ICTR

The second and third days we were in Arusha, we visited the ICTR, which is the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It is the court set up after the genocide that tries the high officials that instigated and led the genocide. The “foot soldiers” who just carried out orders from above and who were not the masterminds of the genocide are tried by the Gacaca courts, which are traditional courts in Rwanda that allow the community to participate in the justice process. I think that the Gacaca court system is a really good institution because it brings out the truth for the victim’s families.
The ICTR in Arusha was a really cool experience. We got to sit in on a couple of actual trials as they were going on. During the first trial, we got to see one lawyer trying to discredit a witness (it was Dominique Ntawukalilyayo’s trial). We could not see the witness because there was a curtain to protect his identity (even though while we were sitting there, he basically admitted to raping a young girl. He was a really interesting witness to hear, because he kept avoiding the questions and pretending to be confused to make the lawyer look bad). The second trial was of a Rwandan Hutu named Karemera who, among other things, was a member of the interim Hutu government during the genocide. He was responsible for ensuring the security of the Rwandan people, which he clearly did not do. We got to see him testify as well, and he was also good at avoiding questions and confusing everyone in the courtroom.
One really interesting thing I noticed during the trials was a problem with language barriers. The lawyers, judges, and defendants often speak different languages (French, English, or Kinyarwanda), and it seems really hard to communicate and convey ideas, even with the translators. I asked a group of ICTR workers if there were ever any major problems having to do with language. At first they said no, but as they kept talking they seemed to almost change their minds. They explained that in general, Rwandans use a lot of subtle implications to convey ideas, instead of directly stating what happened. For example, if a woman survivor is testifying in the ICTR against someone who raped her, she might be too ashamed to directly say that the perpetrator forced himself on her. To make it even more confusing, rape and marry are the same word in Kinyarwanda. So in my opinion, the language barriers really could affect the outcome of the trials.
It is also really interesting to think about how long these trials last; some are even longer than five years. I was thinking about how if I were a judge, I really would not really be able to bring all of the testimonies, evidence, and other things together five years after I heard them. Of course they can go back and look at paperwork and things like that, but I still feel like it would be so hard to make an impartial decision. It was really interesting when we saw one judge sleeping and one judge playing solitaire on his computer during the trial.
The court also says the defendants are innocent until proven guilty, which I’m sure is true. But at the same time, I don’t think the ICTR would be wasting its time on people who they thought were innocent. So far, out of all the trials in the ICTR, there have been very few acquittals (I think only one).
It was really interesting to listen to some of the lawyers and investigators from the ICTR. We were asking them how hard it is to basically eat, sleep, and breathe genocide issues. I can’t even imagine how hard that would be. It has even been hard for me to learn about the genocide every day for a week, but they have to talk about it and hear horrible stories every day for years and years. One woman from the Office of the Prosecutor pointed out that hearing these gruesome stories can cause secondary trauma. She said they really have to separate work from their lives at home; but she admitted that is almost impossible to do. But the ICTR workers are lucky they are somewhat removed from the genocide; actual survivors are probably reminded every second of every day what happened to them and their families, especially when the perpetrators have been released from prison and are living in the community.