Near the end of his essay on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Thierry Cruvellier drops the word "pogrom" to describe the 1994 genocide. This reference to traditional European anti-Semitism subtly advances his argument that the Rwandan genocide must be viewed in other terms than the Holocaust. In Cruvellier's treatment, the ICTR appears bungling, incompetent, petty, and careerist, with no vision for a healed Rwanda and living in an imaginary, alternative 1945—never mind that the ICTR was essentially breaking new legal ground.

Cruvellier charges the court with forgetting the source of its authority (the people who created it; in this case the international community). But he also suggests the court's incompetence and hypocrisy equally reflect its creators: the true losers of the war. It was neither the Hutus nor the Tutsis who instituted this tribunal, but the governments who did nothing and were accordingly haunted by guilt. The court's purpose, then, was not justice for Rwanda but a clean conscience for the rest of the world. Nevertheless, the ICTR has one major accomplishment to its credit: the first global verdict of the category of Genocide, a verdict Cruvellier hints may have made the whole debacle worthwhile.

Thierry Cruvellier writes as a disappointed man, who saw great potential squandered. Yet he occasionally hints at a deeper vision, a vision beyond the reach of a court of law, no matter how powerful: reconciliation. His is a dream of reconciliation between enemies, of healing for widows and children, and of restoration of peace and hope. These dreams lurk behind his critiques, and he only occasionally dares to speak them out loud: he seems to know that trying to institute heaven on earth might more likely bring more genocide instead. Cruvellier hints obliquely at the biblical vision standing in sculpture form outside the headquarters of the ICTR's parent organization: beating swords (machetes?) into ploughshares.

But the ICTR was beating different swords than those used between Rwandan neighbors: the tribunal was dreaming a smaller dream, of beating to pieces the world community's shame at having seen evil unfolding—and looked the other way. The ICTR, then, was no court of justice. It was a court of remorse.

Paul Grant is pursuing a PhD in history at the University of Wisconsin.

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