Rwanda Genocide: Honoring the Dead Without Honoring the Lies

On April 7 the United Nations began its annual commemoration of the anniversary of what we know as the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, when as many as one million Rwandans were slaughtered in 100 days.

The ceremonies raise several questions for all those who contest the received history of the Rwanda Genocide: How to honor Rwanda’s dead without honoring the lies?

And, how to honor six million more Congolese dead, but not commemorated, in the ongoing aftermath of the Rwanda Genocide when Rwanda’s war crossed its western border into neighboring D.R. Congo?

Though both tell the received history of the Rwanda Genocide; the BBC and Wikipedia mark its outset not on April 7th, as the UK, UN, and Rwandan officialdom do, but on April 6th, when, in 1994, the assassination of Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamiratriggered the ensuing panic and violence that grew into the horror of the next 100 days and beyond. The two presidents were flying home from a conference between east and central African leaders in Tanzania, held to discuss ways to end violence between ethnic Hutus and Tutsis from Burundi and Rwanda, when their plane was shot out of the sky over Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.

http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/1762/rwanda-genocide-honoring-the-dead-without-honoring-the-lies/

 

How Rwanda Judged Its Genocide - Africa Research Institute

Since 2001, the gacaca community courts have been the

centrepiece of Rwanda’s justice and reconciliation process.

Nearly every adult Rwandan has participated in the trials, but

lawyers are banned from any official involvement. Human

rights organisations fiercely opposed the use of gacaca for

trying genocide cases, on the grounds that it fell short of

international legal standards of fairness. Much criticism

reflects legal rigidity towards the unprecedented challenges

confronting post-genocide Rwanda – and a limited

understanding of the aims of the community courts. Gacaca

was inevitably imperfect, but also highly ambitious and

innovative. While the full impact of the process will not be

apparent for many years, gacaca has delivered benefits to

Rwandans in the spheres of justice, truth and democratic

participation. Other societies confronting the aftermath of

mass conflict could learn much from Rwanda’s approach to

local justice.

http://www.africaresearchinstitute.org/files/counterpoints/docs/How-Rwanda-judged-its-genocide-E6QODPW0KV.pdf