Research Brief
By Lars Waldorf
The military victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in July 1994 finally halted the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda and ended twelve years of civil war and genocide. The new Rwandan government focused almost exclusively on criminal accountability for the 1994 genocide. As a consequence of prioritizing retributive justice over restorative justice, the material needs of survivors have not been met by the transitional regime in Rwanda.
This concern fits uncomfortably with the success of the country's DDR program. While Rwanda has gone further than any other post-conflict state in prosecuting lower-level perpetrators for mass atrocity, transitional justice mechanisms were deliberately kept separate from the DDR program. On one hand, the Rwandan experience provides a fascinating case where DDR largely succeeded despite a firm policy against amnesty. On the other hand, ex-combatants have benefited from quite generous DDR packages; yet, there are no funds available for reparations to their victims.
Background
Civil war preceded the genocide in Rwanda, where in 1994 Hutu extremists seized control of the state and launched an extermination campaign against the Tutsi. By July 1994, at least half a million Tutsi, as well as thousands of Hutu, were slaughtered in the world's fastest genocide. After RPF invaded to stop the genocide, the defeated Hutu militias fled to Zaire and the conflict continued across borders, spreading throughout the region. Killing and displacing millions, the war finally ended in 1999 with the signing of the Lusaka Peace Accords. However, fighting continues among ethnic militias and government forces.
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DDR
Rwanda has successfully demobilized and reintegrated approximately 54,000 combatants since 1995. The Rwandan Demobilization and Reintegration Commission (RDRC) implemented DDR in two major phases, one covering the period of 1997 to 2001, and the other 2002 to 2007. Both DDR phases involved five sometimes overlapping military forces: the RPF; the Hutu-led government's Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR); the Rwanda Patriotic Army, later renamed the Rwandan Defense Forces (RPA/RDF); the abacagenzi, a Hutu insurgency in the northwest of Rwanda; and the "armed groups" (AG) a term used for all the Rwandan Hutu rebels in the DRC.
During Stage 1, Rwanda disarmed and demobilized 18,692 RPA soldiers as well as an estimated 15,000 FAR combatants. Originally budgeted at US$40 million, Stage 1 DDR only received US$18.3 million in financing, half of which came from the Rwandan government. Lack of funding meant the program provided little in the way of reintegration support to RPA ex-combatants and none whatsoever to the ex-FAR.
Phase II began in 2001 when the international community created the US$500 million Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program (MDRP) to promote DDR in seven countries affected by the second Congo War. The program aimed to coordinate a large-scale regional demobilization and reintegration program involving 350,000 combatants over the five-year period from 2002-2006.
According to the MDRP Monthly Statistical Progress Report from May 2007, in Phase II the RDRC demobilized 20,039 RDF soldiers, 12,310 ex-FAR, 5,873 ex-AG combatants, and 624 ex-AG child soldiers. These totals included 57 women and two girls. Under the Rwandan Demobilization and Reintegration Program, demobilization primarily involved sensitization trainings in "solidarity camps" (ingando) which covered Rwandan history, civic education, national unity and reconciliation, gacaca, micro-financing and public health (particularly HIV/AIDS).
All ex-combatants in DDR Phase II received reinsertion support packages consisting of approximately US$100 and basic household supplies. Ex-combatants also received reintegration support consisting of between US$150 to US$2,000 according to their rank and affiliation. As of May 2007, 38,846 ex-combatants (including 260 women) had benefited from reinsertion support while 40,068 ex-combatants (including 346 females) received reintegration funds. In addition, all former professional soldiers (ex-RPA, ex-FAR and ex-RDF) receive a Recognition of Services Allowance, which ranges from US$300 for privates to US$1,000 for colonels. Finally, the most vulnerable ex-combatants are eligible for a one-time Vulnerability Support Window grant of approximately US$333.
DDR, Women and Children
Less than one percent of the demobilized ex-combatants were women. According to the 2004 RDRC report, Stage I provided "no special support" for female soldiers and had no "concern with the gender issues within the communities in which the ex-combatants resettled." Overall, DDR has not been gender sensitive in Rwanda, with the notable exception that a large percentage of Vulnerability Support Window grants went to demobilized female soldiers.
During the civil war and genocide, the RPF came to include 2,364 child soldiers, though only a third of them were actually registered in the army. Some child soldiers were placed in a special school (the Kadogo School) created in June 1995. Later on in the conflict, the government sent the child soldiers to ingando, where they received training and sensitization for two to four weeks, and they were later sent to the Gitagata rehabilitation center to receive further education before being reintegrated.
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Transitional Justice
Implementing an effective transitional justice strategy in Rwanda is an incredible challenge given the scale and brutality of the 1994 genocide, the high degree of public participation, and the geographical and economic constraints that force perpetrators and survivors to live side by side in the aftermath. Other post-conflict states with similarly overwhelming numbers of perpetrators to contend with have opted for amnesties or selective prosecutions. In contrast, the Rwandan government is committed to holding those responsible for genocide accountable in criminal trials; however, this largely leaves out those who committed crimes during the years of civil and regional conflict.
Prosecutions
Gacaca. In 2002, Rwanda launched the most ambitious transitional justice measure ever attempted: 11,000 community courts (gacaca) have been created to try lower-level genocide suspects. Nearly 800,000 Rwandans-one-fifth of the adult population-have been accused before these courts. The local court system adjoins national and international tribunals mandated to prosecute the most grave atrocities and higher ranking officials implicated in the genocide.
National courts. National courts prosecute higher-ranking officials implicated in the genocide and suspects accused of serious atrocities. Rwanda's national courts tried approximately 10,000 genocide suspects between December 1996 and mid-2006. The quality of justice in these trials was relatively poor, though some improvements are notable following the controversy that arose from the public execution of twenty-two convicted génocidaires in April 1998. Rwanda abolished the death sentence soon afterwards in hopes of persuading foreign states to extradite genocide suspects to Rwanda for trial.
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), founded in 1994, has furthered stability in the Great Lakes Region by apprehending or marginalizing most of the presumed political and military leadership of the genocide.
Though instrumental in founding the ICTR, the Rwandan government has since taken a fairly antagonistic position toward it. The genocide trials have proceeded slowly. The ICTR is further faulted for an absence of a clear prosecutorial strategy, poor case management and courtroom control by the judges, and a largely incompetent administration. Furthermore, Rwandan survivors are upset by the treatment of victims and witnesses during trials and disappointed by the fact that the ICTR Statute (unlike the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court) makes no provision for compensation.
Truth-Telling
The Rwandan government rejected and the idea of a truth commission, vowing that retributive justice was required to end the culture of impunity that culminated in the 1994 genocide.
Reparations
The 1996 Genocide Law and the subsequent gacaca laws called for a Compensation Fund for Victims of the Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. The fund is intended to cover judicial awards to genocide survivors in cases where convicted genocidaires would not or could not pay the awards demanded of them. In the thirteen years since the genocide the Rwandan government and its international donors have spent millions of dollars incarcerating and trying genocide suspects; yet, there is still no compensation fund for survivors. More frustrating still, survivors find that their demands for reparations go unheeded while the government and its donors have already funded fairly generous demobilization packages for ex-FAR and other ex-combatants.
Despite the lack of a compensation fund, gacaca still provides limited reparations to genocide survivors. Most local-level gacaca courts award restitution to survivors for their loss of property. Convicted perpetrators unable to compensate stolen or destroyed goods are often required to work off their debt through unpaid labor for the survivors. Gacaca also offers some measure of symbolic reparations by requiring the suspects who plead guilty to reveal the whereabouts of their victims' remains before they are eligible for reduced sentencing.
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Conclusion
DDR and transitional justice were deliberately kept separate in Rwanda. The RDRC does not screen ex-combatants for abuses, nor does it share any information on demobilized combatants with the justice sector and ICTR investigators. A combination of logistical and policy reasons discouraged the UN Mission in neighboring Democratic Republic of Congo and the RDRC from pursuing transitional justice and demobilization simultaneously. Above all, they considered effective and quick disarmament and reintegration imperative to stability. Practitioners worried that linking transitional justice with DDR would render the process overly holistic and hence unmanageable.
There is an inherent tension between DDR and the gacaca court system considering that, in most cases, DDR programs aim to reassure ex-combatants they will not be punished if they agree to lay down their arms. In contrast, Rwandan ex-combatants must pass through gacaca, where they risk being accused of genocide. Astonishingly, ex-combatants report that the prospect of appearing before gacaca does not discourage demobilization. This surprising finding suggests that DDR and criminal accountability may not be as much in tension as they appear.
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