Submitted by William Church, Jan 31, 2007 04:53

I am editor of the Great Lakes Conflict Early Alert Report which is handled by the Great Lakes Centre for Strategic Studies.

I would like to clarify a few points in Ms. Millers well meaning article.

First, Rwanda is attempting to reconcile a society that experienced a genocide over a 40 year period and not just 100 days as believed in the West. This was an ideology that was preached by the government and instilled in the population. It is not reasonable to believe that it will just disappear over night unless there is some attempt at reconcillaiton.

The Gacaca courts are an attempt at that. The common impression given by Western journalists like Ms Miller is that it is a ill-conceived and ill-executed effort. The fact is that the Gacaca process is highly supervised by the internaitonal community and funded by major Western donors. The process has been tested and improved. Judges have been trained and retrained when found wanting.

It appears there is a complete misunderstanding of the Gacaca courts. Rwanda was faced with two options. First, follow the model that tries the top leaders and give amnesty to everyone else. Or hold individuals responsible for their action. The later model was chosen because Rwanda has a cultural pattern of revenge killings. The elders used to settle disputes and after they ruled then no revenge actions could take place. This promoted reconcillation for over three hundred years of Rwandan history.

Without Gacaca and reconcillation revenge killings could take place so it is an Africa/Rwandan attempt at reconcilation. Unfortunately, it does not look like something familar to non-Africans so it is criticized. It is also important to note that Rwanda has a total of 150 lawyers so a Western style system would not have been possible. This brings to the point that is overlooked by most journalists. There will be over 700,000 people charged with different degrees of involvement. This was the fastest way to achieve reconcillaiton so that tensions can be reduced and provide some level of justice.

Rwanda should be helped not condemned. Journalists should try to understand all the dynamics before judging. Also and perhaps more importantly, Gacaca survives the purpose of letting people who have been refugees for the last 12 years who are only now coming home to hear the truth of what happened so the may learn. This is important because there are already people who deny the genocide or what to revise what really happened. This is an important stage so the children who are not coming back as adults will also hear the lessons.

Considering the size and complexity of the problem, I urge someone with a more constructive solution to step forward as do the all international governments that support the process.

Now quickly to the two final points that have been lost.

If you read the HRW report you will not that the police arrived within a reasonable time considering the remote area second the military arrived to maintain order and third it stayed long after the violence. So comments about lack of protection do not seem well founded. Even in the United States, it would seem fictional if the police arrived before the crime happened. As you know there is not simply enough police in any country to stop crime before it happens.

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