Rwanda’s Use of Transitional Justice After Genocide: The Gacaca Courts and the ICTR

Between April 6 and July 4 of 1994, an estimated 800,000 to 1,000,000 citizens of Rwanda were massacred in an ethnically motivated genocide. In the aftermath of the civil war, this small African country was left not only with extensive physical and psychological scarring, but also the realization that countless ordinary Rwandan citizens were highly involved in the genocide. In the words of President Paul Kagame, “[t]he genocide touched the lives of all Rwandans; no individual or community was spared. Every Rwandan is either a genocide survivor or a perpetrator, or the friend or relative of a survivor or perpetrator.” Immediately following the genocide, the Rwandan government began imprisoning suspected participants. By May 28, 1995, the Rwandan government “stopped arresting all but the most serious suspects” due to extreme overcrowding in the prisons that caused prisoners to suffocate. Approximately 120,000 people were in prison by 1996. By 1999, the sheer number of suspects imprisoned made apparent that Rwanda’s civil courts could not expeditiously adjudicate genocide