Legal Help for Rwanda

The Institute has agreed to identify and coordinate legal services to help Rwanda with one of the largest criminal justice undertakings in human history.

Left: Clavier Nkulikiyinka went on trial in January for allegedly helping Frodouard Karamira to organize the genocide.
Below: Genocide suspect Frodouard Karamira, handcuffed at left front, consults with his lawyer in the packed Nyamirambo Court in Kigali.

n a country still reeling from the genocidal murder of over half a million of its citizens in 1994, the Rwandan government now faces the extraordinary challenge of identifying the perpetrators and bringing them to some kind of justice. The U.S. Institute of Peace has agreed to identify and coordinate the use of a broad range of legal resources to help Rwanda's Ministry of Justice with its formidable task. Neil Kritz, senior scholar on the rule of law, will oversee the program.

"Rwanda is engaged in one of the largest criminal justice undertakings in human history," Kritz says. The Rwandan authorities have detained over 100,000 individuals to date on allegations that they participated in genocide. "It's going to be politically and logistically impossible to prosecute all of those accused," Kritz says. "The American legal system, with a half million lawyers, would probably collapse under these kinds of numbers. The Rwandan legal system--which has built its way back up to a total of 40 lawyers--is attempting to confront this challenge."

Kritz visited Rwanda February 24-March 5 to evaluate the current status of the country's overall legal effort. He also assessed the assistance already being provided and determined areas where the Institute can be helpful, both directly and in coordinating additional assistance efforts.

Kritz met with the minister and deputy minister of justice; the attorney general; the director of prisons; judges and prosecutors; people in the international donor community, including representatives of the United Nations and of the U.S., Swiss, Belgian, and Canadian governments; and officials at the Kigali-based prosecutor's office of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. He also interviewed detainees in a Kigali prison--where more than 6,000 individuals are being held on charges of genocide--to assess their understanding of their cases.

The types of assistance the Institute may provide could include, for example, coordinating pro bono contributions by various law firms in the United States, advising the Ministry of Justice on the compensation of victims, coordinating assistance to the Rwandan military justice system, supplying books and related materials, drafting legislation, and providing advice on implementing a provision of Rwanda's recently enacted genocide law, which provides for expedited procedures and an amnesty program that would offer reduced sentences for perpetrators based on confessions of guilt.

Prisoners, Confessions, and Fair Trials

The provision offering reduced sentences based on confessions will likely be important to moving things forward in Rwanda and alleviating the burden of individual trials for each accused person, Kritz says. Those who confess to a crime must also formally apologize to the victim or victims, a feature that Kritz recommended as a key element that, hopefully, will contribute over time to reconciliation. The apologies can make it easier for victims to accept lenient penalties for the perpetrators and to allow them back into society.

Kritz's interviews with prison officials and detainees suggested several steps to facilitate this process. In many cases, for example, mid-level organizers of the genocide within the prison population continue to intimidate and threaten other detainees to prevent them from confessing. Prison officials, who have only recently separated adults from minors, will need to separate the organizers of the genocide from the broader category of those accused.

Even with confessions, the remaining trials will stretch all available resources. "The international community needs to provide external assistance and recognize the context in which it will be put to use," Kritz says. "Given the huge numbers and limited resources, the prosecutions may not be perfect. We need to help them provide the best-quality trials possible. This is an extremely difficult and delicate process, but the Rwandan government has recognized that the alternative is a continuation of a culture of impunity and a likely return to violence."

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