 Okay, we're back, we're live, I'm Jay Fidel, this is ThinkTex, the four o'clock block here in Honolulu on a given Monday and we're doing transitional justice today Monday and we're talking about transitional justice in Rwanda with Gerald Gajima who joins us from Maryland. Gerald, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. So you're from Rwanda and you've been there through crises and genocides. Can you tell us about your background? I understand you're a lawyer, but you're more than that. Tell us about your background. Okay, I'm from Rwanda. My family left Rwanda in 1961 as a result of violence that was taking place at that time. So Rwanda's violence goes a long way back. My father was killed during that violence. My mother brought me and my siblings up in the countries around East Africa, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, and I only returned to Rwanda after the genocide. And the genocide you're referring to was the early 90s and that took place in what part of Rwanda? Oh, the genocide took place in 1994 and it took place across the whole country. On every village, there were massacres. People just woke up and decided to kill their neighbors. It's not an inch of the country that did not experience the genocide. Let me see if I'm right about this. My recollection is that the Belgians had established artificial divisions among the people from the farmers and the ranchers, I guess, the Hutus and the Tutsis and they were killing each other. But even though they were all Rwandan in origin, am I right about that? No, the divisions in our society predate the arrival of Belgium. One like many other countries in our region and across the world was a monarchy, a feudal society for some time, ruled by the king and chiefs who came from the minority Tutsi group. And the majority of the population, Hutu and Tutsi alike were heavily exploited. So to blame the Belgians for inequality in our society prior to colonialism would not be correct. The mistake of the Belgians was that they consolidated those inequalities because they established a system where only sons of the Tutsi chiefs could have education. And if they had the education, they then had better access to opportunities for employment. So the Belgians favored the Tutsi aristocracy a great deal and that made the social inequalities in our society much deeper. But what made people kill each other? Well, I mean, these are people who were otherwise neighbors in the same villages or adjacent villages in the same communities. And one day they woke up, as you said, and they decided to kill their neighbors. What made them do that? That's a good and complex question. I think there are two factors, two very important factors. One factor is that historical grievances about the exploitation of the Hutu majority by the Tutsi aristocracy played a part in fomenting hatred. But political manipulation of the Hutu majority by opportunistic politicians also played a part. They blamed the Tutsi minority for every problem and just incited the population to kill their Tutsi neighbors as a means of trying to hold on to power. Is this unique in Rwanda? Well, was this kind of historic experience played out in other countries before or after? Can you make some comparisons? It's not unique to Rwanda. There are many other countries, especially in our region where the similar social systems of organizations existed. And I would think in other countries, even the West, the West transitioned from being a collection of feudal societies to what it is to deal with time. So people do not have to kill each other for social and political change to take place. So our situation, our social organization was not unique, but our way of dealing with inequalities in our social system were different and catastrophic. Well, can you tell me how catastrophic? And in what way catastrophic? Well, think of it this way, the Tutsi minority, there were maybe between 800 and 1,000 and a million of them, three quarters of the Tutsi population were killed during three months in 1994. So if you can imagine any social group, like if you woke up today and decided to kill 30% of the black population, for example, or to kill all the residents of certain states, or small states, like maybe New Jersey or to wipe them out, that would be catastrophic. So about three quarters of the Tutsi population were killed in 1994. Oh, let me just take a little of your life here. So you and your family were in various places in Africa, outside of Rwanda, you were born there, but you were traveling and you were going to various schools including law schools in various places around Africa and you returned after the events of 1994 and five, why did you return? Was there something that drew you back to Rwanda? Well, that's a very good question because our return in a way contributed to the genocide. I told you that Rwanda has experienced periodic violence. So in 1959, the Belgians changed policies and they stopped supporting the Tutsi aristocracy, allied themselves with the Hutu majority and overthrew the monarchy and the Tutsi aristocracy. So I am supposed to do Tutsi. So the Tutsi were killed in large numbers and those who are not killed were driven to exile. And those who are not killed were driven to exile. Maybe about 300,000 Tutsis were driven from Rwanda in 1959 to 1961. So the policy of the Rwanda government was that the country was very small and that they did not want us back. But at the same time, the countries to which we had fled around East Africa, they did not want us either. So after 30 years in exile, we decided that we needed to go back to our country whether the country wanted us or not. And it so happened that one of the countries to which the Tutsi had fled was Uganda. And in the early 1980s, there was a rebel movement that was trying to topple the government of Uganda. That's the movement led by the current president of Uganda, Mr. Mseveni. Is this the time when Idi Amin was in power? This was slightly after Amin left power. So we joined Mseveni's army and when he took power, we formed the big proportion of his army. And in 1994, when these were in the Ugandan army, I was not a soldier, I was not in the army, but many of these were in the Ugandan army, decided to leave their positions in Uganda and they attacked Rwanda because they said the government of the day could not keep them as refugees against their will. But what happened is that the government of the day, instead of fighting the rebels, instead took revenge on innocent Tutsis who are living inside the country. And that's how the genocide occurred. What they were saying is that if they had killed us all in the 1960s, we would never have returned to kill them. So they decided that they would now kill all the Tutsis so that no one should leave to tell the story. And it's actually 60 minutes interview that I did immediate after the genocide on this very topic. It was with that other, you know, who is, the African-American journalist with a near ring who used to be on 60 minutes? Oh, I know who you mean, yeah. I forget his name. Yeah, he's still there. No, he died a few years ago. Oh, okay, I was talking about somebody else then. So, you went back, what kind of reception did you get? Was the enmity between the Hutu and the Tutsi the same as during the genocide, or had it improved when you went back? So actually during the genocide, I was not the one that I was in the United States. I was representing the rebel group in the United States. In the United States. So I was at the United Nations trying to raise awareness about the genocide. I was in Washington trying to talk about to Congress, to the State Department, to the Defense Department about what was going on in Gwanda. And after the genocide, I really did not feel like going back because of what had happened. But then I felt an obligation to go back and help the rebuilding of the country. So I went, so when I went back, what was it like? You can imagine a country where literally, massacres have taken place on every hill across the country, in every village. So did people welcome us? They had no choice because we were the victors. They had to accept us. Were they happy with us? No, because violence, if we were divided before the genocide, the genocide drove us even farther apart and memories of these things live on for a very long time. I worked in Bosnia after I left Gwanda and as a judge, I remember going through documents, witness statements of women who have been killed by sub-soldiers and the sub-soldiers, the orthodox in terrorizing Bosnian women, Muslims, they would blame them for atrocities that were committed against the subs. In the 1400s by the tax. So 600 years later, people still bore grievances. So is Gwanda united by no means? We are still very divided. Along the same lines? Along the same lines, yes. So gee whiz, you describe in such analytical terms, Gerald, a state of madness, a state of complete chaos, a state of rampant hatred and violence and killing. How do you feel about that? What I will say is that it was not chaotic. It was organized. Violence on that scale does not happen without a government in power that is in control and is determined to carry out its plan to exterminate a section of the population. Ordinary people would never rise up and kill three quarters of a community unless all institutions of the state, the army, the police, the civilian government allow working in coordination to cut out atrocities on that scale. So it was not chaotic. It was very organized and systematic. People woke up every day and said they were going to work. Civil servants, military people, ordinary civilians. And by saying they were going to work meant they were going to look for people to kill. So it was not chaotic. It was organized. It was systematic and it lasted for almost 100 days. I think the government affirmatively killed people. Did they send the military or the police or other representatives of the government to actually do the killing or did they somehow foment the killing by the people in the countryside? How did that happen? Both, some, especially the police in the villages were involved in direct attacks. The army often came in when two civilians tried to defend themselves, but largely the government of them, they had trained the militia, civilian militia that they armed and let loose across the country to do the killing. So I asked you, Gerald, how you felt about that? You haven't really answered me. It's, you know, I, what can I say? I, after, for about four years from 1999 to 2003, I was the prosecutor general. My primary responsibility was to arrange the investigation and try of some of those cases. And I did cut out some investigations and of the higher ranking people. The, so every case that I handled, I would think that this was the most evil that I could ever confront. But every new case appeared even worse. So what do I feel about it? It's just not human. It's not what people do. It's hard to explain what takes possession of, or people to commit virus on that scale. I had a friend, when people used to say that during the genocide, the perpetrators of the atrocities were behaving like animals. And my friend would say, no, animals don't kill each other like this. It's worse, behaving worse than animals. It's just impossible to explain evil of that nature. I have no words to describe it. Well, where do you put it in your appreciation of humanity, of the human experience, the human condition? It happened. It happened on a large scale. It happened not only in Wanda, but maybe in other places too, in different ways. Could it happen again? Unfortunately, yes, it can happen again because Wanda was not the first. In memory, I mean, we remember like, for example, the attacks of the Armenians, of the attacks against the Armenians, where a hundred years ago, to this day, Pakistan refuses even to acknowledge that violence. It happened in Cambodia. So it can happen even today. It makes me feel our nature as human beings. It's very precarious. You never know what a human being is capable of. So I believe violence on this scale can happen in any place. All that needs, all that is needed for it to happen is to have people in authority willing to do it, willing to go for it, and having a pretext that they can use to go to a part of the population. If you woke up today and seriously advocated that there are too many Hispanics in the United States and the United States armed forces were willing to look the other way. It could easily happen. So it can happen anywhere. People used to think, for example, that Europe was a very civilized country. That when you read about history, historical texts, you see many references to civilized nations and barbaric nations. But in the 1930s, in the lifetime of many people who are living today, Hitler was able to convince millions of people to wake up, attack their Jewish neighbors and try to exterminate them from the first of yet. And this is one of the so-called most civilized nations. So it can happen anywhere. Well, you have seen it very close up. And I wonder if you see yourself as different because of your proximity, your study, your adjudication, your investigation of what happened. Do you see yourself as different from the ordinary person in the street because of that? Not really, because most of the people who were responsible for these atrocities, they were ordinary people, professional men, doctors, lawyers, even priests. You know, where do you even put, draw the dividing line because, between those who bear responsibility and those who don't? And because this violence happens because it becomes acceptable to people. During the genocide, there are many people who did not pick up machetes to kill their neighbors, but they looked and didn't speak up. They saw what was going on. They did not hide their neighbors. They felt that, you know, it was none of their business. So what do you draw the line of responsibility for evil? Is it just the people who bear the guns and the machetes? Or do you also attribute responsibility to bystanders? And there are many people like me who are bystanders at best, or even accomplices by, you know, not taking up the machetes or the guns, but inciting the violence, like journalists like you. I remember when we were in Kigari before I left, before the genocide broke out. There was one radio station. It ran like 34 hours a day, inciting violence against the Tutsi. And we would listen to it nonstop, not because of we approved what they were saying, but because, I mean, it's hard to imagine that a radio station, a journalist can do something like that. So there were people, even journalists, priests, people you would not expect to participate to be involved in the atrocities. I think as you said, there's a burden on everyone to take steps that would minimize the risk of this happening again in any place where it might happen, which could be any place. And so you've dedicated a good part of your life as a lawyer and somebody involved in investigating the atrocities to that issue. And I wonder if you could help us understand what you have to do in a given community, by virtue of your investigation, by virtue of the International Criminal Court at The Hague, by virtue of a government that's more enlightened, what do you have to do to develop the accountability and to minimize the risk that leaders, negative leaders will emerge again from whatever part of the society and that people will not stand by again from whatever part of the society to allow this to happen. How have you been doing that? How do you think it's best done? First of all, we need to have justice. All this happens because a culture of impunity has been established. In Rwanda, this killing started in the 60s, but the people who committed the killings were rewarded instead of being held accountable. Like when we left Rwanda, I doubt that the person who killed our father was ever prosecuted. The people who took our property were never told to bring it back. Leaders who led killings were instead rewarded by being appointed to public offices. So impunity breeds violence. And that's why we are involved in transitional justice, like what Project Expedite Justice does. The hope is that if you can hold people accountable, people will learn from them and will think twice before they commit such atrocities. But I need to just make one clarification. It's not enough to have justice, told perpetrators of atrocity accountable. Justice alone will not solve this problem. You, at the same time, have to have political reforms that address the root causes of the conflicts in the society. Because if you do not address the root causes, you are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past. And that's in Rwanda, yes, we've tried perpetrators of the genocide, but we've not addressed the root causes of the conflict, which struggles between the two groups for control of political power. The challenge is what kind of political system can you put in place that guarantees everyone security and equal opportunity, where people do not feel that if the other group is in power, they will work to exterminate them. So Rwanda has done well in terms of bringing perpetrators of the genocide justice, but it has had less success in calling out political reforms that address the root causes of problems and difficulties. Yeah, well, let me drill down into two elements of what you were talking about. When you say justice, Gerald, what do you mean? You mean if you find somebody, for example, who has been guilty of a massacre, what do you do with him? Do you put him in jail? Do you kill him too? What do you do with him? What is justice for that person? Assume that the case has been proven. First of all, when there is large scale violence, we have to think of justice in different terms from justice in a normal country. There is no legal system that was ever designed to deal with mass atrocity. In every village, as I told you, ordinary people, young men, women, middle-aged men, they woke up and their duty was to go and look for people to kill. So hundreds of thousands, maybe millions were involved in committing atrocities. So initially, after the genocide, we thought we could investigate and prosecute all of them, but after some time we realized that really mass atrocity is not something that you can deal with by investigating and prosecuting every case. So justice in the situation of mass atrocity must be different. It must be a combination of different things. You can't prosecute some people. Those who bear the greatest responsibility. You can give people who bear less responsibility, less say yes, punishment, maybe by going through systems like the truth and reconciliation commissions that some countries have gone through like South Africa. Tell people that if they can acknowledge their wrongdoings, you can maybe ensure that they do not go to prison, but maybe they can do community service. And you can provide justice, not maybe by sending perpetrators to prison, but by providing reparations to the victims. Or even the mere fact of acknowledging the wrongdoing, the suffering of the victims, that in itself is justice. So justice in a situation where violence has occurred on a large scale is a combination of all these mechanisms, not forgetting the international mechanisms as well, because what happens is that when violence is committed by people who are in power, or who come to power after war, it's not reasonable to expect that their own governments can hold them accountable. So there is room for international criminal justice as well to hold high level perpetrators accountable because there is no opportunity for them to be held accountable in their national ecosystems. So justice is many things in a situation where mass atrocity has happened. Well, you mentioned truth and reconciliation. You mentioned the intervention of other powers, especially when there's a government that may at least be in part responsible. Has that happened in Rwanda? Has there been truth and reconciliation in Rwanda? Has there been intervention by other powers that have stepped in or wanted to step in in order to adjudicate or participate in the justice system? What happened is that during 1994, the genocide happened after American forces were attacked in Somalia. So the Clinton administration was very determined that they would not send a single American soldier to Rwanda to help the victims of the genocide. And because the genocide, when America does not, because the US did not want to send soldiers to Rwanda, they made it impossible for the UN to do so as well. In fact, we had a peacekeeping force, but they withdrew it after the genocide started. And that was clear in the movie, Hotel Rwanda. They were not active. There is no precedent for the international community intervening to stop atrocity outside Europe. It only happened in Kosovo. And we only wonder whether that was done because the victims were white. But no, there was no intervention. There was no serious attempt to stop the genocide when it happened by, there was no attempt by the major. Should the United Nations have been more active? Should the United Nations have stopped the, taken affirmative steps, even physical military steps to stop what was happening in Rwanda? It should have, but as I told you, the Clinton administration, and I told you I was in Washington and New York, the Clinton administration, and I met Madden Roebright when she was ambassador to the UN. And we were at the State Department almost every other week, trying to talk about the genocide. And they would tell us, we are not going to send American soldiers. What you should do is stop fighting and go back to the negotiating table. But it's so difficult to negotiate with people who are committing genocide. So yes, it would have been good if the UN had been able to intervene to stop the genocide or to prevent it. But the US government had decided that they were not going to get involved. Neither were they going to allow the United Nations to be involved. You know, Gerald, I have one last question and it sort of sums up what I've learned from you. So here, Rwanda, there was a history of genocide, of mass killing massacre, killing back in the 50s. And so it was embedded at least in the recent culture. And then you had government institutions that were corrupt enough to facilitate and encourage massacres of people. And the people who conducted the massacres were on both sides of the equation, they were completely divided in a lethal way where they didn't believe the government was gonna take care of them. And that it sounds like to me the democracy or at least the sense of confidence in the government had dissipated in there somewhere, nobody believed the government would protect him, nobody believed they would be treated fairly. And that was the ardor dish, so to speak, of the violence that followed, that the government had essentially failed. It failed both sides, Hutus and Tutsis both. And I guess what I'm asking you is that this, and also you said that this could happen anywhere. So if I give you a hypothetical country where the government has failed, where the people are divided, even violently divided, that's when you could, and the democracy or whatever form of government it was is gone and nobody has confidence in it anymore. That's the environment in which this kind of genocide could happen, the con use said could happen again, that's the environment which would allow it to happen again. Am I right? You're very right, a hundred percent. At Geary these things do not happen in democracies. They happen in dictatorships. In countries where there's a facade of a democracy, but the president wins elections by 98%. If he's not the sole candidate, he's still able to win by crazy margins. So, but no, the government didn't fail. The government succeeded because its goal, its plan was to wipe out the Tutsi community and they succeeded because they killed three quarters of the Tutsi community. So they didn't fail, they succeeded. When we went to Rwanda, my colleagues, some of them used to say, we won the war. But I'll tell them, how could you even think you won the war? You lost three quarters of the population and you think you won a war? So no, the government did not fail. The government succeeded. It got what it wanted. It got, they wanted to exterminate the Tutsi community until not a single one was left to tell the story and they went three quarters of the way towards achieving their goals. My mind reminded of that old quote that the wars and history are told by the survivors. The history of wars, the history of humanity is told by the survivors. And the pictures, yeah. Cheryl, they're wonderful to talk to you. I've learned so much in these two minutes and I really appreciate you coming on the show and talking about it with me and answering my questions. I dearly sincerely appreciate it. It's been a pleasure, a privilege to talk to you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Cheryl Gajima. Transitional Justice in Rwanda, here on the Transitional Justice Show on Monday afternoon on Think Tech Hawaii. I hope we can meet again. Me too. I will.