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CHAPTER SIXTEEN
TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE MECHANISMS AND OBJECTIVES 
The Gacaca courts are Rwanda's main transitional justice instrument. They fit into the 
underlying stated objective of accountability with overtones referring to reconciliation, as we 
have argued above. Apart from the Gacaca courts, although in the background and at a much 
slower rate, other transitional justice strategies have been adopted, and different mechanisms have 
been installed. The main responsibility for achieving accountability had originally been placed on 
the ordinary Rwandan justice system. But the tribunals of first instance simply could not handle 
the vast number of cases. The classical justice system dealt with 10,026 cases between 1997 and 
2004. In November 1994, UN Security Council Resolution 955'established the International 
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute individuals responsible for crimes of genocide 
and other violations of international law in order to ensure that these kinds of gross violations of 
human fights would not go unpunished. 
The relation between the ICTR and the Rwandan Government has always been difficult, 
mostly because of the possibility that the tribunal might also investigate war crimes committed 
by RPF soldiers and their commanders. 
The track record of the tribunal is also flawed. Its outreach towards ordinary Rwandans is 
virtually nil. On Rwandan soil the tribunal is portrayed and (thus) perceived as an instance of the 
Western way of doing justicehighly inefficient, time-consuming, expensive, and not adapted to 
Rwandan custom. As with the ICTR proceedings held outside Rwanda in Arusha, in neighboring 
Tanzania, there have been other trials held in third countries. Based on universal jurisdiction 
laws, trials in Switzerland in 1999 and in Belgium in 2001, 2005 and 2007 have contributed to 
the quest for accountability. Alongside this dominant 'punitive' approach, a more restorative 
component has been added by the establishment of the fund for the assistance of the survivors of 
the genocide (F ARG). A fund especially preserved for the compensation of victims (Fonds 
d'lndemnisation, FIND) was also conceived but never became operational. Community service, 
which is closely connected with the Gacaca courts, also contributes to a more restorative and 
compensatory approach to the past. 
A National Unity and Reconciliation Commission (NURC) was set up in 1999 with a 
mandate that can be summarized as 'promoting unity and reconciliation', most visible through the 
organization of the lngando solidarity camps for reintegration and re-education. More important 
seems to be that the establishment of the NURC marked a shift away from an exclusively 

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retributive approach to an additional reconciliatory element. Only in recent years has a discourse 
of reconciliation started to surface. Now every socio-political initiative, from poverty alleviation 
programmes to resettlement schemes to political decentralization, is framed in the language of 
'reconciliation', On Rwandan soil the international Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda 'strengthening 
unity', 'empowerment' and the 'rebuilding of social relations'. Despite this change in atmosphere, 
the Gacaca courts have difficulty shedding the retributive approach to justice which lies at their 
core. As is indicated above, they were conceived in a time when the objective of (or the payment 
of lip-service to) reconciliation was not as prominent as it is today.