Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
Julia Crawford
4 October 2001
Murambi/Kigali — If Murambi sector, a rural hillside area some 40 kilometres from Kigali, is anything to go by, Rwanda's women will be playing an important role in the country's upcoming system of post-genocide traditional justice, or "gacaca". Not only was there a strong female presence at Thursday's public meetings to choose "people's judges", but women spoke up, and many of them will be among the judges.
In one cell in Murambi, for example, eight of the 19 gacaca judges chosen to serve at the cell (lowest administrative unit) level are women. One of the six judges delegated to the General Assembly at sector level, and therefore eligible to be a judge at higher levels, is also a woman.
"I am very proud," she told Hirondelle. "I hope that I will be able to make my contribution to the search for truth without any consideration of a person's ethnic group, religion or physical appearance."
Asked about the representation of women in gacaca courts, she replied: "I think it will change things. Suspicion will disappear."
Other women at cell meetings in Murambi also expressed the view that women judges will be "more honest" and more likely to inspire truth telling about what happened during the 1994 genocide. They were not surprised that women were starting to take a more assertive role because, as one said, "it is the women who are bearing all the burdens here".
This area has a particularly high proportion of women heads of household, because their husbands have either been killed or imprisoned on genocide related charges. The local prison population is high. But the women, Hutu and Tutsi alike, are all struggling to support families alone, and they all want justice. They want gacaca to work, because the existing justice system has proved unable to cope with the aftermath of the genocide.
Some 11,000 gacaca courts are being set up at four administrative levels throughout the country, to judge all but the highest category of genocide suspects. There are currently only thirteen ordinary courts trying genocide related crimes.
Indirect elections of judges for the higher levels (sector, district and province) are taking place from Friday to Sunday. Gacaca trials are expected to begin sometime in the first half of next year (2002).
Public meetings
According to a special law approved earlier this year, the judges must be people of integrity, honesty and good conduct, free of any suspected involvement in the genocide, "free from the spirit of sectarianism and discrimination" and "characterised by a spirit of sharing speech". People in government posts, exercising political activities or still in the security forces are not eligible.
Thursday's open-air public meetings to choose cell-level gacaca judges saw a massive turnout. At one cell where Hirondelle followed the meeting, local administration organizers said 331 of the 353 adults entitled to vote had turned out. One hundred and two proposed candidates had been put forward by the "nyumba kumi", units of ten households making up the cell. These people were lined up, ready to be presented to the crowd gathered on the grass.
Red megaphone in hand, the coordinator began by reminding the meeting that candidates must be over 18 and free from any suspicion of involvement in the genocide. Proposed candidates were then handed the megaphone one by one and proceeded to present themselves: name, name of parents, age, number of children.
After each one, the coordinator asked the crowd if they had anything to say. Some were accepted without comment. Sometimes one or more people would come forward to take the megaphone and criticize the candidate, although the atmosphere remained good humoured. Most of the criticisms were related to age, health or family responsibilities that might prevent the candidate from fulfilling the obligations of a gacaca judge.
For example, a young man of 21 was rejected because he was said to have a number of orphans in his care, and the meeting felt he would not have time to be a judge as well. One woman was criticized for "living alone", but other members of the crowd said this was not a valid criticism, and she was accepted as a candidate.
A few of the accusations were more serious. For example, one man was accused of having participated in massacres and another for "perturbing security". Accepted candidates then went to sit together on the grass, while rejected candidates also went to sit together. Organizers explained that if there were not enough "accepted candidates" then the "rejected" ones would be given a chance to explain themselves to the crowd, and might be reconsidered. This was not necessary, however, owing to the large number of candidates.
According to the organizers, 84 of the 102 proposed candidates were accepted and 18 were "criticized". Out of the 84 accepted, 33 were women. The 84 candidates then had to choose six of their number to go to the General Assembly of the sector level jurisdiction, and 19 to be the judges at the cell level. Each was asked to write six names down on a piece of paper.
Organizers then collected the papers and proceeded to chalk up the votes for each name on a blackboard. This exercise took some time, but resulted in the pronouncement of first the six and then the 19. The 19 judges were then sworn in.
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