity,
3) Hasten reconciliation through truth and justice, and
4) Rebuild the social fabric of Rwandan society.
Unlike
conventional courts, the local community Gacaca court elects local adjudicators
(men and women) who possess credibility, integrity and wisdom.
Justice
provided through Gacaca courts is just. The judges are unaware of who the
witnesses will be until they testify before the community. People choose to
give evidence during gatherings and stand to do so. There are no prosecutors or
investigators, no lawyers or other confusing elements normally present in
conventional hearings; the local audience fulfills those roles in the Gacaca
system. The public plays a pivotal role of being the prosecution and the
witnesses in accusing or discharging the suspects based on the testimonies
given. In the Gacaca world, words such as “prosecutors,” “lawyers,” or
“attorneys” are not used. There are only judges who are community members from
where the crimes took place, and victims, suspects, witnesses of the crime, as
well as the public from the affected village.
Perhaps,
for many of us, one of the most difficult aspects of the Gacaca system to
accept is the concept of forgiveness. In the case of the village Gacaca court,
forgiveness is the focal tactic. The primary reason to forgive, Justine says,
is release from the bondage of negativity. Otherwise, the destructive pain from
others’ actions is carried forth.
Logically,
we understand that the process of forgiveness is a path opening to move society
forward; yet, emotionally, we are tied to the atrocious ripping apart of the
moral fabric and reminded of the grotesqueness of inhuman crimes. How do people
move past such deep anguish?
The
Gacaca court enabled all citizens to participate directly in justice,
reconciliation, and rebuilding; thus, collectively contributing to forgive one
another. The process aided communal healing. Women played a vital, stabalizing
role, which led to the country’s ability to rebuild and re-imagine itself.
With
politics often representing a gender fault-line, Rwanda’s bold women parliamentarians
stand as a world model because their leadership shaped the country’s future.
Political transition brought women to the forefront to establish new ways to
power share, to break from hierarchical approaches, and to integrate village
needs at national levels. By 2014 Rwanda women in parliament reached the
unprecedented global level of 64 percent. Women’s leadership means more than
just numbers in politics. Equality and equity in politics is a good start in
nation building.
For
example, in reference to a newly enacted domestic violence law, the late
Parliamentarian Honorable Judith Kanakuze of Rwanda said, “We don’t want to
just make a law, we want to stop bad behavior.” This is an illustration of the
larger vision and deeper strategy that women bring to leadership.
The world
appears more ready, than ever before, to embrace women as leaders and Rwandan
women are leading the world and showing all women how to embrace political
leadership.
Women are
key actors. Women redefined conflict transformation in Rwanda. By transforming
attitudes and practices, structures and competences, Rwandan women not only
laid the groundwork for national change, but also created a durable platform
for feminist leader voices – worldwide.