INTRODUCTION

This chapter explores two themes – peace and justice – that are often linked in the study of transitional societies and that some commentators argue are closely connected in the context of gacaca. The analysis in this chapter draws heavily on the distinctions made in Chapter 1 between negative and positive peace and among retributive, deterrent and restorative justice. While some sources attempt to draw strict divisions between these types of peace and justice, they often represent interconnected concepts and practices. For example, this chapter highlights that restorative justice, which holds that the punishment of perpetrators must be shaped deliberately towards rebuilding fractured relations, does not oppose all notions of deterrent justice, but only those that hold – as some proponents of the dominant discourse on gacaca argue – that punishment alone is an adequate response to crimes such as genocide. Similarly, positive peace, with its emphasis on long-term maintenance of peace, requires first that communities achieve negative peace, in the form of non-violence. After displaying the connections between negative/positive peace and retributive/deterrent/restorative justice respectively, this chapter argues that gacaca has generally succeeded in facilitating peace and justice, although it has faced major obstacles to fulfilling these objectives.

GACACA AND PEACE

As we will see later in this chapter, many commentators argue that gacaca jeopardises the maintenance of peace and security in Rwanda.