Project Leader: Lars Waldorf

In 2002, Rwanda launched the most ambitious experiment in transitional justice ever attempted. While other post-conflict countries have opted for amnesties, truth commissions, selective criminal prosecutions, or some combination thereof, Rwanda decided to put most of the nation on trial. To accomplish this task, the government revived a largely moribund, customary dispute resolution mechanism (gacaca) to try hundreds of thousands of suspected genocidaires in approximately 9000 local communities. In each community, perpetrators, victims, bystanders, and rescuers are supposed to come together once a week to make accusations, hear confessions, try cases, and somehow become better neighbors in the process.

Gacaca provides an important example for other post-conflict societies on how to adapt traditional dispute-resolution mechanisms to advance the twin goals of justice and reconciliation. Gacaca is designed to reveal the truth about how the 1994 genocide unfolded at the local level: genocidaires will confess their crimes, survivors will voice their accusations, and witnesses will say what they saw happen. Thus, gacaca offers an invaluable opportunity to construct local histories of the genocide, while, at the same time, forging collective memories that could provide a lasting basis for ongoing reconciliation efforts.

This research project, which is being supported by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, will produce local-level histories of the 1994 genocide in three communities based on testimony in gacaca proceedings. The research project involves in-depth ethnographic research by the project leader and Rwandan research assistants in 2005-2006.

Lars Waldorf is now conducting a research project in Rwanda with support from the United States Institute of Peace. He was a visiting Core Faculty member at The New School for General Studies in 2004-2005, where he taught courses on international human rights, humanitarian interventions, and African politics and development. He was a Fellow at Harvard Law School's Human Rights Program in 2004. Mr. Waldorf also worked as a civil rights lawyer for nine years, including five years with the United States Department of Justice. He received his bachelor’s degree and his law degree from Harvard.