Abstract

After 1994 genocide, the Rwandan government re-established the traditional community court system called Gacaca, (justice on the grass), and transformed it into a system of informal criminal courts, based in "every hill". The form and the structure of traditional and modern Gacaca are anthropologically analyzed in this article as well as the strengths and the weaknesses. The Gacaca historically informal courts has become a "formalized setting" that incorporate elements of customary and ordinary justice. This decentralization of justice has determined the diffusion of the narrative of the new Rwanda nation and so the Gacaca courts has become the "real political arenas" in which the "confession" contribute to negotiate a moral leadership of the postgenocide.