Everyday suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in post-genocide Rwanda

Accepted Manuscript Everyday suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in postgenocide Rwanda Théoneste Rutayisire, Annemiek Richters PII:

S0277-9536(14)00368-2

DOI:

10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.06.009

Reference:

SSM 9518

To appear in:

Social Science & Medicine

Received Date: 22 October 2013 Revised Date:

31 May 2014

Accepted Date: 9 June 2014

Please cite this article as: Rutayisire, T., Richters, A., Everyday suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in post-genocide Rwanda, Social Science & Medicine (2014), doi: 10.1016/ j.socscimed.2014.06.009. This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.

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Social Science & Medicine manuscript number: SSM-D-13-02580R1

Title: Everyday suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in post-genocide

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Rwanda Théoneste Rutayisirea and Annemiek Richtersb,a

Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research

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a

Kloveniersburgwal 48, 1012 CX Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, the

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b

Netherlands

P.O. Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, the Netherlands

Théoneste Rutayisire

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Corresponding author:

Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

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Acknowledgements

We thank our respondents for their acceptance to participate in this study, their warm welcome

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and their trust in us. We are equally grateful to sociotherapists for their willingness to assist in selecting our respondents and mediating our relationship with them. We thank Julia Challinor for her editorial advices, the anonymous Social Science & Medicine reviewers for their constructive comments, and Nuffic (Netherlands Universities Foundation for International Cooperation) for funding the first author for his PhD research, which informed this article.

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Everyday suffering outside prison walls: A legacy of community justice in post-genocide Rwanda

Abstract

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Twenty years after the 1994 genocide, Rwanda shows all indications of moving quickly towards socio-economic prosperity. Rwanda’s community justice system, Gacaca, was to complement this prosperity by establishing peace and stability through justice, reconciliation

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and healing. Evaluations of the Gacaca courts’ achievements from 2002-2012 have had widely differing conclusions. This article adds to previous evaluations by drawing attention to

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specific forms of relatively neglected suffering (in literature and public space) that have emerged from the Gacaca courts or were amplified by these courts and jeopardize Gacaca’s objectives. The ethnographic study that informs the article was conducted in southeastern Rwanda from September 2008-December 2012 among 19 ex-prisoners and 24 women with

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husbands in prison including their family members, friends and neighbors. Study findings suggest that large scale imprisonment of genocide suspects coupled with Gacaca court proceedings have tainted the suffering of ex-prisoners and women with imprisoned husbands

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in unique ways, which makes their plight unparalleled in other countries. We argue that the nature and scale of this suffering and the potentially detrimental impact on families and

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communities require humanitarian action. However, in Rwanda’s post-genocide reality, the suffering of these two groups is overwhelmed by that of other vulnerable groups, such as genocide survivors and orphaned children; hence it is rarely acknowledged.

Key words Genocide, Rwanda, Gacaca courts, ex-prisoners, women with imprisoned husbands, suffering, humanitarianism 1

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Introduction Rwanda today shows all the indications of a country that has moved forward since the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi and the preceding war (1990-1994). In recent years, Rwanda has

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achieved a high degree of physical and social security and remarkable economic growth. Underneath this successful recovery, however, the population’s war- and genocide-related suffering and their silent cry for the restoration of human dignity are ongoing and widespread.

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The large number of outside humanitarian relief operations during and following the immediate aftermath of the genocide and multiple government policies and programs to ease

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people’s suffering have had only a limited effect (see e.g. Richters and Kagoyire 2014). A governmental strategy expected to make a substantial contribution to healing post-genocide wounds and rebuilding a shattered social fabric was the community justice court, locally called Gacaca. Evaluations of the Gacaca courts’ efforts to bring justice and ultimately

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reconciliation and healing continue, but to date have differing conclusions. There are some who have portrayed Gacaca as an innovative response to genocidal crimes that delivered justice and started the reconciliation and forgiveness process (Clark 2010). However, there are

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others (Burnet 2008, Thomson 2011) who argued that Gacaca courts became an instrument of the current government power apparatus to impose its presence and control on the post-

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genocide socio-political landscape and instead of healing and reconciliation contributed to the opposite. We add to these evaluations by focusing on the least-acknowledged unforeseen side effects of Gacaca, the suffering that emerged from Gacaca or was amplified by Gacaca among ex-prisoners and women with imprisoned husbands.

Our empirical data derive from our ethnographic study, which focused on daily life experiences of a small sample of these two categories of people. In this article, we focus on 2

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT the entire domain of our respondents’ suffering, which we name social suffering, and define as individual, family and neighborhood suffering produced by larger legal, political and social forces (Kleinman et al. 1997). We argue that the nature and scale of the identified suffering and the current and probable future detrimental impact on individuals, families and

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communities can be conceived as a humanitarian concern and should be addressed accordingly.

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Community justice through Gacaca courts

Rwanda chose justice and accountability for all the genocide actors as a major transitional

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strategy to steer the country away from violence and towards peace and stability. Estimates put the victims of genocide between 800.000 and 1.000.000 people. The arrest and incarceration of suspects immediately following the genocide were systematic, but at times arbitrary, because the judicial system in Rwanda was almost non-existent. Nearly all judges

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had been killed, imprisoned or left the country. In 1999, when the roundup of suspects was at its peak, the prison population - mostly men - was estimated to be as high as 150.000 (Burnet 2012: 136), while Rwanda’s jails had a capacity of only 12.000 (Human Rights Watch 2011:

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2). In some parts of the country, few men were left at home; they were either in prison or

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outside the country escaping arrest.

In a situation of a non-existent judicial system and the ineffective and aloof International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, the Rwandan government opted for ‘justice without lawyers’, also called community justice, in the form of Gacaca courts. For this purpose, the traditional Gacaca court system (an informal institution to settle disputes between families and community members) was modernized to address the unprecedented crimes executed during the genocide. 3

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In 2001, the government enacted a law establishing Gacaca courts, which became operational the following year. To alleviate the crisis of prison crowding during the mid and late 1990s, the government temporarily released 85.000 genocide suspects between 2003 and 2008 (Clark

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2010: 102). For humanitarian reasons, the elderly and the sick prisoners were allowed to immediately head home without participating in the normally mandatory three-month Ingando program (solidarity camps) to prepare for social reintegration after release. Some

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released prisoners had ‘genuinely’ confessed to the crimes they had committed after being promised that confession would lead to temporary release. However, it was made clear that

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anyone eventually found guilty by the Gacaca courts might have to return to prison depending on the severity of their crime and time already spent in prison. With successive waves of release from 2003-2008, the presence of ex-prisoners in parts of the country became increasingly noticeable. However, once Gacaca courts became fully operational in 2005, some

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women saw their husbands (temporarily released) return to prison and the husbands of other women were apprehended for the first time.

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Over ten years, 1.958.634 cases of genocide were tried in Gacaca courts (National Service of Gacaca Courts 2012: 261). Some people were found innocent and released immediately, and

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those who had already spent adequate time in prison for their crimes were also released. This led to another massive return of ex-prisoners to their families and communities. Gacaca sentences varied and depended on the nature of the crime and on whether or not the accused pleaded guilty and confessed. The prison sentence for those who pled guilty (especially those whose confession was accepted), had to be executed in two phases, one in prison custody and the other in community service (ibid: 92). Community service called Travaux d’Intérêt Général (TIG) (Works for General Interest) was another strategy to reduce the number of 4

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT prisoners and normalize the prison situation. However, those convicted of the most serious crimes (category 1 crimes – planners and organizers of genocide and rapists) were not eligible for TIG. TIG included building roads, bridges, schools, and houses for genocide survivors.

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Makeshift camps for Tigists (those doing TIG) are still operational.

When Rwanda chose justice and accountability for all actors involved in genocidal violence, the purpose was to both establish the truth so justice could be delivered and through truth

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telling contribute to the country’s healing and reconciliation. However, notwithstanding its numerically impressive achievements, Gacaca did not fully meet these objectives. Numerous

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studies (Brounéus 2008, Ingelaere 2012, King 2011, Rimé et al. 2011, Thomson 2011) have suggested that participating in Gacaca for many has resulted in a remarkable increase in fear, sadness and anxiety, (re)traumatization, ill-health, isolation and insecurity. Our study contributes to the evaluation of Gacaca’s achievements by exploring the suffering generated

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or amplified by Gacaca among a small sample of men and women accused of genociderelated crimes or convicted for these crimes who are now ex-prisoners and women with

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Methodology

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husbands in prison for the same reasons.

The ethnographic study that informs this article was conducted by the first author, a Rwandan, in two neighborhoods in southeastern Rwanda. Our study area is generally considered as a genocidal epicenter. According to a local historian (personal communication), “the area had a high Tutsi population before the crisis, which ranged between 58% and 67% of the total population while only 2,5% to 2,8% survived the genocide.” This explains the high number of imprisoned husbands and ex-prisoners among the village population. This high number made it relatively easy to find an adequate sample of respondents. 5

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Another factor that smoothed the access to respondents was a psychosocial program called community–based sociotherapy (see e.g. Richters et al. 2010) that had been implemented in the area. Local people, called sociotherapists, guide groups of 12-15 people through 15

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weekly group sessions to contribute to healing and reconciliation among the population in the target region. Each group meets in the immediate environment of the members and group facilitators, c.q. sociotherapists. Ex-prisoners and women with imprisoned husbands were

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well represented among sociotherapy group participants. Sociotherapists working in the two neighborhoods where the study was conducted assisted the main researcher in inviting a

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selection of these participants for our study. This selection procedure may have biased some of our research findings. However, we believe that our findings still represent the suffering experienced by the two categories of people in the local society. Their participation in sociotherapy enabled our respondents to openly discuss their usually unspeakable suffering,

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and highlighted the fact that their participation in the program only marked a beginning of a long and difficult healing and re-integration process.

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Fieldwork took 40 months from September 2008-December 2012. The second author joined the main researcher on numerous occasions in the field. Data collection methods included

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participant observation, individual in-depth interviews, focus group discussions and home visits. The core respondents were 24 women with an imprisoned husband and 19 ex-prisoners (16 men and three women). The 43 respondents were selected through purposeful sampling via sociotherapists, who first contacted our respondents and a snowball technique. To gauge the extent and the authenticity of the everyday suffering of the main respondents, we also interviewed their children, neighbors and peers in sociotherapy groups as well as former and current spouses/partners of ex-prisoners. 6

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Our study was conducted in a still fragile post-genocide context, where the scars of genocide and its aftermath are fresh in people’s minds. In such circumstances, research efforts are significantly constrained by the local individuals’ dread of narrating, measuring and

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relativizing their own (and others’) suffering, not only due to prudence and political correctness, but also the macro structures of government’s powerful presence and control (Thomson 2010: 20). We satisfactorily convinced our respondents that we were not journalists

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and that the information that they shared with us would not be given to any media outlet. Since the first contact with our respondents was made via sociotherapy group facilitators, we

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had an improved level of trust and the facilitators smoothed our conversations with them. Participation in a sociotherapy group enabled our respondents to speak freely about their predicament.

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The data from individual in-depth interviews and focus group discussions were audiorecorded, transcribed and subsequently translated from Kinyarwanda into English. Data coding was done both manually and with ATLAS.ti 7 software to map the patterns of our

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informants’ suffering. The coding process drew largely on a priori ideas and research findings about the lives of ex-prisoners and women with imprisoned husbands in other contexts, e.g.,

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the US, Sierra Leone, Northern Ireland, Israel and The Netherlands (Comfort 2003, Daniel & Barrett 1981, Grounds 2004, Grounds & Jamieson 2003, Jefferson 2010, Lowenstein 1984, Moerings 1992). Nevertheless, since the suffering of our respondents has so far captured relatively little attention on the African continent, and post-Gacaca Rwanda in particular, we generated new ‘localized’ themes from the data.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT All respondents gave their oral consent to participate in the study. The first author was given permission to conduct research in southeastern Rwanda by the National University of Rwanda and local district authorities. Pseudonyms are used for all informants.

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Characteristics of respondents

Respondents’ ages ranged from early 30s to mid 90s. All were married (some in polygamous marriages), had children (some grandchildren) and were cultivators with little or no formal

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education. Crimes committed by the women’s still imprisoned husbands varied from looting animals and property to murder/s. The imprisoned husbands’ sentences ranged from two years

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to life imprisonment. Some ex-prisoner respondents had been found innocent by Gacaca courts, since they were ‘victims’ of the arbitrary arrests of the mid and late 90s. Other exprisoners had completed their sentences for crimes ranging from direct or indirect involvement in the murder of 1-12 people, joining gangs of murderous attacks (an average of

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six times) to participation in property (iron sheets, food, clothes) and domestic animal looting. The ex-prisoners’ incarceration ranged from 4-12 years. The families (in practice—the wives) of incarcerated men and ex-prisoners were obliged to pay victims restitution ranging from

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30.000 to 5.000.000 Rwandan Francs (USD 44 - USD 7325.9; exchange rate May 2014).

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Ruptures between ex-prisoners, family and friends during Gacaca court trials and confessions

Ex-prisoners’ difficulties when trying to reintegrate into their communities is well documented (Grounds and Jamieson 2003, Grounds 2005, Haney 2003, Jefferson 2010, Petersilia 2003). One of imprisonment’s many consequences is a deep sense of dislocation in time and space among former inmates and rejection by their families and immediate social surroundings. However, in post-genocide Rwanda, this sense of rupture and rejection is 8

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT unique due to Gacaca. Not only did Gacaca result in unprecedented numbers of ex-prisoners in Rwanda, but it also gave multidimensional social meanings to the status of ex-prisoners. Imprisonment was now associated with genocidal acts and the Gacaca’s modus operandi included lay court judges, public participation, and confession-driven leniency and

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sentencing. Thus, through the Gacaca courts, the category of ex-prisoner became socially ‘formalized’ as a status of genocidaires or abicanyi (killer); which means that, also people tried by Gacaca but legally cleared of being guilty of genocide crimes were perceived as

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genocidaires in ordinary people’s understanding.

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Gacaca-related suffering started before our ex-prisoner respondents were out of prison as a result of genocide crime confessions and subsequent rejection by their families. This rejection began when some ex-prisoners responded positively to the government call for confession and repentance in anticipation of the Gacaca courts. Initially, according to our respondents,

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prisoners welcomed the idea of confessing their crimes, although they did have an uneasy feeling of mistrust and bitterness towards other ethnic groups. Eventually, however, many exprisoners did confess. Given the appalling living conditions in Rwandan prisons and the

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prospect of going home, the risk was worth taking. Unfortunately, according to our respondents, when their families (especially spouses) were informed about the confessions

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they felt shock and disbelief. The reaction that followed was equally dramatic. Mugabo, a 43year-old man, who was incarcerated for seven years and confessed in prison to having joined gangs of killers explained: When your wife came to visit, you would tell her that you confessed and she would ask you: ‘What did you confess to? Did you confess that you killed people? Is it true that you killed people?’ You would say ‘yes’ and she would say ‘all this time I thought you were innocent, that they were lying about you. If what you just told me is true, from now on you are on your own!’ Karemera, a 55-year-old man, narrated: When we told our wives, 9

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT they were very shocked, very shocked! And then they asked what did you confess to? When we told them, they said ‘you are dead now!’ Some wives never came back to visit their husbands.

Since not all prisoners confessed, this created a serious conflict among prisoners and prison

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authorities had to separate the two groups. The imprisoned confessors, now perceived as the ‘good guys’, were taken aside and given ‘preferential’ treatment while waiting for their eventual release. From the perspective of the imprisoned ‘bad guys’ (non-confessors), the

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confessors were naïve and traitors who were only buying their way to death. Some inmates believed at the time that given what they had done or were alleged to have done, they would

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not survive for long in the (then) unstable aftermath of the genocide. The conflict that had started inside the prisons spilled into the outside world and split prisoners’ spouses into two camps as well. Both groups of wives would quarrel on their way to prison to visit their husbands. According to Mugabo, his wife had been told angrily by another woman: You are

husbands!

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taking food to those people who accepted to have killed and are also going to lie against our

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Since inmates who were not yet convicted by a court made confessions inside the prisons, both embarrassed relatives and a wary public received news of these confessions with fear

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and bitterness. Mugenzi, a 54-year-old man, accused of participating in more than five attacks in various parts of his neighborhood, recalls what his wife told him following his confession: I did not know that you are Interahamwe (the militia that played a key role in the genocidal killings) of the highest order! She left him together with their four children and only returned to testify against Mugenzi in Gacaca court. He has never seen or heard from her or their children since.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Jefferson (2010: 395) introduced the concept of ‘claustrophobic liminality’ to highlight the dilemma of ex-prisoners in Sierra Leone who were, “released but not free, discharged but not safe.” This is similar to the situation in Rwanda, where ex-prisoners who have traded their ‘legal’ freedom and physical mobility gained by confession and repentance found that they

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had sealed their social confinement in the community by having done so. Legally, Gacaca courts cleansed some ex-prisoners and showed leniency to others because of a lack of evidence or ex-prisoners’ strong defense arguments during trials, often to the surprise and

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disbelief of their own families and genocide survivors. For instance, one survivor desperately lamented during an interview: we heard that that man [who killed her husband and two sons]

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came to Gacaca trials having read law books and, he knew all the laws. Within the social context of the community, however, ex-prisoners did not receive equal cleansing and most now find it rather difficult to enjoy their new freedom. Their (suspected) role in the genocide, prison past and Gacaca court performances dominate their social lives, hence they now move

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from a legal limbo to a social limbo.

Pierre, a middle-aged man, who was accused of involvement in the murder of four people, but

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claimed to be innocent, was left by his wife and children soon after he returned from prison. He described his social liminal position as: People avoid us [ex-prisoners]. No one wants to

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side with us, even our children are afraid of us. He added: Others treat us as tricky, argumentative and stubborn people. It hurts us when we hear someone say ‘listen, even that ex-prisoner is talking! Pierre noted that one reason his children joined his wife in abandoning him was that they said that ex-prisoners eat too much! However, Pierre’s wife said that he came back a changed man, more violent and less compromising than before he had been imprisoned.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Most ex-prisoners know that their prison time stripped them of their community’s respect, trust and dignity. Manzi, a 63-year-old, who was accused of joining gangs of killers, lamented, you lose dignity among your peers [with no history of imprisonment] and as you walk with them they fear you, saying that you are a prisoner yet you are innocent. Ex-

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prisoners also know that it is hard, if not impossible, to win those values back in their community. As Semana, a middle-age man, who had joined gangs of killers, stated: Whoever has been in prison, knows that people will never trust him again, whether he is guilty or not.

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Nevertheless, others, especially spouses of ex-prisoners, confirmed Pierre’s wife’s comments by saying that they hardly recognized their husbands who seemed to have become different

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people.

There is a growing feeling in post-genocide Rwanda that male ex-prisoners are finding it difficult to re-integrate into family life where a woman has been the sole leader and main

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responsible person in the household for more than a decade. Ex-prisoners who return home are lost and carry the label of genocidaire; therefore, they are in an awkward position. Some ex-prisoners feel that they have no place in their families, although their wives may not

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necessarily share this view and want to recognize them as head of the family once again. The male ex-prisoners’ uneasiness came after realizing that their wives had built new and better

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houses, bought domestic animals, sent children to school and had their children honorably married. The men returning from prison found it difficult to reintegrate in a social world where women seemed to enjoy a far more social, legal and political presence than before their imprisonment (see e.g. Debusscher & Ansoms 2013).

As in countries like Northern Ireland (Grounds & Jamieson 2003), in Rwanda ex-prisoners have a solid belief that other people, including relatives, cannot understand their experience in 12

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT prison. This may contribute to a social bond among ex-prisoners. In Rwanda, however, since all (ex-)prisoners had to appear before Gacaca courts to determine whether they genuinely confessed or not, this form of social capital was put to test and the road to ‘freedom’ became a rather sauve qui peut or ‘the survival of the cleverest’ struggle, which created ruptures among

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the ex-prisoners.

Confessions in Gacaca courts meant that the normal sources of moral support and comfort

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that ex-prisoners would normally have to tap into following imprisonment were blocked. Thus, the ex-prisoners’ lack of resources when returning to a (still) fragile social landscape

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and their identity as a genocidaire (whether guilty or not) translated into various forms of psychological distress that intersected with the distress caused by appalling living conditions in prison (Tertsakian 2008).

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Psychological distress among ex-prisoners

We found no substantial difference in the narratives of those who had been in conventional correctional facilities, TIG camps or both kinds of confinement in terms of the psychological

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and physical strains inflicted on subjects. Our informants referred to a deep sense of acute fear related to the imposed identity of genocidaire and to the ‘unknown’ environment they were

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trying to re-integrate into. They no longer recognized who they were, which they illustrated by using expressions like you are afraid of yourself, you feel like an animal, and, when you are walking it is like you are swimming in the air; your feet don’t touch the ground. Exprisoners believed they had lost their status as human beings. As Karasira, a 44-year-old father of six children, who had confessed to having joined attacks by gangs of killers, explained: After ten years it has become too much, you become like a mad person to the extent that you don’t have a mind of a person, no intelligence of a human being, it is like you become 13

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT a beast. Most ex-prisoners stressed that they had the feeling that they had become animals, which people (including themselves) should avoid or fear.

Some ex-prisoners, who from their own perspective justifiably carried the label of

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genocidaire, showed signs of contrition and emptiness when they contemplated the vacant spaces once occupied by ‘friends’ and neighbors. Mugenzi, who spent eight years in prison and four years in a TIG camp, told us when we walked from his compound past bushes

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growing where once some of his victims lived: All these empty spaces you see and even there on the horizon there were people, good people. They had good boys and girls; you would love

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to meet them on market day, but we have killed them! As during their prison or TIG experiences, ex-prisoners tended to conceal their genocide experiences from their wives and children. However, because of mandatory Gacaca courts appearances, ex-prisoners inevitably gave many details about their own role and of others in the genocide, sometimes to the dismay

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of their loved ones who thereafter had to manage their association with a genocidaire.

According to the ex-prisoners, it takes time to realize that one is back home after their release

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from prison. The prison experience continues to haunt them. Donat, a 55-year-old man, who spent 10 years in prison and was abandoned by his wife, said: It [prison experience] will

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follow us until we die. A consequence of the harsh living conditions in prisons and TIG camps is nightmares. All ex-prisoners reported frequent nightmares interrupting their sleep at night. Mugenzi reported: At night I say many things loudly and then suddenly I wake up, but I cannot tell what I was saying when my wife asked me. He has had this experience ever since leaving prison and it continued after completing his TIG obligations a year ago. Anonciata, a 55-year-old mother of five children, who spent 12 years in prison without formal charges,

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT believes that nightmares never go away: It happens to me indeed, I would not lie to you. It happens and you feel that you are back there in prison. Let no one deceive you, it never ends!

Most of the ex-prisoners have not discussed or shared these nightmares with anyone. Some

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had shared them with spouses. Ex-prisoners found it difficult to share their feelings of bitterness, lost time and embarrassment especially with their children and spouses. When asked whether he had shared his prison experience with his children, Mugenzi responded: No,

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I don’t tell them. They have even advised us against it. This tendency not to share one’s prison past with children, spouses and friends could be due to the prisoners’ belief that even people

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who are closest to them cannot understand what they have endured. This makes their experiences ‘out there’ in prison unspeakable. The unspeakable nature of this experience is shared by war veterans elsewhere, e.g. Ireland (Grounds & Jamieson 2003: 350). In Rwanda, as in other countries, the lack of ‘honest’ communication between ex-prisoners and their

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families begins when they are still imprisoned. Some ex-prisoners argue that they want to reassure their loved ones by hiding their worries and difficulties (Grounds &Jamieson ibid:

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355).

In Rwanda, however, the embarrassment of being associated with genocidal crimes, prison or

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a TIG camp and the embarrassment of Gacaca court appearances have all pushed this notion of an unspeakable experience to another level. Most of our respondents had forbidden their wives and children to attend their Gacaca trials, even against their families’ wishes since they believed their presence would give their husbands and fathers much needed moral support in a difficult moment. However, ex-prisoners had good reasons to forbid their families from attending as Karamera, a 55-year-old father of six, explained: Many came [women and children] and when their husbands were found guilty, they were traumatized. They cried 15

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT inconsolably as they watched their husbands being taken away. That is why I refused them to come to my trials. It could be argued that ex-prisoners like Karamera refused to allow his family to attend his Gacaca trials in order to protect them. But, his behavior fueled his family members’ and friends’ inability to understand him as a person now; this contributed to the

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mystery that now surrounds many ex-prisoners’ lives. For the women who disobeyed their husband’s wish not attend, their husbands’ Gacaca performances left them in shock and

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disbelief thus increasing their inability to comprehend who their husbands were.

The ex-prisoners’ reported desperation was mainly due to feeling left behind by their peers in

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life achievements. This feeling began to haunt most of the men long before they were released from prison. It was even worse for ex-prisoners whose wives abandoned them. Some men reported that these feelings had led to many suicides inside prisons and TIG camps. They reported that it had also led to many ex-prisoners migrating within the country, rather than

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returning to their pre-prison place of residence or birth. Most of these respondents said that when they came back home, they did not know where to start since there was nothing to build on; it is like starting from zero, most of them said. Some ex-prisoners stressed that they want

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to make up for lost time by working very hard. Shortly after Mugenzi’s release, he and his exprisoner peers used to work even at night until they were told that this could jeopardize public

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order and tranquility. For female ex-prisoners, the situation is even worse. Anonciata argued, the strength of a woman is not like that of a man; besides that, coming out of prison one is completely wasted. To illustrate the female ex-prisoners’ physical frailty when they come out of prison, Mahoro, a 62-year-old woman, who was separated with no children, and had spent seven years in prison, reported that once home again, she found it difficult to work in the field; each time I tried to raise my plough I would faint immediately!

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The status of having an imprisoned husband in post-genocide Rwanda In Rwanda, as elsewhere in the world, prisoners’ wives have to manage major life style changes and various forms of physical and psychological strain in the new situation that dictates their lives ( Christian 2005, Christian et al. 2006, Comfort 2003, Daniel & Barrett

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1981). Women’s duty to keep in touch with and care for their incarcerated husband becomes a form of ‘punishment’ for them. Comfort (2003) evokes the notion of “secondary prisonization” in relation to women’s sustained contact with the correctional institution. Their

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husband’s imprisonment vibrates through the women’s interactions with community members, employers, children and other kin and can lead to poverty, homelessness, physical

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and mental health problems and stigmatization. In Rwanda, however, Gacaca trials have taken the status of having an imprisoned husband to another social and historical dimension, making the women’s reactions to their husbands’ imprisonment and the embodiment of consequent suffering unparalleled. Rwandan women’s management of their status as married to a

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genocidaire goes beyond legal and economic implications and impacts the women’s everyday ethical decisions, such as what to tell their children, whether or not to believe their husbands’

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testimonies or to remain married.

For many women in Rwanda having a husband in prison has become a normal situation, a

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routine, something they have to live with for many years and sometimes the rest of their lives. While talking about their plight, most of the female respondents tended to emphasize the ordinariness of the reality (perhaps as some consolation): What can you do about it? Everyone around here is like that. With the institution of Gacaca courts, a new socio-cultural and economic landscape emerged in which ‘women with husbands in prison’, like ex-prisoners, became a ‘formalized’ social category in Rwanda.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT Physical strain and psychological distress among women When a woman has a husband in prison, it means that there are heavy demands on her physical body; long walks on a dusty road under a scorching sun to prison are followed by weeks of fatigue, cramps, and other bodily complaints leading to subsequent days of

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inactivity. Visiting their husbands in prison is a true test for tired bodies as the years go by.

On the day Rwandan women visit their husband’s prison, they have to wake up early in the

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morning and walk for about five hours each way. Kamanzi, a 62-year-old mother of four children, whose husband was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing and rape, has cramps

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for many days after visiting her husband. Nowadays, she prefers to send her children to the prison for visitation. Women, who can afford to do so, go on bicycles, but this also leaves them with various somatic complaints. Maliza, a 59-year-old mother of 10 children, whose husband was sentenced to 30 years in prison, narrated: On the day I would go to visit him I am

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prepared to sleep for a week! The bicycle shakes me and leaves me with backache and chest pain to the extent there is nothing I can do for many days to come. Women’s experiences of frequently walking long distances to visit their husbands in prison and carrying food on their

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as on their minds.

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heads year after year has left permanent scars on their bodies (heads, arms, and legs) as well

The women find themselves psychologically worse off than a ‘real’ widow. Munyana, a 58year-old mother of 10 children, whose husband was sentenced to life imprisonment, said in a barely audible voice during one focus group discussion: This is even beyond understanding, to lose a husband when you have him; he can be dead and you say ‘I am widowed. It is now clear, I have lost him!’ But to lose him when he is there is something that is weighing heavily on the heart of a woman. You know that normally women are weak vessels because there is 18

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT time you can hold on, but at a certain point you explode and fail to contain yourself the way a man would.

All the women reported being emotionally overwhelmed by their husbands’ arrest and

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incarceration. Nyiramana, a 52-year-old mother of 11 children, whose husband was sentenced to 25 years in prison, reported: At night when I think about it I cannot sleep - my heart beats hard and I sweat a lot. Nyiramana was admitted to the hospital and takes medication daily,

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but that does not alleviate her symptoms. The women have in common that they feel socially isolated. Alice, a 43-year-old mother of three children, reported: When my husband was again

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sentenced to 30 years, I was demoralized; I could not eat at all! I cooked, but did not have the force to eat. Eventually, when I became weak and dizzy I told my son to make tea and buy some snaps! I then isolated myself again; I felt completely cut off from the rest of the world! Mutoni, a 55-year-old mother of seven children, whose husband was sentenced to 28 years in

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prison, suffered from heart pain: My heart was always like a heart of a traumatized person; my heart was traumatized, why? What can I tell you? I can tell you that it is because I was overwhelmed by thoughts, I was thinking about something, something bad! Constant

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preoccupation and worry about their imprisoned husbands and the implications of their status for the coming years caused the women to lose their appetite and eventually weight; as

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Kamanzi said: I lost weight because of worries.

Most of women in this study were dismayed to learn during Gacaca court sessions or from local authorities later that their husbands had to pay a significant amount of money for restitution for what they had looted or destroyed during the genocide. This worries and angers the women because it affects their whole family’s wellbeing for years to come. In most cases, the women must assume responsibility for this payment because the men in prison cannot 19

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT contribute. Ruth, a 40-year-old mother of five children, was shocked and surprised when her husband confessed to have stolen 58 cows during the genocide, yet he had only brought one cow home at the time! She constantly worries about how the family will obtain 5.000.000 Rwandan Francs (USD 7.325.9; exchange rate May 2014) to repay the owner of the stolen

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cows. Like their mothers also the children also have to face the wrath and taunts from neighbors and friends whom their imprisoned husbands implicated as having been involved in

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genocidal crimes during their confessions in Gacaca courts.

The women were even more stressed when the Gacaca courts revealed that their husbands had

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indeed committed heinous crimes during the genocide. In addition to the burden of taking care of their imprisoned husbands for many years, they now have to manage the burden of being married to a convicted genocidaire. Women are particularly concerned about their children and grandchildren’s wellbeing. Solange, a 58-year-old mother of three, whose husband was

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sentenced to life imprisonment for raping, mutilating and killing a girl, said: You have no idea what it is like to be a wife of a mass murderer, it is a heavy burden, it is killing me. Solange

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and other mothers in her situation are also worried about their children’s future.

Women’s shame and related social isolation

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Men’s imprisonment also marks a dramatic change in their wives’ social lives. Following their husbands’ imprisonment, their wives told us they felt ashamed and abandoned by friends and families. Eventually, they isolated themselves from the rest of society. It is particularly difficult to assume the status of being married to a genocide criminal in a social environment where the perpetrators and their families are condemned to live side-by-side with the victims. For example, once her husband was imprisoned, Alice immediately started to worry what her life was going to be like living in the midst of people who knew what her husband was 20

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT accused of. She narrated: When your husband goes to prison all of your friends abandon you. It is as if they ostracize you. It was difficult for me because I was wondering how I was going to live. I was even ashamed of being with others. I found it shameful in the eyes of others to

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hear that my husband committed genocide.

Some women developed a deep anger towards those who had accused their husbands (rightly or wrongly) and testified against them in Gacaca courts and in the community at large by

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participating in Gacaca as a public event. Kamanzi is one of them: I hated those who testified against my husband to the extent that I could not go to their homes. I felt that I could not be

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gentle with any one, nor could I have mercy. With this kind of reaction, the women block possible avenues for a return to a normal social life.

The women do not want their neighbors to know about their situation and do not trust anyone

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with their pain. They reported that only women in a similar situation could understand their behavior. Donata, a 45-year-old mother of five children, whose husband was in prison, explained: I saw no friend in any of the people, I trusted no one. That is the main reason for

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me being always at home and saying to myself ‘if I tell anyone who did not know about the number of years my husband was sentenced to, he/she will go around telling others out there

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while I feel that it is my secret’. The isolation of the women in their own communities is an indication of their embodiment of suffering in the form of shame that ultimately leads them to feel socially dead.

Impact of a parent’s imprisonment on children’s wellbeing and family life On a family level, the women reported experiencing many problems including rearing curious and rebellious children. Some women were determined to protect their children from the truth 21

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT about their husband’s imprisonment and were consistently worried that one day an illintentioned neighbor would inform their children. Dative, for instance, a 41-year-old mother of five children, whose husband was in prison, said: I cannot tell them, I will never commit that sin by putting that into my children. I tell them that he is in prison, but I cannot tell them

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that he is in prison because of killing people! I cannot tell the children that their father is in prison because of killing the father of so and so. May be evil people will tell them, but I cannot. For Dative, telling her children that their father was a mass murderer (and whom she

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believes might have personally killed five people) would be as bad as giving the children poison. It would destroy their upbringing both at home and in the community and would

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eventually turn them against their own parents. This also worries other women who are in the same situation, even more so because they know that one day their children will find out anyway.

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In Rwanda, socio-cultural demands and expectations pressure parents to ensure that their children secure future generations for the family. According to Solange, her husband’s bad reputation might have already jeopardized her daughter’s chances of finding a husband. Who

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knows, she said, may be no one may want a daughter of a génocidiaire. Solange reckoned, it is a difficult situation for a child; you know; a child wants to have other parents. This

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situation is not unique to Rwanda. Bar-on (1993) reports that the children of perpetrators of the Holocaust felt guilty about their parents’ crimes for years, while their parents did not take responsibility for the crimes. For some of these children, the burden of being the descendant of an evil person translated into fear for the next generation’s mentality and their subsequent decision not to have children of their own.

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ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT The situation for women with younger children was reported to be even more problematic, since the children did not understand why their father was not home or did not return home with them on visiting day. This is also difficult for the imprisoned father. In 2010, during a visit to a prison, the first author found a prisoner he knew from before the genocide with his

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five-year-old daughter sitting on his lap on a prisoner-designated bench. The prisoner and his daughter barely exchanged a word. The man looked at the first author and then said, she doesn’t understand! For a woman whose husband is in prison, the relationship with their

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small children is even trickier because it is an everyday experience. Alice explains the difficulties she and her two daughters have living with the fact that their father, sentenced to

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17 years for having killed a person and looted many properties, is not home: The children who are raised by one parent don’t live a life like a child who is raised by two parents; you realize that they are traumatized. They ask me ‘mum when is Dad going to be released so that he can come and live with us?’ Each time they find other children playing with their fathers they

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have a problem. My children were so loved by their father; they could only eat if he fed them. Even today they don’t eat unless I sit down and take a plate and spoon and feed them. Children (with fathers in prison) have problems just as the women do, and all I know is that a

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family with a husband in prison never progresses, it has problems all the time.

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Discussion

Our ethnographic data demonstrates that the intersection of imprisonment experiences, the dynamics of Gacaca courts and a fragile post-genocide social landscape has resulted in complex suffering among ex-prisoners and prisoners’ wives in Rwanda and its particularities are unparalleled in other countries. The psychosocial effects of incarceration among our respondents resemble those of men and women in the same position elsewhere in the world (see Haney 2003). However the plight of our respondents and those they represent is tainted 23

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT by a combination of Rwanda-specific factors: a decade-long community justice system chaired by popularly-elected lay judges and its (lingering) unfinished business, the severity of many of genocide crimes, the magnitude of those suspected or convicted as well as their close relatives, and a lack of policy and programmatic responses to the adverse effects of massive

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incarceration on individual, family and community level in a post-genocide context. Family, friends and neighbors who in the past would be a reliable and solid hammock for moral support and comfort for ex-prisoners or the wives of imprisoned men, are now sources of

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strain and discomfort.

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Our respondents have spoken about suffering of a range of painful and debilitating problems, including physical, psychological, family, social, welfare, judicial, livelihood and economic ones. These problems are mostly interlinked, which makes it impossible to discern a clear causal effect. Some of our respondents most likely suffer from psychiatric morbidity, such as

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those who spoke about being troubled by nightmares. Schaal et al. (2012), for instance, report a considerable degree of psychiatric morbidity among imprisoned Rwandan genocide perpetrators. The rates they found are unique and not comparable with those in studies of

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prisoners elsewhere. Forty one percent of their sample displayed clinically significant symptoms of depression. The authors hypothesize that the factors that may have contributed

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to this high degree of depression include overcrowded correctional facilities, poor sanitation, malnutrition, misgivings towards Gacaca and social disruption. Our qualitative study can be considered as complementary to Schaal et al. (ibid.) since it gives an in-depth insight into the complex of factors that may have contributed to the high scores of psychiatric morbidity among imprisoned genocide perpetrators. In addition, it identifies factors that continue to trouble the ex-prisoners once they are released and have to reintegrate in a changed sociocultural and political landscape. A study by Rieder and Elbert (2013) found that 22% of the 24

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT respondent ex-prisoners met the criteria for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and 22% for anxiety disorder. As in other countries, these psychological difficulties might be the result of harsh living conditions in prison, but what is specific for post-genocide Rwanda is the acute fear of re-integrating in an environment where they are expected to live ‘peacefully’

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side by side with wary genocide survivors.

In the US, there is a culture of empirically documenting the effects of imprisonment on

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families (wives and children) and informing policy makers on how to improve the welfare of inmates’ families and ex-prisoners (Arditti 2003, Haney 2003, La Vigne 2005, Petersilia

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2003). However, in Rwanda, the plight of these categories of people is still largely unknown due to the scarcity of empirical studies and inadequate attention by policy makers and psychosocial support programs. Studies such as Schaal et al. (2012) and Rieder and Elbert (2013) are an exception. However, these authors only focus on some of the measurable

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attributes of the suffering prisoners and ex-prisoners in Rwanda. To the best of our knowledge, to date, no studies have been conducted to establish the psychological situation of prisoners’ wives before, during and after Gacaca activities, nor is much known about the

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impact of being a child of a parent who is convicted or accused of genocide crimes.

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Today, physical security, order, stability and remarkable constant economic growth paint a picture of Rwanda that is far different from the images of the burning nation 20 years ago. Nevertheless, the plight of ex-prisoners, women with imprisoned husbands, genocide survivors and many others affected by the war, genocide and the aftermath, has become a state of emergency that differs from the situation immediately following the genocide. Our study findings illustrate that humanitarian action should recognize the dynamic complexity of a fragile social world wherein a large part of Rwanda’s population lives in a chronic state of 25

ACCEPTED MANUSCRIPT emergency. Despite critics, Gacaca was commonly perceived as a creative response to the difficult situation Rwanda was in. However, Gacaca was only able to partially meet its objectives. In the current post-Gacaca period, creative responses other than Gacaca are needed to fill the gaps Gacaca left behind. One urgent community need is the creation of contained

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social spaces in which people feel safe working towards social justice, good management of overwhelming emotions and healing broken and divided communities (King 2011: 147). Community-based sociotherapy in Rwanda (see methodology section above) aims to meet this

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need (www.sociotherapy.org).

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Gacaca was able to function on a national scale due to massive support from international donors; this included support that was partially provided for humanitarian reasons. Humanitarian interest in Rwanda today, two decades after the genocide, must respond to a completely new and uniquely Rwandan predicament—the continued silent suffering of ex-

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prisoners and the spouses of prisoners. This suffering does not only affect these particular categories of people and their families, but also impacts future harmonious social relations in the wider social fabric of Rwandan society. For restorative justice to take effect, a balanced

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approach to the needs and responsibilities of all stakeholders is required (Clamp 2014). Research has shown that distress among genocide survivors in Rwanda is quantitatively

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higher than among genocide perpetrators (Schaal et al. 2012; Rieder &Elbert 2013). Nevertheless, for the sake of restorative justice, meeting the specific needs of genocide survivors should be complemented by not only promoting offender accountability, but also advancing of their well-being and that of their families.

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Research highlights:

Contributes to the deromanticization of Gacaca by identifying concealed suffering

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Highlights the plight of ex-prisoners and women with imprisoned husbands after Gacaca

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Argues that a post-Gacaca context makes families’ suffering unique in the world

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