Country Profile:
Rwanda
Summary
The civil war and the 1994 genocide in Rwanda led to a total breakdown of institutions and infrastructure, with dire consequences for law and order and security. The post-genocide situation in Rwanda presents overwhelming challenges to institutional attempts to ensure any measure of justice and security for the society as a whole. Degraded physical and human infrastructure, a traumatized and devastated population, and the legacy of the most severe atrocities committed since World War II, are only a few of the challenges that confront one of the world’s poorest countries.
As in any other fragile political context, such as that of a post-conflict country under military rule, the concepts of justice and security are subjective and politicized. The process of organizing an effective and efficient judiciary and security sector is anything but straightforward in an atmosphere of ethnic polarization and distrust. Thus, a central dilemma faced by the Rwandan government is balancing the needs and demands of the genocidaires (mostly Hutu) with those of the hundreds of thousands of victims (mostly Tutsi). Nevertheless, reform processes have begun and have been met with varying levels of success.
