The Foreign Service Journal, October 2007

O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 49 nder a bright blue sky the light breeze roiled the stalks of grass on the sun-dappled hill. The idyllic scene, however, was the setting for a long-running sequence of nasty, emo- tional, heart-wrenching dramas that played out every few days. Five solemn citizens — three men, two women — sat behind a table arranged under several massive eucalyptus trees. A crowd of several hundred spectators splayed out on school benches, their own chairs, or on the ground around them. Gacaca (community) court was in session. A freelance stringer, I had come to Rwanda some 10 years after its terrible genocide to see for myself — and to get a good story — of how justice was being delivered. My interpreter, Emile, explained that these community courts were designed to handle the less severe cases. “ Less severe?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “Not so many murder- ers, but those who have confessed and those who supported or profited from genocide in other ways.” Emile was from this region 50 miles southwest of the capital and had chosen this hillside to visit because he said the case against Evariste Nahimana was odd. He was both a killer and a savior. It promised to be an intense discussion. I felt like a voyeur intruding upon this airing of local pas- sions. What right did I, a foreigner, have to listen and to judge events that were unfathomable? Yet I stayed screwed to my seat as the dialogue began. With a nod from the presiding elder, the defendant was ushered to a seat before the table. He was a haggard man, of indeterminate middle age and skinny, with a gaunt face and sunken eyes. I supposed that 10 years of prison would age a man. He was dressed conventionally in trousers and a fray- ing yellow shirt. Appropriately deferential to the court and the community, he sat patiently as instructed. The president read the committal document from the Ministry of Justice, as well as the brief confession Nahimana signed in prison. Next he turned to an old woman — not one of the court members —who, being bent at the waist from years of agricultural toil, slowly rose. She identified Nahimana and reviewed his lin- T EN YEARS AFTER THE GENOCIDE IN R WANDA , AN A MERICAN REPORTER HAS A UNIQUE ENCOUNTER WITH THE ONGOING PROCESS OF COMMUNITY JUSTICE . U B Y R OBERT G RIBBIN This story won third place in the Journal ’s 2007 Foreign Service fiction contest. Other winning stories will appear in future issues of the FSJ . Robert Gribbins spent many years in East and Central Africa, first as a Peace Corps Volunteer and then as a diplomat. Twice posted to Kigali, as deputy chief of mis- sion (1979-1981) and ambassador (1995-1999), he is the author of a memoir titled In the Aftermath of Genocide: the U.S. Role in Rwanda. FS F I CT I ON B EST S ERVED C OLD