International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

After our volunteer placements yesterday, CCS took us to Arusha where we attended some of the court proceedings at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). It was very interesting!! When we arrived at ICTR we had to surrender our passports and go through security, then we were met by our host who escorted us to Trial Chamber II. I was quite surprised at the technology being used by the UN (although I must admit that the first thing I appreciated was AIR CONDITIONING!! It was delightful!). Each of the three trial chambers has a viewing room with glass so that you can see into the court, as well as TVs which broadcast the proceedings from various angles and wireless headphones with live translators. The specific lawyer who was making his closing remarks was speaking French, and I kept flipping back and forth between the live French and the live English translation on my headset.

The courtroom was full of people - each trial chamber has three judges and there were at least 15 attorneys plus their assistants or clerks. Everyone in the courtroom had their own set of headphones/translators, their own laptop computer, their own little cubicle-like area. The room had one solid wall (behind the judges) and the other three walls were glass. We sat directly across from the judges in the viewing room (I know it was clear glass because I got two of the attorneys to crack a smile at me). Through the other two glass walls I could see the language interpreters at one end and the audio-visual folks at the other.

We listened to a defense attorney's closing arguments for about 1 hour in the case of Nyiramasuhuko, Ntahobali, Nteziryayo, Nsabimana, Ndayambaje, and Kanyabashi. I can't remember which one of the named accused they were talking about (it's hard to figure out a Rwandan name from a French attorney's words that are being translated to English by a Swahili-speaking native!!!). Each day the court publishes case minutes online, and all of the proceedings are broadcast live via satellite. Very impressive!

After listening to a case for about an hour, we moved into a conference room where we watched a 45-minute documentary about the ICTR and then heard a 30-minute presentation from the ICTR's Public Information Officer. The entire experience was really interesting and educational - and it feels cool to have been witness to such a historic process, live and in person!

After several hours at ICTR we had some time at a local market and then got to experience rush hour in Arusha, which was terrifying. Driving here is much different from what I'm used to at home (translation: SCARY!!!) - I'm glad CCS provides a driver for us.