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Gacaca
The Gacaca courts () were a system of community justice in Rwanda following the 1994 genocide. The term 'gacaca' can be translated as 'short grass' referring to the public space where neighborhood male elders (abagabo) used to meet to solve local problems. The name of this system was then adopted in 2001 as the title of the state's new criminal justice system "Gacaca Courts" (Inkiko Gacaca) to try those deemed responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide where over an estimated 500,000 people were killed, tortured and raped. In 1994, the United Nations Security Council created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to try high-ranking government and army officials accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The Gacaca Courts were established in law in 2001, began to operate on a trial basis in 2002 and eventually came to operate as trials throughout the country by early 2007. The Gacaca courts were presented as a method of transitional justice, claimed by the ...
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Rwandan Genocide
The Rwandan genocide occurred between 7 April and 15 July 1994 during the Rwandan Civil War. During this period of around 100 days, members of the Tutsi minority ethnic group, as well as some moderate Hutu and Twa, were killed by armed Hutu militias. The most widely accepted scholarly estimates are around 500,000 to 662,000 Tutsi deaths. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed mostly of Tutsi refugees, invaded northern Rwanda from their base in Uganda, initiating the Rwandan Civil War. Over the course of the next three years, neither side was able to gain a decisive advantage. In an effort to bring the war to a peaceful end, the Rwandan government led by Hutu president, Juvénal Habyarimana signed the Arusha Accords (Rwanda), Arusha Accords with the RPF on 4 August 1993. The catalyst became assassination of Juvénal Habyarimana and Cyprien Ntaryamira, Habyarimana's assassination on 6 April 1994, creating a power vacuum and ending peace accords. Gen ...
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History Of Rwanda
Human occupation of Rwanda is thought to have begun shortly after the last ice age. By the 11th century, the inhabitants had organized into a number of kingdoms. In the 19th century, ''Mwami'' (king) Rwabugiri of the Kingdom of Rwanda conducted a decades-long process of military conquest and administrative consolidation that resulted in the kingdom coming to control most of what is now Rwanda. The colonial powers, Germany and Belgium, allied with the Rwandan court. A convergence of anti-colonial, and anti-Tutsi sentiment resulted in Belgium granting national independence in 1962. Direct elections resulted in a representative government dominated by the majority Hutu under President Grégoire Kayibanda. Unsettled ethnic and political tensions were worsened when Juvénal Habyarimana, who was also Hutu, seized power in 1973. In 1990, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a rebel group composed of 10,000 Tutsi refugees from previous decades of unrest, invaded the country, starting the R ...
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International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR; french: Tribunal pénal international pour le Rwanda; rw, Urukiko Mpanabyaha Mpuzamahanga Rwashyiriweho u Rwanda) was an international court established in November 1994 by the United Nations Security Council in Resolution 955 in order to judge people responsible for the Rwandan genocide and other serious violations of international law in Rwanda, or by Rwandan citizens in nearby states, between 1 January and 31 December 1994. The court eventually convicted 61 individuals at a cost of $1.3 billion. In 1995, it became located in Arusha, Tanzania, under Resolution 977. From 2006, Arusha also became the location of the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights. In 1998 the operation of the tribunal was expanded in Resolution 1165. Through several resolutions, the Security Council called on the tribunal to complete its investigations by end of 2004, complete all trial activities by end of 2008, and complete all work in 2012. ...
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Politics Of Rwanda
The politics of Rwanda reflect Belgian and German civil law systems and customary law takes place in a framework of a semi-presidential republic, whereby the President of Rwanda is the head of state with significant executive power, with the Prime Minister of Rwanda being the constitutional head of government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of parliament, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. On 5 May 1995, the Transitional National Assembly adopted a new constitution which included elements of the constitution of 18 June 1991 as well as provisions of the 1993 Arusha peace accord and the November 1994 multiparty protocol of understanding. National legislature In Rwanda the Chamber of Deputies is composed of eighty Deputies. Among them, fifty-three Deputies are elected by direct universal suffrage in secret, elected from a fixed list of names of candidates proposed by political organizations or independent candidates; twenty-four wome ...
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Community
A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighbourhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms. Durable good relations that extend beyond immediate genealogical ties also define a sense of community, important to their identity, practice, and roles in social institutions such as family, home, work, government, society, or humanity at large. Although communities are usually small relative to personal social ties, "community" may also refer to large group affiliations such as national communities, international communities, and virtual communities. The English-language word "community" derives from the Old French ''comuneté'' (Modern French: ''communauté''), which comes from the Latin ''communitas'' "community", "public spirit" (from Latin '' communis'', "co ...
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Court Of Law
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. In both common law and civil law legal systems, courts are the central means for dispute resolution, and it is generally understood that all people have an ability to bring their claims before a court. Similarly, the rights of those accused of a crime include the right to present a defense before a court. The system of courts that interprets and applies the law is collectively known as the judiciary. The place where a court sits is known as a venue. The room where court proceedings occur is known as a courtroom, and the building as a courthouse; court facilities range from simple and very small facilities in rural communities to large complex facilities in urban communities. The practical authority given t ...
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Courts By Type
A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law. In both common law and civil law legal systems, courts are the central means for dispute resolution, and it is generally understood that all people have an ability to bring their claims before a court. Similarly, the rights of those accused of a crime include the right to present a defense before a court. The system of courts that interprets and applies the law is collectively known as the judiciary. The place where a court sits is known as a venue. The room where court proceedings occur is known as a courtroom, and the building as a courthouse; court facilities range from simple and very small facilities in rural communities to large complex facilities in urban communities. The practical authority given to the co ...
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Law Of Rwanda
Law is a set of rules that are created and are law enforcement, enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior,Robertson, ''Crimes against humanity'', 90. with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a Social science#Law, science and as the art of justice. State-enforced laws can be made by a group legislature or by a single legislator, resulting in statutes; by the executive through decrees and regulations; or established by judges through precedent, usually in common law jurisdictions. Private individuals may create legally binding contracts, including arbitration agreements that adopt Alternative dispute resolution, alternative ways of resolving disputes to standard court litigation. The creation of laws themselves may be influenced by a constitution, written or tacit, and the rights encoded therein. The law shapes politics, economics, history and society in various ways and serves as a mediator of ...
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Africa Research Institute
Africa Research Institute (ARI) is an independent not-for-profit think-tank that was founded in February 2007. It is the only think-tank in the UK to focus exclusively on political, economic and social issues in sub-Saharan Africa. ARI strives to inform domestic and international policy making through publishing research and hosting interactive events. ARI's mission is to draw attention to ideas or policies that have worked in Africa by highlighting and analysing best-practices in government, the economy and civil society. ARI encourages debate and challenges conventional wisdom in and about sub-Saharan Africa. It seeks to provide a nuanced and representative understanding of the region, as opposed to conventional "binary" depictions that often dominate the Western media. The organisation has published work on urbanisation, political and institutional reform, regional integration, health and agriculture, amongst other issues. History Africa Research Institute was founded in Febru ...
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Ethnic Cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction. It constitutes a crime against humanity and may also fall under the Genocide Convention, even as ''ethnic cleansing'' has no legal definition under international criminal law. Many instances of ethnic cleansing have occurred throughout history; the term was first used by the perpetrators as a euphemism during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. Since then, the term has gained widespread acceptance due to journalism and the media's heightened use of the term in its generic meaning. Etymology An antecedent to the term is the Greek word (; lit. "enslavement"), which was ...
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Crime Against Humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the context of war, and apply to widespread practices rather than acts committed by individuals. Although crimes against humanity apply to acts committed by or on behalf of authorities, they need not be official policy, and require only tolerance rather than explicit approval. The first prosecution for crimes against humanity took place at the Nuremberg trials. Initially being considered for legal use, widely in international law, following the Holocaust a global standard of human rights was articulated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). Political groups or states that violate or incite violation of human rights norms, as found in the Declaration, are an expression of the political pathologies associated with crimes against hum ...
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Alison Des Forges
Alison Des Forges (née Liebhafsky; August 20, 1942 – February 12, 2009) was an American historian and human rights activist who specialized in the African Great Lakes region, particularly the 1994 Rwandan genocide. At the time of her death, she was a senior advisor for the African continent at Human Rights Watch. She died in a plane crash on 12 February 2009. Life Alison Des Forges was born Alison B. Liebhafsky on August 20, 1942, to Sybil Small and Herman A. Liebhafsky. In 1964 she married Roger Des Forges, a historian at the State University of New York at Buffalo who specializes in China. Des Forges earned her BA in History from Radcliffe College in 1964, and her MA and a PhD in the same discipline from Yale University in 1966 and 1972. Her master's thesis and doctoral dissertation both addressed the impact of European colonialism on Rwanda.Chan, Sewell (2009-02-13)"Alison Des Forges, Human Rights Advocate, Is Dead at 66" ''New York Times''. Retrieved February 13, 2009. ...
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