Sustainable Peace and A Just Tomorrow: Retributive Justice or Restorative Justice?

1. Sustainable Peace and A Just Tomorrow: Retributive Justice or Restorative Justice? Dr SupriyaAkerkar

2. Through this module….. • Analysed contexts of violence: Rwanda, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Partition of India and Pakistan…. • In this lecture focus on possible roadmaps to peace and justice..

3. Two approaches to justice

4. Challenges facing post-conflict societies… • How to achieve the objectives of truth, justice and reconciliation - each of which may demand steps which are contrary to achieving the other? • Which model of justice should be adopted?

5. Truth and Justice • Truth is about knowing and officially acknowledging past human right abuses. • … prevents collective amnesia • Justice is about upholding the rule of law and preventing future human right abuses • Central to achieving this are, principle of equality before law, fairness of trials, or whether charged politically

6. and Reconciliation…. • Reconciliation is about healing of animosities between groups in conflict, with both victims and perpetrators embracing the idea of peaceful living with each-other.

7. Some questions about truth, justice and reconciliation… • Isn’t the notion of victors justice / prosecutions based on retribution counterproductive to reconciliation? • Isn’t reconciliation that provides amnesties to perpetrators who acknowledge guilt as a part of truth telling process contrary to ideals of justice? • Rwanda • South Africa • How to achieve sustainable peace?

8. Roadmaps to peace and justice • Rwanda…. • National courts • Gacaca courts • South Africa…. • The truth and reconciliation commission

9. The Context of Rwanda’s Genocide…. • Approximately 800,000 people were killed in the space of 100 days in 1994, including three-quarters of the Tutsi minority. • In Rwanda every person is either a genocide perpetrator, victim or survivor or the close friend or relative of someone in those categories.

10. Post Rwanda genocide… • Rwandan prisons were bursting at the seams with genocide suspects. • By 1998, around 130,000 prisoners were crammed into space meant for 12,000, living in inhumane conditions. • Conventional courts began trying genocide cases in December 1996, but had only managed to try 1,292 genocide suspects by 1998. At that rate, genocide trials would have continued for more than a century, leaving many suspects behind bars awaiting trial for years and even decades. • Proposal for use of foreign lawyers and judges to speed up trials rejected by Rwandan government. • In 2001, govt decided to use community-based courts to try genocide-related crimes using the customary Gacaca model to speed up trials.

11. What is Gacaca? • Traditionally, Gacaca was a form of dispute resolution held on grass in rural communities in Rwanda for crimes such as theft and property damage. • Modern-day Gacaca draws partly on this traditional practice – especially its emphasis on hearings held outdoors, in full public view– but it is now codified in national law and overseen by central government institutions. • Gacaca judges are elected by their local communities and lawyers are barred from any official participation in the process.

12. In Rwanda • Since 2005, just over 12,000 community-based Gacaca courts have tried approximately 1.2 million genocide cases

13. The Gacaca hearings…. • http://www.viewchange.org/videos/grassroots-justice-in-rwanda

14. In defence of Gacaca… The initiative is an: “African solution to African problems.” …………Paul Kagame, Rwandan President

15. What has Gacaca delivered? • Has enabled closure for some families • Tens of thousands of perpetrators have been brought to justice • Some if not all truth was revealed • Source: Rwanda Justice compromised: the legacy of Rwanda’s community based Gacaca courts; Human Rights Watch, May 2011

16. Criticisms of Gacaca • Right to fair and just trial denied • Miscarriage of justice in many cases • Govt’s wish to silence critics • Intimidation of witnesses, corruption of judges, serious procedural irregularities • Source: Rwanda Justice compromised: the legacy of Rwanda’s community based Gacaca courts; Human Rights Watch, May 2011

17. Questions about outcome of Gacaca • RPF or Rwandan Patriotic Front which led the ouster of the regime following Genocide and is accused of killings of Hutus has been exempted from Gacaca trials… • Is this not retribution??? • Given the historical relations between Hutus and Tutsis, will the Gacaca courts increase animosity and hamper reconciliation in the long run?

18. Post Apartheid South Africa • April 1994, South Africa has first democratic elections. • National Unity govt led by Mandela • 1995: Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights crime during apartheid

19. Truth and Reconciliation Commission • Human rights committee: establishing truth • Amnesty committee: giving amnesty to offenders who admit to guilt in full • Reparation and rehabilitation committee: Ensuring victims get financial compensation and rehabilitation assistance

20. Practices underlying TRC • Emphasis on truth telling and forgiveness by victims • Developing public account of truth • Process of catharsis for victims

21. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azz-F0mbWP8

22. Has TRC led to reconciliation? • Its proponents claim the following: • It has created a full and true account of human right violations • South Africa has made a successful transition to electoral democracy and built a progressive constitution. • It has shown that a reparatory form of justice works.

23. Has TRC led to reconciliation? • Criticisms: • Reparation and rehabilitation of victims has been very slow • Structural forms of economic inequalities and mass poverty amongst blacks continue • Increased crimes amongst youth in South Africa indicative of the failure of TRC to ensure social justice.

24. What do you think? • Which of the two models of justice, Rwandan and South African, have led to sustainable peace?

25. Thank You