Gacaca reconciliation in Rwanda?

I am increasingly concerned about growing rifts between the Rwandan government and critics of the gacaca process. Gacaca courts were established by the government to clear the backlog of individuals detained on charges of crimes committed during the 1994 genocide. Suspects are judged by a panel of twelve judges in their home community courts. All participants in the process, the judges, the witnesses and the audience, are members of the community where the killers allegedly killed. The rationale is that this community-centric process will not only reveal the truth about who did what to whom during the genocide, but will also give survivors of the genocide a chance to forgive those who killed their loved ones. The core assumption is that after the gacaca encounter, the survivor and the accused will reconcile, and once the accused has returned home to his community, national unity will inevitably ensue. (I purposively say 'his' as the government has basically accused all male adult Hutu with crimes of genocide -- they allege 1 million guilty of genocide. Academic research estimates more like 200,000 killers.)

Critics are, rightly I think, skeptical of the quality of justice that gacaca represents. The courts, they opine, is skewed against Hutu and constitutes "another form of genocide" for those who find themselves languishing in prison, awaiting trial and for those who are released, an uneasy welcome to their home communities. International commentators have focused on the human rights dynamics, pointing out that the gacaca courts did not follow standard legal practices that would protect both victim and accused. Needless to say, the criticism does not go far enough, nor is it particularly helpful in assuring an improved quality of justice for individuals in their communities.

Caught in between the growing rift between the government and its critics are ordinary Rwandans, those non-elite men and women, boys and girls who shoulder the bulk of the burden of reconciling in the ways that gacaca requires. Reconciliation is performed between survivors and perpetrators of the genocide in the presence of community-nominated and -elected judges while an audience of family, friends and neighbours looks on. Unfortunately, the actual presence of reconciliation is far from assured, although the requisite signs and stamps of someone who has passed through the process are made. Survivors are said to forgive once the perpetrator has told his truth. The truth is judged first the judges, in the presence and witness of the community. The quality of justice is less that what international human rights observers deem necessary; the justice is said to be traditional and keeping within Rwandan cultural norms says the government.

I wonder though if gacaca just isn't a spectacle of state power that the government uses to silence its critics and opposition, circumvent domestic civil society organisation while foisting some semblance of 'reconciliation' on ordinary people.