Justice and Reconciliation

While there is a substantial literature on reconciliation and social redress following large-scale violence, in this chapter we focus once again on the words and experiences of the survivors that we interviewed. We address three interrelated processes—gacaca trials, interpersonal reconciliation, and official commemorations, asking throughout how these larger processes affect the individual and the country. We do not include discussion of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)¹ in this chapter since none of our interviewees commented on the tribunal, except for one survivor who was very dismissive of a judge who laughed at a witness’s description of rape.