The Rwandan post-genocide strategic legacy: successes, failures, and transferrable aspects of justice and education

Faced with a fragmented society and critical lack of infrastructure following the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, the post-genocide government were faced with a near impossible and multi-faceted challenge; rebuilding society, avoiding future conflict, securing justice for survivors and victims, and creating capacity within the justice system to enable it to handle the huge numbers of accused perpetrators. Added to this was the complication that there was direct interest and subsequently participation in some of these areas from the international community, namely the United Nations. Given the sensitive nature of all aspects of this challenge, adopting a carefully planned strategic approach to the areas mentioned was, and continues to be, of vital importance.
With the vast scale and scope of the challenges faced, it would be unrealistic to expect every aspect of the post-genocide strategy to have been flawless in terms of execution and result. As a result, throughout the past two decades there has been both positive and negative criticism from both the local and international community. An already completed literature search and review has found that in particular some of the international criticism has not been made with full awareness of the complex context that the chosen strategies have been designed within. Other criticisms both local and international could be argued to have merit.
This research aims to consider all of these issues in detail, and create conclusions and recommendations that outline the true successes, failures, and potentially transferrable aspects of the justice and education strategies in order that lessons can be learned which may have future benefits both locally and internationally. Especially in terms of recommendations and transferrable concepts, it is anticipated that there will be demonstrable impact on a long term basis.