The world failed Rwanda before and during the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and yet even the lessons from this tragedy, which claimed more than one million lives, are not being heeded, says Dr Solomon Dersso, a member of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights – one of the organs of the African Union.

In an exclusive interview with The New Times reporter Moise Bahati, the Ethiopian human rights lawyer said Rwanda has come a long way from the country he saw in 2003 at the beginning of the Gacaca Courts, which tried hundreds of thousands of suspected Genocide perpetrators.

Dersso was in Kigali as a judge for the Christof Heyns Moot Court Competition, organised by the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria.

The excerpts:

You were last in Rwanda in 2003. What has changed since you were here two decades ago?

I came to Rwanda for the first time in the context of a field visit by students of the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria.

It was the first time that the university organised a field trip as part of the study of human rights on the African continent in order to have a first-hand experience of a country that had experienced extraordinary violations, involving mass atrocities in the context of the Genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and to understand how Rwanda, after having experienced that extraordinary horror, had been responding to and dealing with the human rights issues rising from that experience.

We visited some of the memorial sites, engaged with victims and also experienced the Gacaca Courts system that was starting to be implemented by Rwanda in response to that tragic experience.

Coming back 21 years later, again, in the context of the work of the Centre for Human Rights, but in another capacity now as somebody who is involved in the promotion, and protection of human rights at the continental level through the African Commission on Human People&039;s Rights, the one striking thing is, of course, the reconstruction of Rwanda after that experience.

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Going around the around the city, you clearly see that this is a country that has come a long way in turning a corner, rising from the ashes of Genocide and trying to leave that experience behind and build a prosperous, economically advanced country.

The experience of reconstruction and development is one that stands out. It's difficult to compare Rwanda of 2003, at least in terms of my experience in Kigali, with what it is today.

Bach then, the experience of the Genocide was still very fresh, the state of infrastructure was still very poor. The Kigali of 2003, I can’t compare it to the Kigali of today.

What does that transformation tell us about post-Genocide Rwanda?

I would imagine that there are a number of factors. One very important factor has to do with leadership – the recognition and a resolve that what happened shouldn't hold us back, that we can rise up from what happened and emerge to become a society that will ensure the non-recurrence of what happened, that will also rebuild a resilient system.

Together with that leadership question is that resolve both at the leadership level and at the wider societal level not to be held back, to rise up from the ashes of the genocide.

For survivors, it is also a process of healing through this reconstruction process. I think it's a result of these factors of leadership, resolve and the commitment of the wider society to rise from that tragedy and build a better future for themselves and create a condition in which the survivors and the new generation would be able to live a dignified life.

You’ve also visited Kigali Genocide Memorial, the final resting place for more than 250,000 victims. What was your experience at the memorial?

It was a very moving experience to come back and encounter that history, as exhibited in the Genocide Memorial. I have been engaged on matters relating to the Genocide against the Tutsi in the context of the work of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights, including the course of leading the study of the African Commission on Transitional Justice in Africa.

I have also participated in the annual commemoration of the Genocide in the months of April, May and June. During those encounters and my visit in 2003, I have had some understanding of what has happened.

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But, coming back and visiting the Genocide Memorial made me feel as if I am actually encountering this for the very first time. It was the scale of what happened, the brutality of how the atrocities and the massacre were perpetrated.

One incident that has left a very strong impression on me was that of a 10-year-old child, called David, displayed in this section of children. He and his family, including his mum, were being sheltered in the UN mission compound and he was of the belief at the time that the UN mission would protect them.

And his last words are written there, ‘Mum, the UN will protect us.’ But he actually ended up being killed.

Those specific individual experiences drive home the gravity of what happened, but also what those individual stories mean – the most innocent of human beings being subjected to that kind of brutality and death for the very simple reason of being a member of a particular group.

At the memorial, one of the narrators, who himself was a victim, said, ‘I don't think that people understand what happened in Rwanda.’

Going through that experience made me realise why he said what he said. I think, for those of us who are far away and haven't gone through that scale and nature of brutality, we don’t adequately get to understand the kind of experience that people have gone through.

Even after the visit, you are still left with this question, ‘I really don't understand this thing; how come that this kind of stuff happens at that scale and with that kind of brutality?’ It is one of those tragedies, which one struggles to understand and get one's head around.

How does the work of the African Commission on Human and People's Rights contribute to Genocide prevention and the fight against Genocide denialism?

One thing that we need to understand is that human and people's rights are provided with standards, whereby states would have an obligation to observe and comply with legal expectations that they have subscribed to under the African Charter.

Those human rights standards are a prerequisite for creating the conditions for avoiding and preventing the occurrence of that kind of calamity.

That calamity can only happen in an environment where those rights and freedoms do not have a space for their protection and for their enjoyment by individuals.

That is why, for example, the Commission in its effort in advocating for and in demanding compliance with the standards of the African Charter and related human rights standards, advances the creation of those conditions that would make sure that those kinds of extraordinary events, [such as genocide,] do not happen.

Indeed, the mandate of the Commission itself is an exercise in preventing genocide, an exercise in preventing the ideology that leads to the occurrence of genocide.

How did the Genocide against the Tutsi inform policy discussions during the OAU/AU transition?

This is a very important consideration. Remember that the world failed to prevent the occurrence of the genocide, despite the signs that were present for the possibility of the occurrence of the Genocide. Once the massacre had started, the world didn't do enough in order to contain the scale of the atrocities that were being perpetrated.

The Organisation of African Unity (OAU) at the time started that conversation, among others, in 1994. At its summit in Tunis, Tunisia, former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela clearly articulated that

"We have everything in us, as Africans, to avoid the tragedy that is unfolding in front of our eyes in Africa. We should be able to take responsibility for what is happening before us.’

The summit was happening as the tragedy was also unfolding. That led to the establishment of the Panel of Eminent Personalities on the Genocide against the Tutsi by the Organisation of African Unity, which was proposed by former Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and the former Secretary General of the OAU Salim Ahmed Salim, who really facilitated the work of that panel and clearly outlined the limitations and the deficiencies of the OAU to effectively address those kinds of situations.

All these served as the background during the debate about the transition from the Organisation of African Unity to the African Union.

Indeed, if you look at the Constitutive Act of the African Union, among other things, it recognises the right of the African Union to intervene in cases of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, for the first time in an international legal treaty.

This was a result of the lessons learnt from that tragic experience and was in an effort to heed the lessons and create a continental system that would facilitate the prevention of the occurrence of similar tragedies.

The Gacaca Courts helped Rwanda deal with the hundreds of thousands of suspected perpetrators of the Genocide against the Tutsi. But some observers criticized this home-grown initiative for not meeting international standards.

What is your view about the Gacaca Courts and these criticisms?

The challenges encountered by Rwanda in the aftermath of the Genocide against the Tutsi were enormous. On the one hand, you have the entire legal system that was completely destroyed.

On the other hand, you have a large number of people who were engaged at a mass scale in the perpetration of those atrocities, in killing their neighbours, people they knew and, of course, children and engaging in other acts, including using rape as a weapon of extermination of the target group.

There is expectation on the part of victims and survivors that justice will be served. There is also expectation for Rwanda to create conditions on how not only to deliver justice to the victims and survivors, but also to rebuild state-society relationship and to mend a totally broken fabric of the society.

That is the context in which the resort to the Gacaca Court system came about.

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It was an attempt basically to use local legal and conflict resolution resources and adapt them in order to meet these extraordinary demands that Rwanda was facing against the background of the catastrophe that it had experienced.

If you look at it from that perspective, what options did Rwanda have at the time? One option would be the establishment of an international judicial mechanism that would deal with a crime of an extraordinary nature like genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, which were perpetrated in the course of that catastrophe. Indeed, that was done.

But that International tribunal can only deal with a handful of cases.

And if you leave it at that, then you would have a huge vacuum of impunity, a huge case of failing to deliver to the expectations of victims and survivors in terms of getting justice with respect to those heinous acts perpetrated by a large number of people.

And that is not an attainable proposition. National courts were not functional; the legal profession was among the major victims of the genocide as well.

In this context, therefore, that response was basically meant to arise to the occasion and use a local innovative solution to these extraordinary circumstances.

The Gacaca Court system has that restorative approach. The advantage that it brought is that it focused not just on the perpetrators – yes, the perpetrators needed to be held accountable – but also it gave victims an opportunity to be heard, to get healing.

It is a very unique experiment, from which a lot of lessons can be learnt in responding to this situation.

As to the criticisms, sometimes, when we do things in a very technical way, it's easy to arrive at that kind of sweeping generalisation about that particular situation.

Standards are established for dealing with violations that occur in the ordinary course of events. Those standards couldn't be applied to what was basically an extraordinary event. This is an extraordinary event that requires a completely different standard and approach.

So, if you consider the extraordinary nature of what Rwanda was confronted with and on the basis of that you measure it against what the Gacaca Court system was seeking to do, you ask yourself from the perspective of victims, has it met their expectations?

From the perspective of even the perpetrators, what it has done is that it actually brought about and provided a restorative justice approach rather than what may be considered to be a punishment approach to these kinds of crimes.

In international human rights law, one of the questions that you ask if there is a deviation from a certain standard is whether there is a legitimate purpose for that deviation. And in this instance, there is a compelling legitimate purpose for not being able to comply with that.

The Gacaca Court system and its contribution need to be commended, rather than criticised.

Local practices and traditions offer a very viable opportunity and an avenue for achieving justice, reconciliation and healing for victims, but also for the rehabilitation of perpetrators.

The African Union and other international organizations recognize that what happened in Rwanda was a genocide perpetrated against the Tutsi. However, some countries have maintained vague designations such as the Rwandan Genocide or Genocide in Rwanda. What do you make of this?

There are two ways of looking at it. First, you look at the Genocide Convention. Its definition of genocide is, an act that is perpetrated against a specific ethnic, religious or linguistic group. It's not an act that happens against the people of a country as such. There is that specificity.

What happened in the Rwandan case was perpetrated by people in power, supported by others in the society against a specific category of people, and those people who were the target of these acts were the Tutsi.

Basically, from a purely international law perspective, if you are to recognise what happened in Rwanda as a genocide, the only way that you can recognise it is by reference to a specific category of people in Rwanda.

Second, some say it’s not just the Tutsi who were affected by what happened and that is true. Moderate Hutu were also affected by what happened.

Now, the essential question from a legal perspective is, who was the target, the main target of the perpetration of what happened in Rwanda?

Additionally, genocide has to be a state-sponsored act – it is not something that is committed simply by a group of individuals.

If you look at it from all of these criteria, you can only have a proper designation of this, being a genocide against the Tutsi. That doesn't deny the fact that there were Hutu who were affected by that. It actually follows the standards of international law as established in the Genocide Convention.

That is why the UN recognised and used this proper designation. That is also why the African Union, through a decision of the assembly of the African Union, applied this same designation.

And you find, therefore, that from a legal and human rights perspective, it is this proper designation that has to be adopted.

It's not just from the perspective of the Genocide Convention; it's also from a perspective of the people who have been victimised, who were the target of this extraordinary act. We owe it to them.

By recognising the Genocide against the Tutsi, you are also making sure that it doesn't recur. You don't create a vague environment for denial, which is in and of itself a continuation of what already occurred.

One of the problems that affects the Great Lakes Region today is Genocide ideology and hate speech. Do you have any plans at the Commission to counter this problem?

The African Commission on Human and People’s Rights has various mechanisms that deal with these kinds of issues and indeed, hate speech is not something that can be considered as being protected under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights or in the human rights standards of the African Human Rights System.

Second, at the Commission, I play the role of a focal point on traditional justice and human rights in Africa, and, among other things, we deal with issues relating to denial of genocide, which is not something that is acceptable, both in terms of the African Human Rights System, but also internationally.

We have guidelines relating to freedom of expression that actually specify that incitement of violence and hatred against a particular group is not something that can be considered protected by law, but something that states need to regulate and effectively address as part of ensuring protection to those who may be subjected to those kinds of activities.

What is your parting shot?

One of the things that struck me is that while the reconstruction and the effort towards turning a page and rebuilding Rwanda give you hope, at the same time, if the events that are happening in Africa and elsewhere in the world are anything to go by, you wonder whether we as humans tend to forget quickly about extraordinary events like the Genocide against the Tutsi, and be casual about it and forget the lessons from events like these.

Not heeding the lessons of this one often sets us up to repeat what happened, not necessarily in Rwanda but elsewhere.

I’m not sure that we are doing enough in terms of heeding the lessons learnt from Rwanda. That is why the memorial site is such a profound contribution, not just to keeping the memories of those who lost their lives but also importantly in helping the world to try as much as possible to ensure that it heeds the lessons from Rwanda and does everything it could in order to prevent its occurrence elsewhere.

I have to say that we are not doing enough. I do hope that Rwanda continues to help the world, and that through these memorial processes we do everything we could to avoid the recurrence of this anywhere else in Africa, including in places like Darfur in the context of the current war that is unfolding in Sudan.