Synopses & Reviews
When genocidal violence gripped Rwanda in 1994, the international community recoiled, hastily withdrawing its peacekeepers. Late that year, in an effort to redeem itself, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to seek accountability for some of the worst atrocities since World War II: the genocide suffered by the Tutsi and crimes against humanity suffered by the Hutu. But faced with competing claims, the prosecution focused exclusively on the crimes of Hutu extremists. No charges would be brought against the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front, which ultimately won control of the country. The UN, as if racked by guilt for its past inaction, gave in to pressure by Rwandaandrsquo;s new leadership. With the Hutu effectively silenced, and the RPF constantly reminding the international community of its failure to protect the Tutsi during the war, the Tribunal pursued an unusual form of one-sided justice, born out of contrition. and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Fascinated by the Tribunalandrsquo;s rich complexities, journalist Thierry Cruvellier came back day after day to watch the proceedings, spending more time there than any other outside observer. Gradually he gained the confidence of the victims, defendants, lawyers, and judges. Drawing on interviews with these protagonists and his close observations of their interactions, Cruvellier takes readers inside the courtroom to witness the motivations, mechanisms, and manipulations of justice as it unfolded on the stage of high-stakes, global politics. It is this ground-level view that makes his account so valuableandmdash;and so absorbing. A must-read for those who want to understand the dynamics of international criminal tribunals, Court of Remorse reveals both the possibilities and the challenges of prosecuting human rights violations.and#160;and#160;A Choice Outstanding Academic Book
Best Books for General Audiences, selected by the American Association for School Libraries and the Public Library Association
Best Books for High Schools, selected by the American Association for School Libraries
Review
andldquo;Remaking Rwanda is an ambitious book, a rich and varied compilation that demonstrates the full complement of approaches, methods, and concerns informing the study of post-genocide Rwanda.andrdquo;andmdash;Lee Ann Fujii, author of Killing Neighbors: Webs of Violence in Rwanda
Review
andldquo;This rich array of careful scholarship provides a valuable, multifaceted view of a country still struggling with the aftereffects of genocide and civil war. It offers an important corrective to the naively rosy picture of Rwanda that too often prevails in the American media.andrdquo;andmdash;Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopoldandrsquo;s Ghost
Review
andldquo;An important contribution to scholarship both on Rwanda and on human rights. Many of the chapters, by leading and emergent Rwanda scholars, directly challenge received wisdom about governance in post-conflict-states, and raise serious questions about the impact of a range of transitional justice measures on longer-term peacebuilding.andrdquo;andmdash;Chandra Lekha Sriram, author of Peace as Governance: Power-Sharing, Armed Groups and Contemporary Peace Negotiations
Review
andldquo;This is a mandatory book on current Rwandaandmdash;by far the best informed treatment written so far. It is a book that nobody who works in Rwandaandmdash;in development, diplomacy, information technology, health, education, etc.andmdash;should neglect: it will allow them to understand far more about this fascinating country than they could get from any other source. In short, it is a must-read for all.andrdquo;andmdash;Peter Uvin, H-Africa
Review
andldquo;This volume is compulsory reading for anyone interested in comprehending some of the contemporary debates about Rwanda and human rights.andrdquo;andmdash;Georgiana Holmes, The Round Table
Review
andldquo;There is still a steady flow of books about the Rwandan genocide of 1994. But Rwandaandrsquo;s present circumstances have been largely neglected. This edited volume is perhaps the first serious attempt to assess contemporary politics in Rwanda over the course of the last decade.andrdquo;?andmdash;Foreign Affairs
Review
A deeply penetrating critique of dominant trends in the human rights literature. This volume poses a persuasive challenge to those scholars who overlook the uneven and nonlinear development of human rights.”Victor Peskin, author of
International Justice in Rwanda and the BalkansReview
The contributors illustrate well the complexity of analyzing specific situations and defining strategies for action, as well as the relevance of context, history, and politics.”Susana Kaiser, University of San Francisco
Review
and#160;and#8220;The most outstanding contribution to the anthropology of Rwanda during the 1980s and 1990s. Danielle de Lameand#8217;s A Hill among a Thousand weaves observation and theoretical analysis into a seamless whole.and#8221;and#8212;Jan Vansina, author of Antecedents of Modern Rwanda: The Nyiginya Kingdom
Review
and#8220;De Lame's familiarity with Rwandan historiography is unparalleled. As a field researcher, she spent long periods in Rwanda and used her time well. The result: an ethnography that gives full recognition to the complexities of a field too often treated in reductionist terms.and#8221; and#8212;David Newbury, Smith College
Review
andldquo;An outstanding accomplishment. . . . The book sets a high standard for how to write about the social world of Africa.andrdquo;andmdash;Tony Waters, International Journal of African Historical Studies
Review
andldquo;A profoundly empathetic and comprehensive narrative that goes to the bottom of Rwandansandrsquo; everyday struggles triggered by a contextual and inevitable urge to face their own violent past.andrdquo;andmdash;Aloys Habimana, Rwandan human rights lawyer
Review
andldquo;The stories of life in postgenocide Rwanda presented in this book are deeply touching and challenge the dominant discourse that portrays Rwanda as a simple story of successful postconflict rebuilding. This book is essential reading for anyone with interest in Rwanda and in the legacies of violence, gender, society, memory, and transitional justice.andrdquo;andmdash;Timothy Longman, Boston University
Review
andldquo;The most important contribution of this fine study is Burnet's conceptual breakthrough exploring the role of 'amplified silence.' Where the power of official discourse prevents many from mourning their losses, such silences speak loudly to those aware of them.andrdquo;andmdash;Catharine Newbury, Smith College
Review
andldquo;A remarkable anatomy of selected cases. . . . Cruvellierandrsquo;s depiction of the atmosphere and characters inside the courtroom is gripping. He never lets the reader forget the human and personal implications of the proceedings he is describing.andrdquo;andmdash;Luc Reydams, The American Journal of International Law
Review
andldquo;The most comprehensive analysis to date.andrdquo;andmdash;Jean-Philippe Randeacute;my, Le Monde
Review
andldquo;Cruvellier gets behind the rhetoric of the court to reveal its contradictions, blind spots, and day-to-day operations. A remarkably perceptive, subtle analysis of how a major human rights institution actually works.andrdquo;andmdash;Scott Straus, series editor and author of The Order of Genocide: Race, Power, and War in Rwanda
Review
andldquo;By far the best and most serious reckoning of the workings of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Cruvellier spent years closely watching the proceedings, and his astutely observed scenes of courtroom drama establish his sympathy for this experiment in justice. But he ultimately comes to question the very idea that the worldandrsquo;s major powers should use international courts to adjudicate the political crimes of weaker countries. After all, he asks, isnandrsquo;t it inevitable that such tribunals will reflect the weaknesses, compromises, and lack of international engagement that produced them in the first place?andrdquo;andmdash;Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families
Review
andldquo;Burnet presents a thoroughly intersectional analysis of the ways in which peoplesandrsquo; lives are shaped by gender, ethnicity and class as interlocking systems of oppression.andrdquo;andmdash;
Womenandrsquo;s Review of BooksReview
andldquo;A landmark in the historiography of the Rwandan genocide. No serious scholar writing about the genocide can afford to ignore this trailblazing contribution.andrdquo;andmdash;Renandeacute; Lemarchand, author of
The Dynamics of Violence in Central AfricaReview
andldquo;An outstanding work of scholarship that makes a significant contribution to our understanding of political dynamics in Rwanda and how and why the 1994 genocide occurred there.andrdquo;andmdash;Catharine Newbury, author of
The Cohesion of Oppression: Clientship and Ethnicity in Rwanda, 1860andndash;1960Synopsis
In the mid-1990s, civil war and genocide ravaged Rwanda. Since then, the countryandrsquo;s new leadership has undertaken a highly ambitious effort to refashion Rwandaandrsquo;s politics, economy, and society, and the countryandrsquo;s accomplishments have garnered widespread praise. Remaking Rwanda is the first book to examine Rwandaandrsquo;s remarkable post-genocide recovery in a comprehensive and critical fashion. By paying close attention to memory politics, human rights, justice, foreign relations, land use, education, and other key social institutions and practices, this volume raises serious concerns about the depth and durability of the countryandrsquo;s reconstruction.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Edited by Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf, Remaking Rwanda brings together experienced scholars and human rights professionals to offer a nuanced, historically informed picture of post-genocide Rwandaandmdash;one that reveals powerful continuities with the nationandrsquo;s past and raises profound questions about its future.and#160;and#160;Best Special Interest Books, selected by the American Association of School Librariansand#160;Best Special Interest Books, selected by the Public Library Reviewers
Synopsis
Remaking Rwanda is the first book to examine Rwandaandrsquo;s remarkable post-genocide recovery in a comprehensive and critical fashion. By paying close attention to memory politics, human rights, justice, foreign relations, land use, education, and other key social institutions and practices, this volume raises serious concerns about the depth and durability of the countryandrsquo;s reconstruction.
Synopsis
By identifying and embracing the paradox that human rights are at once a transcendent value belonging to all and a reality forged by particular people rooted in specific places,
The Human Rights Paradox advances a new way to understand the history, contemporary politics, advocacy, and future prospects of human rights.
Synopsis
Human rights are paradoxical. Advocates across the world invoke the idea that such rights belong to all people, no matter who or where they are. But since humans can only realize their rights in particular places, human rights are both always and never universal.
The Human Rights Paradox is the first book to fully embrace this contradiction and reframe human rights as history, contemporary social advocacy, and future prospect. In case studies that span Africa, Latin America, South and Southeast Asia, and the United States, contributors carefully illuminate how social actors create the imperative of human rights through relationships whose entanglements of the global and the local are so profound that one cannot exist apart from the other. These chapters provocatively analyze emerging twenty-first-century horizons of human rightson one hand, the simultaneous promise and peril of global rights activism through social media, and on the other, the force of intergenerational rights linked to environmental concerns that are both local and global. Taken together, they demonstrate how local struggles and realities transform classic human rights concepts, including victim,” truth,” and justice.”
Edited by Steve J. Stern and Scott Straus, The Human Rights Paradox enables us to consider the consequencesfor history, social analysis, politics, and advocacyof understanding that human rights belong both to humanity” as abstraction as well as to specific people rooted in particular locales.
Synopsis
Sometimes called and#8220;the land of a thousand hills,and#8221; Rwanda has witnessed upheavals of massive proportions. Looking at the people of one hill community, Danielle de Lame shows how they coped with unprecedented change during the twilight years of Rwandaand#8217;s Second Republic. In an insightful, meticulously researched study focusing on the late 1980s and early 1990s, de Lame situates this rural community, located at the heart of the Kibuye prefecture, within the larger context of Rwandan history and society. In this country without villages, it is the networks of kinship, administration, and commerce that create complex patterns of solidarity and dependency. De Lame reveals these patterns in all their intricacy, and her treatment of the region and its rhythms speaks at the same time to the economics of production, the inequalities of power, and the dynamics of social transformation. The ultimate goal of her work is to restore the individuality of the people she studies, and#8220;making them neither executioners nor victims but men and women fashioning their own destiny, day after day.and#8221;
Copublished with the Royal Museum for Central Africa
Wisconsin edition not for sale in Europe.
Synopsis
In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide, Rwandan women faced the impossibleandmdash;resurrecting their lives amidst unthinkable devastation. Haunted by memories of lost loved ones and of their own experiences of violence, women rebuilt their lives from andldquo;less than nothing.andrdquo; Neither passive victims nor innate peacemakers, they traversed dangerous emotional and political terrain to emerge as leaders in Rwanda today. This clear and engaging ethnography of survival tackles three interrelated phenomenaandmdash;memory, silence, and justiceandmdash;and probes the contradictory roles women played in postgenocide reconciliation.
and#160;and#160;and#160; Based on more than a decade of intensive fieldwork, Genocide Lives in Us provides a unique grassroots perspective on a postconflict society. Anthropologist Jennie E. Burnet relates with sensitivity the heart-wrenching survival stories of ordinary Rwandan women and uncovers political and historical themes in their personal narratives. She shows that womenandrsquo;s leading role in Rwandaandrsquo;s renaissance resulted from several factors: the dire postgenocide situation that forced women into new roles; advocacy by the Rwandan womenandrsquo;s movement; and the inclusion of women in the postgenocide government.
Synopsis
A landmark of meticulous historical research about the 1994 Rwandan genocide, showing that the same virulent controversies that fueled the killings have often influenced judicial, political, and diplomatic responses to it, implicating state actors, international institutions, academics, and the media.
Synopsis
In April 1994 Rwanda exploded in violence, with political, social, and economic divisions most visible along ethnic lines of the Hutu and Tutsi factions. The ensuing killings resulted in the deaths of as much as twenty percent of Rwandaandrsquo;s population. Andrandeacute; Guichaoua, who was present as the genocide began, unfolds a complex story with multiple actors, including three major political parties that each encompassed a spectrum of positions, all reacting to and influencing a rapidly evolving situation. Economic polarities, famine-fueled privation, clientelism, corruption, north-south rivalries, and events in the neighboring nations of Burundi and Uganda all deepened ethnic tensions, allowing extremists to prevail over moderates.
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Guichaoua draws on years of meticulous research to describe and analyze this history. He emphasizes that the same virulent controversies that fueled the conflict have often influenced judicial, political, and diplomatic responses to it, reproducing the partisan cleavages between the former belligerents and implicating state actors, international institutions, academics, and the media. Guichaoua insists upon the imperative of absolute intellectual independence in pursuing the truth about some of the gravest human rights violations of the twentieth century.
About the Author
Thierry Cruvellier, an investigative journalist, covered the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda from 1997 to 2002. Since then, he has reported on tribunals in Sierra Leone, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Cambodia. Cruvellier also founded the International Justice Tribune, an online magazine covering international criminal justice. Chari Voss is a French-English interpreter and translator based in Washington, D.C., who spent two years interpreting the genocide trials at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
Table of Contents
Prefaceand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
List of Abbreviationsand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Alison Des Forges: Remembering a Human Rights Heroand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Kenneth Roth
The Historian as Human Rights Activistand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;David Newbury
Introduction: Seeing Like a Post-Conflict Stateand#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Scott Straus and Lars Waldorf
Part I. Governance and State Building
1. Limitations to Political Reform: The Undemocratic Nature of Transition in Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Timothy Longman
2. Instrumentalizing Genocide: The RPF's Campaign against andquot;Genocide Ideologyandquot;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Lars Waldorf
3. The Ruler's Drum and the People's Shout: Accountability and Representation on Rwanda's Hillsand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Bert Ingelaere
4. Building a andquot;Rwanda Fit for Childrenandquot;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Kirrily Pells
5. Beyond andquot;You're Either with Us or against Usandquot;: Civil Society and Policymaking in Post-Genocide Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Paul Gready
Part II. International and Regional Contexts
6. Aid Dependence and Policy Independence: Explaining the Rwandan Paradoxand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Eugenia Zorbas
7. Funding Fraud? Donors and Democracy in Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Rachel Hayman
8. Waging (Civil) War Abroad: Rwanda and the DRCand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Filip Reyntjens
9. Bad Karma: Accountability for Rwandan Crimes in the Congoand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Jason Stearns and Federico Borello
Part III. Justice
10. Victor's Justice Revisited: Rwandan Patriotic Front Crimes and the Prosecutorial Endgame at the ICTRand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Victor Peskin
11. The Uneasy Relationship between the ICTR and Gacacaand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Don Webster
12. The Sovu Trials: The Impact of Genocide Justice on One Communityand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Max Rettig
13. andquot;All Rwandans Are Afraid of Being Arrested One Dayandquot;: Prisoners Past, Present, and Futureand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Carina Tertsakian
Part IV. Economic Development
14. High Modernism at the Ground Level: The Imidugudu Policy in Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Catharine Newbury
15. Rwanda's Post-Genocide Economic Reconstruction: The Mismatch between Elite Ambitions and Rural Realitiesand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;An Ansoms
16. The Presidential Land Commission: Undermining Land Law Reformand#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Chris Huggins
Part V. History and Memory
17. The Past Is Elsewhere: The Paradoxes of Proscribing Ethnicity in Post-Genocide Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Nigel Eltringham
18. Topographies of Remembering and Forgetting: The Transformation of Lieux de Mandeacute;moire in Rwanda
and#160;and#160; and#160;Jens Meierhenrich
19. Teaching History in Post-Genocide Rwandaand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Sarah Warshauer Freedman, Harvey M. Weinstein, Karen Murphy, and Timothy Longman
20. Young Rwandans' Narratives of the Past (and Present)and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Lyndsay McLean Hilker
21. Reeducation for Reconciliation: Participant Observations on Ingandoand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Susan Thomson
Part VI. Concluding Observations
Justice and Human Rights for All Rwandansand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Joseph Sebarenzi
The Dancing is Still the Sameand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
and#160;and#160; and#160;Aloys Habimana
Acknowledgmentsand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Contributorsand#160;and#160; and#160;and#160;and#160; and#160;
Index