ABSTRACT
The Rwandan experience is hardly a typical example of violent conflict in Africa. On the contrary, it is extreme, constituting the continent’s only clear-cut case of genocide in the post-colonial era. The extent and rapidity of the carefully orchestrated killings and the spectacular failure of the international community to act to prevent them combine to make Rwanda an outlier among African countries that have known conflict in living memory. Moreover, by far the worst violence occurred less than a year after a negotiated peace agreement – the 1993 Arusha Accords – ended three years of civil war between the Hutu-dominated government of Rwanda and the Tutsi-dominated, Uganda-based rebel army of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). The 100 days of genocide that began in April 1994 were only halted by the RPF’s invasion and occupation of the entire country. As such, the subsequent period of peace and order was not the result of a negotiated settlement, but rather the military victory of the rebel forces. Because the RPF has since consolidated its hold on power, albeit under a formally democratic system, the establishment of post-conflict rule of law is very much dependent on its will. Given the RPF’s victory on the battlefield and its virtual monopoly of political power, unchallenged in any significant way by local civil society and legitimated and reinforced by international donors, Rwanda’s efforts in the area of justice and the rule of law closely reflect the ruling party’s interests. This chapter analyzes the question of post-genocide transitional justice in
Rwanda, exploring the thorny question of how to deal with widespread complicity in mass atrocities and situating it in the broader principles of the rule of law and in the context of peacebuilding. It argues that the Rwandan government’s close control over transitional justice mechanisms at all levels in many ways actually impedes the establishment of the rule of law and the promotion of sustainable peace. Western donors, by providing financial and other forms of assistance and generally turning a blind eye to the highly problematic politicization of the justice sector, are complicit to the institutionalization of authoritarian rule and help undermine the same long-term goals that they profess to support.
