How to Participate:

Participants are invited to attend in-person at North Quad (105 S. State St, Ann Arbor Michigan 48109), Room 2435 or via Zoom. Zoom Meeting ID: 929 9489 1820 (passcode: UMSI)

About:

After the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda, more than 130,000 inmates were imprisoned and accused of genocide crimes. The country was operating through fire and blood! The judicial system was destroyed – judges and lawyers had been killed or exiled in neighboring countries. To judge the genocidaires, the government decided to reintroduce the Traditional Jurisdictions Courts called Gacaca. This talk will emphasize what Gacaca did as a court and how it worked during the trials; the digitization process of the 45 million pages of Gacaca files; and the impact of the Gacaca files on society after the digitization.

Speaker:

Jean-Damascène Gasanabo, PhD Between March 2012 – October 2021, Damas was Director General, Research and Documentation Center on Genocide, National Commission for the Fight against Genocide (CNLG), Kigali-Rwanda.

This event is sponsored by the University of Michigan School of Information Data, Archives, and Information Seminar; African Studies Center; Museum Studies Program; Center for Ethics, Society and Computing; and Franklin Innovator Residency Fund.