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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.