AN EXCITING POSSIBILITY

 By David Zarembka

    After the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, 120,000 people suspected of involvement in the genocide were imprisoned.  Eight years later, the vast majority remain.  The Rwandan judicial system was destroyed during the genocide and it was not capable of dealing with these large number of suspects.  Consequently after much discussion, the Rwandan Government decided to resurrect the traditional community court system called "gacaca" in Kiyarwandan (the language of Rwanda).  These courts were composed of a group of village elders who adjudicated minor cases such as boundary disputes.  The elders listened to the evidence, decided the guilt, and imposed restitution which restored justice to the community.

   The newly reconstituted Gacaca courts with nineteen judges elected by the community will determine the guilt and fair punishment for those prisoners who played only a minor part in the genocide.  These might include those who looted the property of those killed during the genocide or participated in killing someone at the command of government authorities.  There are 9,000 gacaca courts are the lowest level and 1500 courts on the higher level!  This is a bold experiment in trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again so that peaceful coexistence becomes possible between the perpetuators of the genocide and their families, the survivors of the genocide, and the many bystanders.  Revenge, intimidation, hostility, anger, and hurt must all be dealt with in a way that heals the society.

    The African Great Lakes Initiative had already trained fifteen AVP facilitators in Rwanda.  The Quakers in Rwanda were very concerned about the fact that many of those imprisoned for eight years would return to society perhaps still with violent, anti-social thoughts and behaviors.  Consequently AGLI and AVP-Rwanda had developed a proposal to hold five basic AVP workshops with the so-to-be-released prisoners, an evaluation, and then twenty-four more workshops in Kigali, Kigali Rurale, Ruhengeri, and Kibungo.  AVP-Rwanda is awaiting sufficient funding ($20,971) and Governmental approval to begin.

    On July 16, an AFSC delegation to Africa including myself met with Aloysie Cyanzayire, the head of the Supreme Court's Gacaca Department who would be implementing these 10,500 courts.   After she described the Gacaca system to us and we described the work of the AFSC around the world, David Bucura, General Secretary of Rwanda Yearly Meeting and the AVP-Rwanda coordinator, reported what the AVP facilitators were planning with the prisoners.  Her immediate reaction was that AVP should be holding workshops for the gacaca judges.  So AVP would be working with the judges in addition to the suspects!  What an exciting possibility! 

    Later I discussed the possibilities with David and other AVP facilitators and we recommended that we start with three basic workshops for the gacaca department staff and then twenty-four workshops.  We thought we would start by taking three or so members from six gacaca in order to do one AVP workshop with twenty participants.  But clearly some of these people would ask AVP to hold workshops for all their gacaca judges.

    In our discussions, it became clear that fifteen facilitators who were already trained were not near enough for the programs we envisioned.  AGLI would have to give additional training to their best facilitators so that they could lead advanced and training for facilitator workshops and mentor apprentice facilitators.  We proposed another international team to come for four weeks to do two advanced and two training for facilitator workshops, training the best four Rwandan facilitators to continue after the international team left.  We also realized that the basic AVP manual would have to be translated into Kinyarwandan.  David Bucura proposed that three of the facilitators who knew English well would translate the relevant parts of the manual and then all the facilitators would review the work to look for weak areas of translation.

    This all implies a budget of $54,000 to launch this exciting AVP program.  Please pray with AGLI and AVP-Rwanda that we can seek and find sufficient funding for this opportunity.

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