After Genocide

Abstract

This book chapter (co-authored by Phil Clark & Zachary D. Kaufman) is the first chapter in the book After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda (co-edited by Phil Clark & Zachary D. Kaufman and co-published by Columbia University Press & C. Hurst & Co.). This introductory chapter explores the purpose, topics, terms, and themes of this book.

The purpose of this book is to assess the impact of the genocide in Rwanda, Africa, and beyond, and at the same time to analyze the nuances of the national and international, academic and political debates that have consequently developed. As the title of the book suggests, three topics dominate discussions therein: transitional justice, post-conflict reconstruction, and reconciliation. This book is intended to help clarify the theory and practice of these concepts by exploring, in part, six key terms: reconciliation, peace, justice, healing, forgiveness, and truth. The major themes this book covers are: the history and memory of the Rwandan genocide; post-genocide justice, reconstruction, and reconciliation; and the relevance of the genocide beyond Rwanda. The intersections and entanglements of these themes are crucial to grasping key debates in present-day Rwanda and to formulating effective responses to the genocide and atrocities elsewhere: how history is constructed and the past is remembered inevitably shapes questions about who is culpable for crimes, how they should be punished, who warrants redress, and how society as a whole should be reconstructed.

This book is intended to help scholars and practitioners working on conflict and post-conflict issues to formulate clearer, more nuanced responses to the questions they confront and to aid a more general audience in understanding some of the subtleties of the Rwandan genocide and its personal, communal, national, and international impact. The comprehensiveness of the debates in this book constitutes an attempt to respond holistically to the complex challenges of rebuilding lives after genocide. In doing so, this book commemorates the lives lost during those three horrific months in 1994.

Keywords: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, Reconciliation, Conflict Resolution, Peace, Healing, Forgiveness, Truth, Revisionism, Memory, Rwanda, Darfur, DRC, Uganda, Africa, Kovoso, Genocide, Atrocities, Gacaca, ICTR, ICTY, ICC, International Law, International Criminal Law