“I Am Among the Many Dead and Yet I Am Not Buried”:
Transitional Justice for Tutsi Rape Survivors in the Aftermath of
the Akayesu Trial
Katherine Seifert University of Amsterdam
Masters Thesis: Holocaust and Genocide Studies Advisor: Prof. dr. Nanci Adler
Second Reader: Thijs Bouwknegt 1 July 2017
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements………..…………..…3
Introduction………..……….4
Chapter 1: Rape as Genocide………..………...8
1.1 Understanding Wartime Rape………..………...…10
1.2 Defining Genocidal Rape………..……….….12
Chapter 2: Rape During the Rwandan Genocide………..………16
2.1 The Tutsi Myth: Propaganda as Motivation for Rape………..………...17
2.2 More than Rape: Mutilation and Humiliation………..………...21
2.3 The Slow Death: Transmission of HIV/AIDS………..………...22
2.4 Forced Marriage and Sexual Exploitation……….…………..24
2.5 Implications of Rape During the Genocide……….…………....26
Chapter 3: The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu……….………...….28
3.1 Building the Case……….………...….32
3.2 The Role of Witnesses……….………...37
3.3 A Successful Trial and its Forgotten Witnesses……….……..…...40
Chapter 4: The Rwandan Government and the Courts……….…..……..42
4.1 Rwandan Law and the Specialized Chambers………...………..47
4.2 An African Solution to African Problems: The Gacaca Courts………...…………50
4.3 Assistance and Compensation for Survivors………...………….57
4.4 Lessons Ignored: Government Policies and the Akayesu Trial………..….………….64
Chapter 5: Rwandan Culture, Society, and the Role of Communities………..…….…………68
5.1 Culture, Religion, and Stigma...70
5.2 The Successes and Failures of NGOs………..………….……….77
5.3 Rwandan Society and the ICTR………..………….………..83
Chapter 6: Individual Obstacles to Justice………..………….………...84
6.1 Raising a Child of Rape………..……….………...85
6.2 Coping Mechanisms………..……….……….88
6.3 Who Benefits from Transitional Justice?...93
Conclusion………..……….……..96
Acknowledgements
Introduction
“I remember the people who raped me and killed my family and friends. I see their faces in my nightmares...Life will never be the same again for me.”
-Assumpta, Tutsi Rape Survivor1
By the time the Tutsi-led rebel army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), liberated Kigali from Hutu extremists on July 4, 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans had been murdered.2 As scholars invest more resources into studying the Rwandan genocide, the events of the 100 days of violence between April and July become better recorded and more well-known. Since then, images and testimonies of men, women, and children being butchered by their machete-wielding neighbors, for no reason other than their “ethnic” identity, have gained recognition around the world.3 However, while the historical narrative developed by both international scholars and the post-genocide regime in Rwanda has focused primarily on Tutsi victims killed by Hutus, far less attention has been paid to other categories of victims. One of the most significant of these groups- by quantity and post-genocide impact- is the estimated hundreds of thousands of rape victims who survived the genocide at the expense of their physical and psychological well-being.4 While these survivors are in no way unknown or undiscussed, their experiences, particularly in the years since
1“Survivor Testimonies: Assumpta,” Survivors Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/testimonies/pdf/63%20-%20Assumpta2009.pdf.
2 The RPF was engaged in a civil war against the Hutu extremist government of Jean Kambanda, under whom the genocide was carried out against the Tutsis. 800,000 is one of the most commonly cited and accepted estimates of the death toll, though due to the difficulty of calculating it, estimates range between 500,000 and over 1 million.
See Marijke Verpoorten, “The Death Toll of the Rwandan Genocide: A Detailed Analysis for Gikongoro Province,” Population 60, no. 4 (2002): 357, accessed January 2017, DOI: 10.2307/4148179.
3 Though the Hutu and Tutsi of Rwanda share the same language, religion, and customs, a long history of social hierarchy (which became stricter and more defined under colonial rule by the Germans and then the Belgians) led to the view of the Hutu and Tutsi as separate “ethnicities,” with Tutsis treated as superior. These ethnicities, along with the minority Twa group, were formally recognized through identification cards implemented during colonialization and utilized until the RPF took over after the genocide.
See Mahmood Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and Genocide in Rwanda, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
4 Catrien Bijleveld, Aafke Morssinkhof, and Alette Smeulers, “Counting the Countless: Rape Victimization During the Rwandan Genocide,” International Criminal Justice Review 19, no. 2, (2009): 218, accessed April 2017, DOI:
the genocide, have received inadequate consideration in the construction of a historical record of the genocide, as well as in post-genocide transitional justice mechanisms.
In 1998, Jean-Paul Akayesu, mayor of Taba during the genocide, was the first individual convicted for rape as genocide in the first case of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).5 This landmark case continues to be heralded as a major step in the international recognition and punishment of rape. Its contribution to international law through the definition of rape as a crime against humanity and act of genocide, as well as its emphasis on witness participation, set a precedent for prosecuting a crime historically met with impunity. The bravery of the witnesses, the determination to recognize the crime of genocidal rape, and the successful conviction provided a beacon of hope for survivors left suffering in the wake of unimaginable trauma. However, though the Akayesu trial was significant in the precedent it set for prosecuting genocidal rape, it has ultimately failed to alleviate the everyday struggles of rape survivors in Rwanda.
Aims and Methodology
Analysis of survivor testimonies, court transcripts, government documents, NGO reports, and secondary literature reveals that attempts to provide justice and aid to rape survivors in Rwanda have been unsuccessful in reaching large numbers of victims. This thesis aims to understand the factors contributing to shortages in the provision of medical aid, physical and psychological therapy, and financial assistance, as well as the failure to convict many “lower-level” perpetrators of rape. The research utilized for this thesis focuses on female, Tutsi rape
5 As will be explained in Chapter Three, Taba is a small commune located just west of Kigali. “The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu,” International Crimes Database, accessed April 2017, http://www.internationalcrimesdatabase.org/Case/50/Akayesu/.
victims, because although they were not the only victims of rape during the Rwandan genocide, they were most frequently targeted. In addition, the intention behind raping Tutsis, as opposed to members of other ethnic groups, was inherently genocidal in its aim to destroy the Tutsis entirely, and therefore relevant to the Akayesu verdict. By analyzing this group, this thesis aims to answer the following questions: “Why has the Akayesu verdict, a landmark success in the field of international law, failed to significantly impact the lives of Tutsi rape survivors?” and “What factors have impeded the adequate implementation of transitional justice measures aimed at aiding Tutsi rape survivors?” For this research, transitional justice will be defined as the judicial and non-judicial measures utilized after a period of conflict to redress human rights abuses and promote healing and reconciliation.6
This thesis will be divided into two parts. Part I, including chapters one through three, will provide a historiography of war and genocidal rape, including current debates between scholars over how rape functions in conflict and the terminology of “genocidal rape.” Chapter two will examine the context of rape during the Rwandan genocide, and the different ways sexual violence was used against Tutsi women to achieve the group’s destruction. In the last chapter of part I, a study of the Akayesu trial will establish the basis for analysis of transitional justice mechanisms in Rwanda. Understanding how the case became the first to try rape as genocide, despite initial obstacles, offers a point of reference for comparing how this significant case could be followed with little success in transitional justice in Rwanda.
Part II will include chapters four through six. These chapters focus on the different actors contributing to and impeding transitional justice in Rwanda: 1) the Rwandan government and legal
6 What is Transitional Justice?” International Center for Transitional Justice, accessed April 2017, https://www.ictj.org/about/transitional-justice.
system, including specialized courts and gacaca; 2) Rwandan communities and NGOs, with consideration of the effects of community support versus isolation and stigma; and 3) the survivors, focusing on how personal struggles and successes, such as unwanted pregnancies, alcohol abuse, and seeking support, have influenced survivors’ sense of justice and healing. Analysis of these groups provides a comprehensive understanding of how transitional justice in post-genocide Rwanda is influenced on both macro and micro levels. This thesis will then conclude by discussing the findings of this research and their implications for the future of transitional justice in Rwanda.
Part I
Chapter One: Rape as Genocide
“He took out a pistol…he said he wasn’t going to waste a bullet…he said he was going to kill me with his penis.”
– Tutsi witness in the trial of Sylvestre Gacumbitsi7
As most scholars who have studied sexual violence emphasize, rape in conflict is not a modern phenomenon. In fact, though the view and understanding of rape may have differed over time, references to rape in war can be found in records dating back to antiquity. According to literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall, “historical and anthropological evidence suggests that rape in the context of war is an ancient human practice, and that this practice has stubbornly prevailed across a stunningly diverse concatenation of societies and historical epochs.”8 In the Christian bible, for example, rape can be seen both alluded to and even encouraged in several passages. In Deuteronomy 21, it is written: “When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies …and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her…then thou shalt bring her home to thine house.”9 With such narratives prevailing over centuries, rape has been accepted as an
unfortunate but inextricable component of war, and women seen as material prizes of victory rather than human victims of physical violation. As a result, rape was excluded from convictions for war crimes before the 1990s.
Modern-day warfare has been regulated primarily by the 1907 Hague Conventions and Regulations, the four 1949 Geneva Conventions, and the two 1977 Additional Protocols to the
7 Chrisopher W. Mullins, “’We Are Going to Rape You and Taste Tutsi Women’: Rape during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide,”
The British Journal of Criminology 49, no. 6 (2009): 729, accessed January 2017, DOI: 10.1093/bjc/azp040.
8 Jonathan Gottschall, “Explaining Wartime Rape,” The Journal of Sex Research 41, no. 2, (2004): 130, accessed March 2017, DOI: 10.1080/00224490409552221.
Geneva conventions.10 However, while these international treaties provide detailed instructions for wartime etiquette, the protection of women and girls is comparatively minimal. Kelly D. Askin, a legal officer for international justice, explains:
Laws of war regulate everything from the minimum number of cards or letters a prisoner of war can receive each month, to provisions requiring opportunities for internees to participate in outdoor sports […] Yet despite the fact that many regulations protecting either combatants or civilians are often described in minute and exhaustive detail, very little mention is made of specifically female combatants or civilians.11
The wording of the international treaties offers the impression that the drafters were vaguely supportive of, but not wholly committed to, the idea that rape should be outlawed in war. This is highlighted in their inadequate references to sexual violence, as well as in the absence of war rape indictments by the military tribunals after World War II. The following is only some of the inadequacies detailed by Askin:
-In the entirety of the Hague Conventions and Regulations, one single article (IV, art. 46) vaguely and indirectly prohibits sexual violence as a violation of “family honour.”
-The forty-two-volume set of transcripts of the Nuremberg Trial contains a 732-page index. Neither ‘rape’ nor ‘women’ is included in any heading or sub-heading in this index, despite the fact that crimes of sexual violence committed against women were extensively documented in the transcripts.
-The 1974 Declaration on the Protection of Women and Children in Emergency and Armed Conflict omits any reference to sexual violence.12
Despite the prevalence of sexual violence in conflict, its perpetration remained understated and unpunished until the tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the 1990s. As a result, the tribunals were tasked not only with the unprecedented prosecution of wartime sexual violence, but also with analyzing the complexities of why and how wartime rape occurs to begin with.
10 Kelly D. Askin, “Prosecuting Wartime Rape and Other Gender-Related Crimes Under International Law: Extraordinary Advances, Enduring Obstacles” Berkeley Journal of International Law 21, no. 1 (2003): 290, accessed March 2017, DOI:10.15779/Z384D2S.
11 Ibid., 294. 12 Ibid., 295.
1.1 Understanding Wartime Rape
The debate over why rape occurs so frequently during war continues to interest and divide scholars, allowing for the development of many theories but no clear answer. Understanding some of the leading theories and disagreements among scholars is important for understanding the ongoing debate over “genocidal rape,” and how it influenced the Akayesu trial. One of the prominent explanations for rape as a common tool of war suggests that it is not about sexual gratification, but rather a strategy to gain power. Susan Brownmiller writes: “The body of a raped woman becomes a ceremonial battlefield, a parade ground for the victor’s trooping of the colors. The act that is played out upon her is a message passed between men- vivid proof of victory for one and loss and defeat for the other.”13 Brownmiller’s argument has caused controversy for what
some scholars claim to be a “sociobiological” analysis, which they contend focuses on male perpetrators as biologically driven to rape, and females as the inherent victims. 14
Though Brownmiller’s feminist approach is outdated in its failure to recognize both female perpetrators and male victims, her argument remains valuable in its assertion that men gain power through the anatomical makeup of their bodies. Gottschall explains: “Most writers follow Brownmiller's (1975) argument that rape is biological only in the sense that an ‘accident of biology’ (male size and strength and the nature of human sex organs) gave males the ‘structural capacity’ to rape and females the ‘structural vulnerability’ to be raped.”15 This understanding
offers some insight into why men are most often the perpetrators of sexual violence- because they
13 Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), 38.
14 Diana Milello, “Rape as a Tactic of War: Social and Psychological Perspectives,” Journal of Women and Social Work 21, no. 2, (2006): 198, accessed January 2017, DOI: 10.1177/0886109905285822.
have the ‘structural capacity’ to do so- but why women are also capable of being perpetrators- because there is no inherent, biological impulse that dictates only men can rape.
According to Gottschall, there are four leading theories for the prevalence of wartime rape: the feminist theory, the cultural pathology theory, the strategic rape theory, and the biosocial theory.16 Of these four, the first three are founded on the notion that social and cultural factors, rather than sexual desire, are the strongest influence on the decision to rape during war.17 The main difference between them is the factors they emphasize as most important. The feminist theory claims that war rape is a result of patriarchal societies, in which males are conditioned to distrust, despise, and dominate females, and thus rape is a “conspiracy” amongst men to oppress women.18 The cultural pathology theory, in contrast, focuses on national histories and the development of male barbarism in a specific society, or how culture teaches men to rape.19 The third, the strategic rape theory, identifies war rape as a “coherent, coordinated, logical, and brutally effective means of prosecuting warfare.”20 The unifying idea of these theories is that rape actually has very little, if anything at all, to do with sex itself. The most widely supported theory continues to be the strategic rape theory, the idea that rape is nothing more than another weapon of war- a tactic aimed at weakening the enemy and ensuring triumph. The disadvantage of this theory is that by denying the potential significance of biological factors, scholars limit their ability to evaluate the many varying influences motivating soldiers to rape.
Rape, by the definition established during the Akayesu case, is “a physical invasion of a sexual nature.”21 Therefore, the effort to undermine the sexual component of rape in favor of a 16 Gottschall, 129 17 Ibid. 18 Ibid., 131. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid.
more sociocultural definition restricts the understanding of the nature of rape, as well as the effects it has on its victims. In contrast, the biosocial theory considers both social and biological influences, and argues that sexual desire is influential during wartime rape. Even if rape is not always about sexual gratification, it is inherently about sex and everything it stands for. As psychologist Noam Shpancer explains:
To claim that sex—one of our most powerful motives (our species’ existence depends on it, after all)—is somehow absent from an act that routinely involves erection, vaginal penetration, and ejaculation defies reason. Arguing that rape is not about sex is akin to asserting that gun violence is not about guns.”22
Though the debate over rape and its function in war is not likely to reach a conclusion any time soon, scholars should recognize that human beings, especially those driven to extremes during war, are influenced by a variety of factors and intentions. In consideration of these variables, scholars have begun to argue that when perpetrators are driven by hatred of a specific group, and the intention is to utilize rape as massacre, the rape must be recognized as genocidal.
1.2 Defining Genocidal Rape
The diversity of opinion found in war rape scholarship can also be found in the study of genocidal rape. Though many of the same ideas regarding war rape apply to the definition of genocidal rape, scholars argue there are significant differences that require distinction between the two terms. Catharine A. MacKinnon, a feminism activist and legal scholar, explains what differentiates genocidal rape from war rape:
[Genocidal rape] is ethnic rape as an official policy of war in a genocidal campaign for political control. That means…not only a policy to defile, torture, humiliate, degrade, and demoralize the other side, which happens all the time in war; and not only a policy of men posturing to gain advantage and ground over other men. It is specifically rape under orders. This is not rape out of
22 Noam Shpancer, “Rape is Not (Only) About Power; It’s (Also) About Sex,” Psychology Today, February 1, 2016, accessed January 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201602/rape-is-not-only-about-power-it-s-also-about-sex.
control. It is rape under control. It is also rape unto death, rape as massacre, rape to kill and to make the victims wish they were dead.23
Genocidal rape, as per MacKinnon’s definition, is more than a show of victory or military might. Instead, it is a means to an end; it is a way to inflict excruciating and sustained levels of physical and psychological pain, stripping the victim of their dignity while bringing them to the brink of death, or killing them outright. Genocidal rape includes components of war rape, but war rape is not genocidal rape. While rape victims in the case of traditional warfare are often seen as a prize the victor is entitled to, rape victims in the case of genocide are viewed as a subhuman threat that must be eradicated. Whereas rape during war may be encouraged by military leaders, there is no administrative intent to kill large numbers of civilians through rape. In contrast, genocidal rape is “rape under orders”- an official policy of death, aimed at killing non-combatants of a certain target group.
This understanding of genocidal rape is in accordance with the definition of genocide established by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948), which has currently been ratified by 147 states.24 Article II of the Convention outlines the
mens rea, or intention behind the crime, followed by the actus rea, the physical acts through which the crime is carried out:
Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
23 Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Rape, Genocide, and Women’s Human Rights,” Harvard Women’s Law Journal 17 (1994), 11, accessed January 2017,
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Permalink?a=dXZhLm5s&u=http%3A%2F%2Fheinonline.org%2FHOL%2FPage%3Fhandle%3Dhei n.journals%2Fhwlj17%26id%3D%26page%3D%26collection%3Djournals%26id%3D13.
24 “Treaties, State Parties, and Commentaries: Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948,” International Committee of the Red Cross, accessed January 2017,
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.25
Applying this definition to MacKinnon’s explanation of genocidal rape confirms that this form of rape- which aims not only to humiliate and dehumanize, but also to destroy the victim either physically or psychologically for belonging to a specific group- is an act of genocide. Even in cases where the victim survives the trauma, there is inevitable bodily and mental harm after enduring violent sexual penetration, mutilation of private parts, and fatal sexually transmitted diseases. The mutilation of women’s vaginas also serves as a measure against further reproduction and therefore is an attempt to bring about the ultimate destruction of the target group, another component of genocide.
Though the definition of genocidal rape is supported by the convention itself, some scholars argue against the use of the term. One such scholar is human rights lawyer Rhonda Copelon, whose dedication to defending women’s rights is a major influence behind her aversion to the concept. One of her arguments is that war rape, a crime historically left unpunished by domestic and international law, risks being ignored again if it is associated with the crime of genocide. She writes:
Genocide is an effort to debilitate or destroy a people based on its identity as a people, while rape seeks to degrade and destroy a woman based on her identity as a woman. Both are grounded in total contempt for and dehumanization of the victim, and both give rise to unspeakable brutalities. […] But to emphasize as unparalleled the horror of genocidal rape
25 UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 78, p. 277, accessed October 2016, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6b3ac0.html.
is factually dubious and risks rendering rape invisible once again. When ethnic war ceases or is forced back into the bottle, will the crimes against women matter?26
Copelon’s disagreement with the term is founded not on a lack of interest in recognizing or prosecuting the specific crimes of war rape and genocide, but rather on concern over the implications of “genocidal rape.” She focuses on how the specificity of the term- on the one hand, necessary for the distinction between war rape and rape as a tool of genocide- may also negatively affect victims by connoting a more generalized crime against humanity rather than the “gendered” crime she asserts it to be. Her argument exhibits the concern that by using the term “genocide,” a crime directed against ethnic, religious, national, and racial groups, the fact that rape is a crime against women, as women, is obscured.
In response to Copelon’s argument, scholars have contended: “it is important to acknowledge the intersectionality of genocidal rape…that [it] is in fact a crime that implicates both gender and ethnicity and to understand that certain women are being raped by certain men for particular reasons.”27 Though it is again necessary to assert that men have also been victims and women perpetrators of genocidal rape, this counter-argument, and the arguments supporting the recognition of genocidal rape, have been more widely accepted than those posed by Copelon. The necessity for the term “genocidal rape”- a term that defines the specific nature of rape as genocide- is evident through the crimes that were committed against Tutsi women during the Rwandan genocide, which will be the focus of chapter two.
26 Rhonda Copelon, “Gendered War Crimes: Reconceptualizing Rape in Time of War” in Women’s Rights, Human Rights:
International Feminist Perspectives, ed. Julie Peters and Andrea Wolper, (New York: Routledge, 1995), 199.
27 Sherrie L. Russell-Brown, “Rape as an Act of Genocide,” Berkeley Journal of International Law 21, no.2 (2003): 351, accessed January 2017, DOI:10.15779/Z380M0V.
Chapter Two: Rape During the Rwandan Genocide
“…they began to beat me on the legs with sticks. Then one of them raped me. He said ‘…Now the Hutu have won. You Tutsi, we are going to exterminate you.’”
- Denise, Tutsi Rape Survivor28
Eugenie Mukeshimana was in her early twenties and 8 months pregnant when Hutu extremists began killing Tutsis in Rwanda.29 Though she lost her husband and was forced to give birth alone in an outhouse, Mukeshimana admits that she owes her survival to one thing: luck.30 Among the dozens of testimonies utilized for this thesis, the theme of survival in the face of extreme odds unites them all. Survivors’ recollections of being taunted, beaten, tortured, raped, and even macheted or poisoned, reveal how determined the Interahamwe, the Hutu militiamen, were to destroy Tutsi women through sexual violence. Like most of the statistics of the Rwandan genocide, the number of women raped (among both survivors and those who were killed) remains contested, but all sources available seem to confirm René Degni-Segui’s, assertion in 1996 that “rape was the rule, and its absence the exception.”31 In a detailed report published in 2009,
researchers at the Vrije Universiteit of Amsterdam deduced that around 340,000 Tutsi women were raped during the genocide, with an estimated 60,000 of those women surviving.32 Their research
also concluded there was an 80 percent chance a Tutsi woman would be raped at least once as the genocide unfolded.33 The survivor testimonies support these findings; it seems impossible to find
28 Binaifer Nowrojee, Shattered Lives: Sexual Violence During the Rwandan Genocide and its Aftermath, (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1996), 63.
29 “Eugenie Mukeshimana Bio,” Genocide Survivors Support Network, accessed May 2017, http://www.gssnglobal.org/eugenie-mukeshimana-bio.html.
30 The Takeaway, “One Genocide Survivor’s Quest to Support Other Refugees,” WNYC, April 8, 2014, accessed April 2017, http://www.wnyc.org/story/one-rwandan-genocide-survivors-quest-support-other-refugees/.
31 Degni-Segui is the former Rapporteur of the UN Commission on Human Rights of Rwanda.
See UN Commission on Human Rights, “Report on the Situation of Human Rights in Rwanda,” submitted by Rene Degni-Segui, January 29, 1996, accessed January 2017, http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/commission/country52/68-rwa.htm.
32 Bijleveld, Morssinkhof, and Smeulers, “Counting the Countless,” 218. 33 Ibid., 219.
a woman who survived without knowing a rape victim, witnessing a rape, or experiencing it herself.
With consideration of a large quantity of testimonies, it is important to recognize that sexual violence was not limited to only rape (that is, penetration of the woman’s vagina by the male’s penis) by the Interahamwe. Though it is impossible to generalize such a range of experiences, this chapter relies on a synthesis of the most commonly recurring themes in survivor testimonies: anti-Tutsi propaganda, sexual mutilation and humiliation, the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, and sexual exploitation and forced marriage. Analysis of these different but prevalent occurrences allows some understanding of the ways women were sexually violated and exploited during the genocide, and the intentions exhibited by their abusers.
2.1 The Tutsi Myth: Propaganda as Motivation for Rape
One of the primary influences on the militiamen’s desire to use sexual violence against Tutsi women was the stereotypes that were propagated by the media. In Rwanda: Les Médias du Génocide, the first comprehensive study and translation of pro-genocide Rwandan propaganda, the media is described as: “the transductive vector through which the terrible venom of racist ideology was injected.”34 Myths that had persisted for decades, such as that Tutsi women are sexual deviants who trick Hutu men into having sex with them, were fueled through anti-Tutsi propaganda in newspapers and on the radio. In reports from two of the most radical media outlets, the newspaper Kangura and the radio station Radio Télévision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM), the Hutus were warned to guard themselves against Tutsi women, who possessed supernatural powers
34 Françoise Nduwimana, The Right to Survive: Sexual Violence, Women, and HIV/AIDS, trans. Rwanda: Les Médias du
capable of “[transforming] their sisters, wives, and mothers into pistols.”35 These stereotypes were used as one of the justifications for raping the “cockroaches” (inyenzi).36
In her 1996 Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on the genocide, Binaifer Nowrojee quotes a female NGO employee in Kigali as explaining: “Hutu men wanted to know Tutsi women, to have sex with them. Tutsi women were supposed to be special sexually.”37 This idea is supported by the abundance of testimonies that make mention of Hutu men’s desire to “taste a Tutsi woman” and see “what she looks like on the inside.” The survivor quoted at the beginning of this chapter, Denise, was permanently maimed in an effort to prove the difference between Tutsi and Hutu women. She testifies:
He held one leg of mine open and another one held the other leg. He called everyone who was outside and said, “come and see how Tutsikazi are on the inside.” Then he said, “You Tutsikazi, you think you are the only beautiful women in the world.” Then he cut out the inside of my vagina. He took the flesh outside, took a small stick and put what he had cut on the top. He stuck the stick in the ground outside the door and was shouting, "Everyone who comes past here will see how Tutsikazi look.”38
Denise’s story may represent one of the most extreme measures taken to “confirm” Tutsi stereotypes, but her experience is not entirely unique. Her recollection of the man mocking her and saying Tutsi women think too highly of themselves represents a widespread stereotype of Tutsi women as arrogant and narcissistic. Many survivors have recalled comments such as “You Tutsi women think that you are too good for us” and “You Tutsi girls, you are too proud.”39
35 Nowrojee, Shattered Lives, 17.
36 Hutus often referred to the Tutsis as “cockroaches,” or inyenzi in Kinyarwanda. This was part of the larger genocidal process of dehumanization.
See Alison Des Forges, “Propaganda and Practice”, in Leave None to Tell the Story (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1999), 73. 37 Nowrojee, 19.
38 Ibid., 63. 39 Nowrojee, 19.
While intentions to degrade or “sample” the enemy women are not unique to genocidal rape, the planned outcome for the women is what makes these acts of genocide. With rare exceptions, the Hutu militiamen had no intention of keeping the Tutsi women alive. Even the men who could not be bothered with killing their victims after raping them assumed the pain they caused would ensure eventual death. The testimony of one survivor, Clementine, provides an example:
“Two of the older militia refused to rape me…but they urged the younger ones to rape me and the other woman with me. They were saying ‘we want to see how the Tutsikazi look inside.’ [and] ‘You can't shout-you must accept everything that we do to you now.’” After finishing the rapes, the older militia told the younger ones not to bother to kill Clementine because “you've already killed her.”40
This one testimony provides evidence of several important components of rape during the genocide. First, it shows the sheer brutality of the Interahamwe, who were not satisfied murdering the women without first torturing and humiliating them. Second, it reveals how the older leaders of the group would encourage the younger men to rape, and that rape was sometimes a group activity. As New York Times journalist Peter Landesman writes, “a woman would be publicly raped as a way for Interahamwe mobs to bond together”41 Lastly, it confirms that rape was an intentional tool of genocide, as the men openly expressed that their actions had already destroyed Clementine so thoroughly, murdering her would not be necessary.
By propagating hate speech and lies to a widespread audience, media was one of the most effective outlets through which the public could be mobilized against the Tutsis. In the early 1990s, Kangura and other pro-Hutu newspapers were distributed in Kigali and spread throughout the
40 Nowrojee, 47.
41 Peter Landesman, “A Woman’s Work,” The New York Times Magazine, September 15, 2002, accessed April 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/15/magazine/a-woman-s-work.html.
countryside by urban workers returning home on the weekends.42 According to Alison Des Forge’s 1999 HRW report, 66 percent of Rwandans were literate at the time of the genocide and would often read the newspaper to others.43 The radio was particularly influential, as its growing popularity allowed anti-Tutsi messages to spread rapidly and to a larger audience, making hate speech commonplace in Rwandans’ daily lives. In the years after the genocide, research into the causes and nature of the genocide pointed overwhelmingly to the role of the media, especially the radio.
In 2003, three of the most important figures in Rwandan media were found guilty of genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, and direct and public incitement to commit genocide.44 The trial, dubbed the Media Case, was against Ferdinand Nahimana and Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, director and chairman of RTLM respectively, and Hassan Ngeze, founder and editor of Kangura.45 During these trials, the influence of the media on violence against Tutsis was deemed significant enough to sentence Nahimana and Ngeze to life imprisonment and Barayagwiza to 35 years.46 It was the first conviction of news media executives since Nuremberg, when Nazi publisher Julius Streicher received the death penalty for his campaign against Jews.47 Though the details of the
case are beyond the scope of this thesis, it is necessary to acknowledge that the men responsible for the propagation of anti-Tutsi rhetoric were brought to justice; a small victory for the women destroyed by a conviction that their ethnic identity made them unworthy of life.
42 Des Forges, Leave None to Tell the Story, 67. 43 Ibid.
44 Sophia Kagan, “The ‘Media Case’ Before the Rwanda Tribunal: The Nahimana et al. Appeal Judgement,” The Hague Justice
Portal, April 24, 2008, accessed May 2017, http://www.haguejusticeportal.net/index.php?id=9166.
45 Catharine A. MacKinnon, “Prosecutor V. Nahimana, Barayagwiza, & Ngeze. Case No. ICTR 99-52A” The American Journal
of International Law, 103, no. 1 (2009): 97, accessed April 2017, DOI: 10.2307/20456724
46 Barayagwiza’s shorter sentence was due to a technicality regarding a violation of his legal rights early in the proceedings. See Sharon Lafraniere, “Court Finds Rwanda Media Executives Guilty of Genocide,” The New York Times, December 3, 2003, accessed April 2017, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/03/international/africa/court-finds-rwanda-media-executives-guilty-of-genocide.html.
2.2 More than Rape: Mutilation and Humiliation
The Interahamwe used any means available to torture, dehumanize, and maim the Tutsi women. Mutilation, usually through cutting, burning, or forcing foreign objects such as sticks or weapons into their vaginas, was a frequent occurrence. One 21-year-old woman documented by HRW was sent to receive vaginal reconstruction surgery in Belgium (a fortunate but rare opportunity) after she was permanently mutilated by acid thrown on her genitals.48 Other women were humiliated by being forced to strip naked in front of crowds. One woman, Chantal, was made to do cartwheels nude in front of an audience because she was known as a gymnast.49 As in Clementine’s story, perpetrators also pressured young boys into raping the women, making the experience particularly mortifying. This was sometimes part of a public gang rape, in which women were subjected to repeated sexual abuse often until or beyond the point of unconsciousness. One example of this is offered in the testimony of Adéle:
They used to come and take us one by one to rape us. The gang consisted of many people, including the children of my cousins who were married to Hutus. I stayed there from April until May and each day the killers came to rape us. They did so in the open air, in full view of everyone as if they were in competition. A man married to my cousin was the leader of the killers.50
Adéle’s is not the only case in which family members turned against their Tutsi relatives. There are several documented instances in which Hutus betrayed their Tutsi wives, and even their children, by abandoning them or identifying them to the local militia.51 In other cases, members
of a woman’s family were forced to rape her. Silvana Arbia, former chief of prosecutions for the ICTR, recalled the story of one victim: “a 45-year-old Rwandan woman…was raped by her
48 Nowrojee, 63.
49 Akayesu Trial Judgement, para. 429, 175.
50 African Rights, “Rwanda: Broken Bodies, Torn Spirits. Living With Genocide, Rape, and HIV/AIDS,” (Kigali: African Rights, 2004), 13, accessed March 2017, http://preventgbvafrica.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/brokenbodies.africanrights.pdf. 51 Nowrojee, 48.
year-old son -- with Interahamwe holding a hatchet to his throat -- in front of her husband, while their five other young children were forced to hold open her thighs.”52
These acts of the utmost degradation are more than an attempt to humiliate or to fulfill a sick fantasy; they are aimed at the destruction of entire families. They are acts to ensure that even should any of those family members physically survive the genocide, they would never survive mentally. Rape as an instrument of the perpetrator’s sexual pleasure is traumatic in itself, but rape as a weapon, combined with mutilation, humiliation, incest (forced or voluntary), and dehumanization is meant to be more than traumatic- it is meant to be deadly. That is what makes sexual violence of this nature inherently genocidal.
2.3 The Slow Death: Transmission of HIV/AIDS
Another way perpetrators used their bodies as a weapon of genocide was by infecting Tutsi victims with HIV and other painful sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs). Some estimates claim that the rate of HIV/AIDS infection among the rape survivors is between 66.7 and 80 percent.53 Whether HIV was intentionally transmitted remains debated, but survivor testimonies suggest that the militia used the prevalence of STDs to their advantage by directing infected men to rape Tutsis.54 In an account cited by global health expert Stefan Elbe, one survivor recalled the rapists taunting her by saying: “We are not killing you. We are giving you something worse. You will die a slow death.”55 Another survivor interviewed by Françoise Nduwimana, author of The Right to
Survive: Sexual Violence, Women, and HIV/AIDS testifies,
52 Landesman, “A Woman’s Work.” 53 Nduwimana, The Right to Survive, 20.
54 HIV/AIDS was already widespread in Rwanda before the genocide, with an estimated 25% of the general population and 35% of the Rwandan army testing positive.
See Nowrojee, 76.
55 Obijiofor Aginam, “Rape and HIV as Weapons of War,” United Nations University, June 27, 2012, accessed January 2017, https://unu.edu/publications/articles/rape-and-hiv-as-weapons-of-war.html.
I was raped by two gendarmes …one of the gendarmes was seriously ill, you could see that he had AIDS, his face was covered with spots, his lips were red, almost burned, he had abscesses on his neck. Then he told me “take a good look at me and remember what I look like. I could kill you right now but I don't feel like wasting my bullet. I want you to die slowly like me.”56
By infecting women with HIV, the men were not only prolonging their suffering, but also ensuring they would be rejected by their communities. One survivor, Emma, explains, “I was very anxious because if the neighbours ever found out, they’d ostracise me. My biggest fear was that other people would identify me as HIV positive.”57 In Rwandan culture, women are traditionally
valued for their fertility, purity, and role as wife and mother.58 Through rape, and particularly by infecting them with HIV/AIDs, the men destroyed the women’s place in society, because being viewed as “tainted’ and “impure” would make it difficult to find a partner. As a result, some rape survivors kept their past a secret from their husbands. One survivor, Alexia, shares her experience: “When he found out that I was HIV positive, he was very angry with me. We argued constantly. Before we got married, I’d hidden from him the fact that I’d been raped.”59 Women in Rwanda are
vulnerable without a husband, as they are viewed by society as dependents of men and are expected to be “managed and protected by their fathers, their husbands, and their male children” throughout their lives.60 As one survivor laments, “How could life have meaning without kids, without a husband?”61 When the Hutu rapists infected the women with HIV, they did so with the hope that
56 Nduwimana, The Right to Survive, 19.
57 “Survivor Testimonies: Emma,” Survivors Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/testimonies/pdf/82%20-%20Emma2009.pdf 58 Nowrojee, 19.
59 “Survivor Testimonies: Alexia,” Survivors Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/testimonies/pdf/85%20-%20Alexia2009.pdf. 60 Nowrojee, 19.
61 Donatilla Mukamana and Anthony Collins, “Rape Survivors of the Rwandan Genocide,” International Journal of Critical
Psychology 17 (2006): 155, accessed May 2017,
their victims would suffer long after the genocide officially ended, and that they would suffer alone.
2.4 Forced Marriage and Sexual Exploitation
Tutsi women were not only victims of genocidal rape, but were also at risk of being sexually exploited or forced into marriage. In certain cases, this could be the rare exception when a Hutu perpetrator was not interested in killing his Tutsi victim. Ironically, these women were saved from death by their rapists, but at the price of their bodies. In the chaos and lawlessness of the genocidal period, some perpetrators saw an opportunity to have what they never could before; the unattainable, seductive Tutsi women became vulnerable targets that could easily be taken advantage of. Consequently, these perpetrators used their newfound power to force the captive women to become their wives, threatening to kill them or turn them over to the militia if they did not comply. One survivor, Chantal, describes how she was forced into marriage during the genocide: “One of the men said he would protect me if I agreed to be his wife. I had no choice. He had already raped me and could keep me if he wanted to. I stayed with him until the end of the genocide, when he escaped to the Democratic Republic of Congo.”62
Chantal’s conviction that the man could “keep her” because he raped her is a reflection on Rwandan cultural views towards female sexuality. In this view, the female body is the property of her husband, and therefore under his control. Chantal’s story is also one of several examples of perpetrators who exploited their positions as “rescuers” to sexually violate women or coerce them into marriage. Another survivor, Dévota, was only 7 years old when the genocide began, but this did not protect her from sexual violence at the hands of her supposed guardians. After her family
62 “Survivor Testimonies: Chantal,” Survivors Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016,
was found in hiding, the Interahamwe murdered her grandmother, and one of them kidnapped her. She explains,
He then began to rape me…[he said] “If you don’t do everything that I order you to do, you will also be killed.” […] I was there about two months…[then] he joined the exodus to the Democratic Republic of Congo. I was no longer at his mercy, but I had to beg at the market for food. Soon afterwards, a gang of street children moved into the house I was staying in…The eldest was 20 but they were all older than me […] the 8 boys also raped me […] A woman who saw me in the market took pity on me. I moved into her house but was left alone with her husband every day and soon he too began to rape me. He knew through his wife that I had been raped by several men, so he told me: “Come here, you’ve got nothing to save,” meaning that he wasn’t the first.63
Dévota’s rapists exploited both her Tutsi identity and the innocence of her young age. The first man to take her captive even referred to himself as her “father,” while the last man to rape her felt he had no obligation to protect her since she was already “impure”.64 Judging by their treatment
of her, the men who took advantage of Dévota did not care if she died, but they also chose not to kill her themselves. This suggests that the men were driven more by personal desire and opportunity than genocidal intent.
The men who chose to keep Tutsis captive as sex slaves or wives were outliers in the genocidal scheme. Their willingness to keep Tutsis alive, even for sinister reasons, put them at risk of retribution from other militiamen. This is evident through the testimony of Adeline: “By mid-June, there were few Tutsis left to massacre, and the killers got more and more agitated. They went from village to village to hunt any surviving snakes. Word got around that Marcel [her rapist and captor] was keeping Tutsi spoils. The local leader ordered a search.”65 Testimonies such as this reveal that the contradictory notion that Hutu militiamen would take Tutsi wives did not go
63 “Survivor Testimonies: Dévota,” Survivors Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016, http://www.un.org/en/preventgenocide/rwanda/testimonies/pdf/72%20-%20Devota2009.pdf. 64 Ibid.
65 “Survivor Testimonies: Adeline,” Survivor’s Fund Rwanda, accessed October 2016,
unnoticed or unpunished by those who truly believed in Tutsi eradication. In the Hutu “Ten Commandments,” published in the December 1990 issue of Kangura, it states: “we shall consider a traitor any Hutu who: marries a Tutsi woman; befriends a Tutsi woman; employs a Tutsi woman as a secretary or a concubine.”66 To the Interahamwe members who believed in the honor of the genocidal campaign, the suffering caused by forced marriage and sexual slavery was not enough; the Tutsi women could not be allowed to survive.
2.5 Implications of Rape during the Genocide
Sexual violence during the Rwandan genocide was not limited to rape as it is traditionally understood. The perpetrators did more than use the women’s bodies to sexually gratify themselves. In most cases, they made sure the experience was as traumatic, painful, and humiliating as possible, stripping away the women’s will to live alongside their dignity. The evidence shows that rape during the Rwandan genocide was not a matter of “spoils of war.” It was a weapon of genocide, aimed at dehumanizing and destroying not only the female victim, but also her family and community. Psychologist Justin Kabanga explains, “Rape [does] not only have the goal of destroying the individual. It also [destroys] the familial fabric, the social fabric, and the economic fabric.”67 Even men who chose to keep the women alive as wives and sex slaves were performing
an act of genocide- not through an intention to kill, but in their intention to cause physical and mental harm, and in implementing measures aimed towards the physical destruction of the group. Hutu men who took Tutsi wives knew that any children born from their marriage would, by Rwandan ethnicity customs, become Hutu.68 As such, this act was also a step in the larger attempt
66 Nowrojee, 17.
67 The Uncondemned, directed by Michele Mitchell and Nick Louvel, (New York: Film at Eleven Media, 2015).
68 Charles Ntampaka, “Family Law in Rwanda,” The International Survey of Family Law 1995 (The Netherlands), 13, accessed April 2017, https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/bitstream/handle/2152/4230/2314.pdf?...
to eradicate the Tutsis entirely. These genocidal efforts and the acts of rape that contributed to them would go on to form the first trial of the ICTR, the case against Jean-Paul Akayesu.
Chapter Three: The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul Akayesu
“We were representing women everywhere. It is important to know that rape is a crime- that it is punishable nationally, in Africa, and internationally. That is why we did it.”
-Victoire Mukambanda, Witness “JJ” in the Akayesu Trial69
Before entering politics in the early 1990s, Jean-Paul Akayesu was a well-liked schoolteacher and father of five in Taba, a small commune located just west of Kigali.70 Educated and polite, Akayesu was respected by his community for his “high morals, intelligence, and integrity.”71 In 1991, he became one of the founding members of a new moderate political party,
Mouvement Démocratique Républicain (MDR), in opposition to the ruling party of the time, Mouvement Républicain National Pour la Démocratie et le Développement (MRND).72 The MDR criticized the MRND and its leader, President Juvénal Habyarimana, for delays in infrastructure projects and a lack of necessities such as roads, health facilities, and electricity.73 Akayesu’s popularity, in combination with the resonating message of the party, led to a sizeable MDR membership in Taba.74 In 1993, with support from local political and religious leaders, Akayesu was elected bourgmestre (mayor) despite claiming an initial reluctance to run for office.75
As bourgmestre, Akayesu enjoyed a wide range of powers including overseeing infrastructure, markets, law enforcement, and even social life within the commune.76 Through the influence of this position, Akayesu became an important figure during the genocide. With control over the police and commune laws, Akayesu was able and willing to protect his Tutsi population
69 The Uncondemned.
70 Akayesu Judgement, para. 53, 38 71 Ibid.
72 Ibid., para. 52. 73 Ibid.
74 Akayesu Judgement, para. 52, 38. 75 Ibid., para. 53.
when violence first broke out on April 7th.77 He allegedly refused to allow the Interahamwe to enter Taba, and maintained peace between the Hutu and Tutsi members of the town. During the trial against Akayesu, Witness W testified that Taba citizens even killed members of the Interahamwe as part of Akayesu’s order to resist.78 Given his political affiliation, Akayesu was known as a moderate Hutu, and therefore many expected him to reject the genocidal ideology of the extremists. In fact, as a moderate, Akayesu himself was in danger of being killed; he was protected only by a colonel he knew in the Rwandan Army.79 As a result, the Tutsis in Taba trusted
and relied on Akayesu for survival, especially as the situation in neighboring communities worsened.
On April 18, 1994, in the town of Murambi, Akayesu and other mayors met with members of the interim government, a radical group who gained power after Habyarimana’s plane was shot down.80 Though the exact details of this meeting are debated, witnesses agree it was a critical turning point after which Akayesu abandoned his earlier strategy and began cooperating with the Interahamwe. The day after the meeting, Akayesu publicly identified at least three prominent Tutsis as members of the rebel army, the RPF.81 Thierry Cruvellier, a journalist who covered the
entirety of the Akayesu trial, recorded Head Prosecutor Pierre Prosper’s cross-examination of Akayesu: “’Saying that they were RPF accomplices was tantamount to handing out a death
77 Akayesu Judgement, para. 184, 90.
78 Witnesses in the Akayesu trial were assigned “letters” to identify them without violating their privacy. Ibid.
79 Moderate Hutus were also targeted by the extremists who took power during the genocide.
Thierry Cruvellier, Court of Remorse: Inside the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, (Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2010), 24.
80 Ibid.
81 These men were Ephrem Karangwa, Juvénal Rukundakuvuga, and Emmanuel Sempabwa. See Akayesu Judgement, para. 15, 11
sentence, was it not?’ Akayesu tried to dodge the question. Prosper repeated it. ‘By saying they were RPF accomplices, that meant death, didn’t it?’ “Of course,” the defendant muttered.”82
Evidence that Akayesu had protected Tutsis during the early period made it more difficult for the Prosecution to prove Akayesu had genocidal intent. Therefore, Proper intended to show that Akayesu began participating in the genocide on April 19th, and that he was aware of the deadly repercussions of denouncing local Tutsis as RPF members. Though Akayesu did not murder these men himself, by taking advantage of his authority as bourgmestre and encouraging violence, Akayesu was ultimately responsible for their deaths. Prosper says, “He was an opportunist. He thought the wind was blowing in that direction and that he would be applauded and elevated.”83
During the trial, the Defense did not deny there was a shift after April 18th, but challenged accusations that Akayesu’s dedication to protecting Tutsis changed because of a direct order or because of personal opportunism. They stated, “Since […] it had not been shown that orders for the extermination of the Tutsi were given at the Murambi meeting…it follows that the accused could not have returned to his Commune a changed man because of those non-existent orders.”84 Instead, the Defense claimed Akayesu did not have the capability to continue protecting the Tutsis, and argued against allegations that he had the authority and responsibility to prevent the killings. Defense witnesses claimed, “it was not possible for him to do anything with ten communal policemen at his disposal against more than a hundred Interahamwe.”85 The Chamber rejected the Defense’s argument, pointing to the evidence of Akayesu’s behavior following April 18th:
The Chamber finds beyond a reasonable doubt that the conduct of the Accused changed after 18 April 1994, and that after this date the Accused did not attempt to prevent the killing of Tutsi in the commune of Taba. In fact, there is evidence that he not only knew of and witnessed the killings,
82 Cruvellier, 27. 83 The Uncondemned.
84 Akayesu Judgement, para. 37, 32. 85 Akayesu Judgement, para. 189, 93.
but that he participated in and even ordered killing […] there were people that came to the Accused for help and he turned them away.86
Thierry Cruvellier has said: “Let’s agree that [Akayesu] was not an important man in the system.”87 Akayesu is not one of the big leaders of the genocide, nor is he a blood-stained,
psychopathic mass murderer. Prosper recalls when he first saw Akayesu walk into the courtroom: “I didn’t necessarily have a vision in my mind of what a war criminal looked like, but he [didn’t] look like a war criminal.”88 The fact that Akayesu was the first to be tried by the ICTR was a matter
of circumstance, rather than a deliberate effort. Cruvellier says, “We all thought that of course [the trials] had to start with the big, big guys…but it never works like this…Akayesu was unlucky to be caught very early.”89 Akayesu was arrested in Zambia in October 1995, and was then turned
over to the ICTR.90 The resulting case against him focused not on the level of his position, but rather on its significance. The Tutsis in his community looked to him as the town’s patriarch, whom they would go to with both communal and personal problems. Akayesu’s story was therefore one of betrayal and abuse of power. His responsibility for the well-being of his community, and subsequent failure to honor that responsibility, was the motivation behind the indictment against him. This chapter will focus on how and when the Prosecution’s effort to prove Akayesu’s role in the genocide evolved to include charges of sexual violence, and how he became the first man ever convicted of rape as a crime against humanity.
86 Akayesu Judgement, paras. 191 and 193, 93-94. 87 The Uncondemned.
88 Ibid. 89 Ibid.
90 “Rwanda: The First Conviction for Genocide,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed March 2017, https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007157.
3.1 Building the Case
When the Akayesu trial first began on January 9, 1997, the charges against him included genocide and crimes against humanity, but made no reference to the widespread sexual violence that occurred under his leadership.91 Despite overwhelming evidence of these cases in Taba, rape charges were initially not a priority for several reasons. The Akayesu trial was the first for the ICTR, but it was also a first in many other areas, including in the prosecution of genocide; attempting to charge Akayesu with genocidal rape would have been an unprecedented indictment in an already unprecedented trial. Another reason was the sheer magnitude of the case. When investigation for the trial first began, prosecutors were hoping to link Akayesu to the more than 2,000 deaths in Taba; there was little to no intention to focus on an act deemed less severe than murder.92 Sara Darehshori, co-counsel for the Prosecution, explains, “We were so focused on establishing that a genocide had occurred…the idea was to get some of the basics covered to establish the main elements of the crimes we would have to show for every case.”93 These crimes
included murder and other crimes against humanity, but not sexual violence.
Journalist Elizabeth Neuffer, who investigated the post-war situations in both Bosnia and Rwanda, indicates that uncomfortable interactions between investigators and survivors was another factor impeding a sexual violence indictment. She writes,
With little to no experience investigating sex crimes, [investigators] often didn’t ask about rape or didn’t consider it important enough to ask about. Nor did Rwandan women volunteer that they had been raped. Many found it off-putting when investigators, mostly white males, roared into the villages in their white UN Jeeps and then treated survivors with condescension, as if they were stupid rather than traumatized.94
91 Akayesu Judgement, para. 10, 22.
92 Elizabeth Neuffer, The Key to my Neighbor’s House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda, (Picador, 2001), 278. 93 The Uncondemned.
Binaifer Nowrojee, who was in the process of investigating sexual violence cases in Rwanda during the same time, confirms that the way ICTR investigators approached victims of sexual violence was detrimental to learning their stories. She recalls, “one official said African women don’t like talking about these things, so we’re not going to be looking into it.”95 Many times, the
investigators’ lack of interest in the women’s stories was precisely the reason the women refused to tell them.
Initially, uncovering the truth of sexual violence in Taba was almost exclusively the work of international and women’s rights activists. At the time of Nowrojee’s HRW report, the prospects of a legal intervention remained bleak: “Unfortunately, the manner in which the [ICTR] has been conducting its investigations strongly suggests that unless it takes active steps, it may fail to mount even one rape prosecution.”96 Lisa Pruitt, gender consultant for the ICTR during the pre-trial investigations, spent months in Rwanda gaining the trust of rape survivors and learning their stories. One of the main groups she worked with in Taba was part of a women’s support organization, SEVOTA, run by Godelieve Mukasarasi.97 Mukasarasi, herself a genocide survivor, invited the women of Taba to gather together every Saturday to take comfort in each other’s company, dance, and forget some of their worries.98 As time passed, more women began to join the group, and they became more willing to speak with each other about their experiences. Both Pruitt and Nowrojee interviewed these women and grew close to them. Though Pruitt worked for the ICTR, her background in feminist legal theory and as a rape survivor made her far more dedicated to and prepared for her work than other investigators. However, despite her efforts, Pruitt was fighting an uphill battle. She explains that during her field work, other investigators would
95 The Uncondemned. 96 Nowrojee, 94. 97 The Uncondemned. 98 Ibid.
say to her “We can’t be concerned about some women who got raped. We can’t divert resources to investigate these crimes. We had a genocide down here!”99
As time passed without improvement, Pruitt came to realize that her position with the ICTR was little more than a formality- perhaps an attempt to appease activists fighting for the investigation. She says, “This work that I had done was not going to be used […] the case was going to go forward under the existing indictment, which did not include sexual assaults.”100
Before Pruitt left the ICTR, perhaps on a whim of wishful thinking, she created a memo for the rest of the investigators on how to conduct interviews with rape survivors, specifically how to approach the topic with sensitivity and make it comfortable for the women. Her memo was ignored, and she says she departed Arusha as the “laughing stock of the building.”101
Unbeknownst to Pruitt, the effort to have sexual violence cases recognized by the court continued in her absence. Nowrojee says: “Akayesu was the first case that the ICTR brought, so the Prosecutor’s team and all the lawyers there were working to get things off the ground. The last thing they wanted was some pesky women’s rights activists coming to tell them to amend their case. [But] I saw myself as an ambassador for the voices of these Rwandan women, and I was damned if I was going to disappear.”102 Nowrojee’s efforts were further supported by the Coalition
for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations, a group of human rights organizations and scholars dedicated to supporting the victims of sexual violence.103 In May 1997, the coalition submitted an amicus curiae brief to the ICTR.104 Anne-Marie de Brouwer, a criminal lawyer,
99 The Uncondemned. 100 Ibid.
101 Ibid.
102 The Uncondemned.
103 Anne-Marie L.M. de Brouwer, “Supranational Criminal Prosecution of Sexual Violence: The ICC and the practice of the ICTY and the ICTR,” (PhD diss., Tilburg University, 2 November 2005, Intersentia), 291.
104 An amicus curiae brief is a document submitted by a person or group not party to a lawsuit, but with strong interest in the case, with the intent of influencing the court’s decisions.
explains that this document “called upon the judges to exercise their supervisory authority in order to have the Prosecutor review the evidence of sexual violence and to subsequently address the lack of charges on sexual violence in the indictment.”105 Had it not been for the perseverance of
Nowrojee, the Coalition, and other international and Rwandan activist groups, the sexual violence cases in Rwanda likely would have remained unacknowledged just like similar cases before it. However, even after the Prosecution agreed to look into the cases, the reality of developing a successful case against Akeysu proved to be more difficult than anyone could have imagined. Prosper explains, “There wasn’t enough to say women were raped in Taba, therefore Akayesu should be prosecuted…we had to prove Akayesu knew, allowed it to happen, [or] did it himself….”106
Though there was enough evidence to prove beyond doubt the magnitude of sexual violence in Taba, there was nothing to indisputably link the cases to Akayesu. Witnesses with any knowledge of what happened were often unwilling to talk, and those who did were at risk of being ostracized, intimidated, or even murdered by their neighbors.107 Godelieve Mukasarasi’s husband, Emmanuel Rudasingwa, received anonymous messages threatening “we will kill you if [you] testify”; on December 23, 1996, he was killed along with their 12-year-old daughter and nine others.108 This incident deterred survivors in Taba from agreeing to testify, and even inspired some
to pull out of agreements they had already made with the Prosecution. On top of this, the Prosecution team struggled with a severe lack of resources. Darehshori recalled some of the
105 De Brouwer, 294. 106 The Uncondemned.
107 Ken Jaworowski, “Review: In ‘The Uncondemned,’ Rwandan Rape Survivors Seek Justice,” New York Times, October 20, 2016, accessed May 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/movies/the-uncondemned-review.html?_r=0.
108 The Uncondemned; 227 genocide survivors were murdered in 1996 alone, many of whom were preparing to serve as witnesses for the Rwandan courts or ICTR.
See Inter-Press Service, “Rwanda-Human Rights: Killings of Genocide Survivors is Up, Says U.N.,” February 3, 1997, accessed May 2017, http://www.ipsnews.net/1997/02/rwanda-human-rights-killings-of-genocide-survivors-is-up-says-un/
