Nasser Alqahtani

ENGL_0950_8A
Summary #1 Final draft

Rwandas Grass Courts published July 10, 2004 in the New York
Times explains that, Rwanda has a traditional justice system known as
''gacaca,'' or grass courts," but the Gacaca's courts are apparently the
only reasonable solution for Rwanda now, and the government must
try to make them fairer with more independent. In almost 100 days in
1994,

Rwanda

Hutus

has

assassinated

800,000

of

Tutsis.

An

international tribunal has tried to find a way to deal with defendants

and taking a fair judgment against them. Traditional justice in villages
tried to find a solution over centuries to resolve struggle, but the
situation in Rwanda is different. The traditional village justice is
alarming to the witnesses because many judges are illiterate or barely
know the law, and there are no lawyers for the accused. The gacaca
courts have also been rigged by Paul Kagame, Rwanda's increasingly
totalitarian president. After the genocide, people are not allowed to
speak up about revenge crimes in gacaca courts. The committee of
Rwanda's Parliament has been controlled by Mr. Kagame, and the
government needs to bolster gacaca justice; but alas, Mr. Kagame does
not want to change over gacaca, or anything else in Rwanda.