29 May 2007 - DC Training

Yesterday I attended the District Co-ordinators Training. It is a three day conference in which all of the District Co-ordinators must be present. It is of course entirely in Kinyarwanda, but one of the legal officers was kind enough to interpret for me.

There are 30 districts in Rwanda. Anywhere from 1 – 5 DC’s are assigned to a district depending on the case load. There are over 100 of them…and only one female. I asked why there was only one woman. I was told by 2 people, it was because they had to ride motorcycles through rough terrain. This was told to me in all seriousness. Some of these men are half my size. You cannot possibly tell me that it is not possible for a woman to drive a motorcycle. Anyway, I was one of maybe 10 women (the Executive Secretary is female and then other women from the office attended) and the only foreigner. As you can imagine, I caused quite a commotion.

At lunch, a large table of men begged for me to sit with them. One of the gentlemen that I work with attempted to get me to sit there…I absolutely refused. I know this was rude…But, I couldn’t really communicate with them as they were all speaking in Kinyarwanda. And, even though I don’t understand Kinyarwanda, I know that the comments being made about me were highly inappropriate.

I have taken to telling everyone I am engaged…but this does not seem to stop all of the advancements. Even the people at work have been trying to set me up with other Rwandan men. I know I should be flattered. They want me to marry a Rwandan and stay in Africa forever…but it gets old very, very quickly, and has put me in quite a few interesting situations.

The first day of the conference, each sector had to get up and give a report on what was occurring in their area. This was scheduled to take 2 hours. We spent 2 ½ hours on the first 10 sectors. And then an additional 2 hours after lunch which brought us up to 16. Then, the Executive Secretary had to leave. As did I…the room was so hot and stuffy I thought I was going to pass out. On top of the fact…an all day conference in a language you do not understand is not the most thrilling experience.

The concept of time here is such a bizarre phenomenon. I’ve been here a few times, but I still cannot get used to it. If they say something will take 2 hours, this probably means at least 6. I know this happens in a lot of other cultures around the world, so I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to understand how things never get done on time here. Maybe it’s because they will be so adamant about the time…this will really take 2 hours, I promise…and somehow I naively believe them. They aren’t lying. It’s just time means something else here. Time and money, but I won’t get into that right now.

So, apparently Gacaca is meant to be completed by the end of this year. This, of course, is impossible. But, if the government does not extend their mandate, all of these cases must be heard in what Rwanda calls the ‘Ordinary Courts.’ Even now the Ordinary Courts have a backlog just from regular everyday trials. And they are still extremely behind on Category 1 Genocide cases (those are the ones who were the masterminds behind the Genocide and committed sexual crimes). Plus, the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda doesn’t appear to be capable of finishing the cases they said they would take. These too will be sent to the Ordinary Courts of Rwanda. I do not know what they are going to do if they don’t extend Gacaca’s mandate.

But, they are trying really hard to push these cases through. Some of the Districts that had a lower case load have finished already. Of course, I am sure the international human rights community is not happy about the abrupt speed of the trials, but they are also upset that there are still so many people in prison that have not yet been tried; extreme delay of trial being one of the human rights violations many of these organizations have complained about. It really does seem like a no win situation. I don’t know…maybe if the International Community had done what was legally required of them under the Genocide Convention, this wouldn’t have happened, or at least not to this scale. It does seem like those who turned their backs on this country are the ones now criticizing Rwanda’s attempt to clean up the mess. Maybe this is just my ignorance…I do think it is important to made sure that human rights are being protected, but the atrocities that occurred in 1994 and before will not have an easy fix. And people should understand this and maybe pay a little more attention to areas in this world where similar situations are occurring.

At the meeting, there were quite a few problems reported, judges taking bribes, judges not fully understanding the law, survivors being harassed, etc. We even had one judge get stabbed a few times, but he is still alive, which is a miracle. But, as Kagame has said, we should not look at Gacaca as a system full of problems, we should look at it as a system which has done a lot of good but also has problems. Maybe I’ve already been brainwashed by my office, but I really do agree with that.