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The Legacy of Nuremberg  |   Imposing Justice from the Hague  |   Rwanda's Revolutionary Justice
Kigali Kibuye Bisesero Butare.html
The landscape in Rwanda is littered with massacre sites. Click on the crosses for descriptions of selected massacres.

SLIDESHOW
Gacacas in Rwanda

BACKGROUNDER
Genocide in Rwanda

CHRONOLOGY OF A GENOCIDE
Timeline of Events in Rwanda

PRISONER'S SONG
Listen to a forgiveness song written by a prisoner in Kibuye. "We've been living in conflict so I'm asking God 'when are you going to come to our rescue so we can overcome our differences and the hatred?'"


KEY TERMS View all terms
Arusha Accords
Gacaca
Genocide
Hutu
Hutu Power
Interahamwe
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
Ponga Stick
RPF
RTLM
Tutsi
UNAMIR
War crimes





Rwanda's Revolutionary Justice

Click on italic words for definitions

Eight years after the genocide in Rwanda, only a handful of the perpetrators have been brought to justice. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania has tried and convicted ten of the ringleaders, most of them military leaders and government officials. Twenty-one more are under indictment and awaiting trial.

Rwanda began holding trials in 1997, three years after the genocide. Since then, about 5,000 have been tried and sentenced. But in Rwanda itself, more than 115,000 accused are still in prison awaiting trial. Rwanda has only 17 courtrooms to try the rest and thousands of judges and lawyers were killed or fled the country. It would take decades to try the cases in a regular courtroom.

So Rwanda has reached back into the past—and tradition—for an answer. In an effort to speed the pace of justice, Rwanda is beginning an experiment in what it calls "revolutionary justice". In the coming months, more than 10,000 open-air people's courts, called "gacacas" will begin hearing genocide cases.

Next: No Place to Hide


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