Last week, we had the opportunity to take some of our students on a little field trip. Through the guest speakers who have spoken to our kiddos from the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), we were invited to TOUR the Tribunal and observe an appeals hearing which was taking place.
Besides being an awesome opportunity for our students, it was a truly amazing opportunity for me. The heavily guarded and intimidating ICTR building has been in Arusha a lot longer than I have, but I have never had a reason to go in. This experience far exceeded my expectations and completely blew me away (along with our 7 college students who attended). After we passed security, we were led to a seating area where we would observe the hearing proceedings through glass windows. We listened via headsets which had 3 channels for French, Kinyarwanda, and English. The proceedings took place in a combination of these languages as lawyers, judges, and court officials are all of different backgrounds and nationalities.
One of the things that the students noticed was the look of the defendant in the trial. In the words of our scholar, Irene,
“He didn’t look like I was expecting him to. I did not expect the prisoner to be in a suit. I thought that he would look old and mean, but he just looked like a normal person.”
After listening to the opening arguments from both the prosecution and the defense, we broke for lunch, during which serious arguments took place between our students on whether the defendant was innocent or guilty. They were very opinionated. Lunch also served as a great time to digest what had taken place that morning and learn about the functions of the Tribunal. Our hosts, Anees and Douglas took us to lunch and explained their roles within the Tribunal and answered the many questions our scholars had. This was an amazing opportunity for our scholars! The lessons about laws, ethics, persuasion, and humanity were unending. The strongest lessons were the questions that all adults ask themselves, but cannot answer… “What if they put him in prison, but he is actually innocent?”… “Do you think that he has a family…what are they going to do?”
Below are some of the observations our students made about the experience.
“When the defense was talking, I totally believed them that Nzabonimana was innocent. But then, when the other lawyers started telling their side of it, I had to change my mind. I think he is guilty.”-Nicemary
“You can just tell that the prosecution isn’t being honest. I don’t know why, but they way they look is that they look like they are lying.” –Dicklucky
“I don’t like that man…I think he is guilty, but do you think that he has anyone here to watch and support him?” –Nancy
“I didn’t know that there could be more than one lawyer on each side.” –Irene
The appeals case was for Callixte Nzabonimana, the former Minister of Youth and Sport in Rwanda. He was previously convicted of publicly inciting violence during the genocide. All students who were able stayed the entire day in order to observe Nzabonimana addressing the courts. His appeal will not be ruled upon for months, when a conclusion will be written by the many judges of the case.
A huge thank you goes out to our hosts Anees Ahmed and Douglas Hansen for their generosity and interest in our scholars. It was truly an amazing experience for us to be a part of!
Unfortunately photos aren’t allowed in the ICRT, but this photo was taken during the lunch break while our scholars discussed the trial with our hosts.