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“I don’t deal with high level defendants charged with genocide and crimes against humanity on a daily basis. It was a great opportunity,� said Siira Gunderson of her 2000 Fellowship at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) in Arusha, Tanzania. Working on the defense team for clients accused of attempting to eliminate an entire group of people may seem a strange way to advocate for human rights, but it was an incredible opportunity for Gunderson as a young law student. Working at the ICTR representing Rwandan government officials accused of the genocidal killing of the minority Tutsi tribe was the perfect opportunity to learn about the necessity of a fair trial for all; especially those accused of such atrocities.
The opportunity to intern at the ICTR came to Gunderson through Howard
Morrison, a defense attorney with International Legal Resources working
with the ICTR
and the ICTY (International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia). During a speech
at the University of Minnesota Law School in 2000 Morrison invited students
to apply for an internship on his defense team in Arusha, Tanzania. Gunderson
heard of the opportunity from Jessica Munson, a fellow University law student,
and both applied for a 2000 Upper Midwest Human Rights Fellowship.
In May of 2000 Gunderson and Munson traveled to the Hague in the Netherlands
where they spent the first week of their Fellowships observing the proceedings
of the ICTY and gathering international law materials to be used in Arusha.
They then traveled to Arusha and the ICTR where they began their work as defense
interns.
“While in Arusha, we assisted Howard Morrison and Michael Graves, who continued
to work from Europe. We observed proceedings and had the opportunity to work
on a motion brought by the prosecution to try several defendants at a time.
The defense position was that there was no space in the courtroom for all those
people and their lawyers. It also didn’t make sense to try people together
with so many different issues and stories. The court denied the motion for
consolidation,� explained Gunderson.
The internship also entailed meeting with defendants regularly at the United
Nation’s Arusha detention center: “We would visit our clients twice a week
and talk with them about their experiences in Rwanda after the 1994 genocide
as well as their experiences at the U.N. detention center. We were a good contact
for the lead attorneys, who continued to reside in Europe and couldn’t easily
communicate with the clients or obtain legal resources from Arusha. However,
as an intern a lot of our work was self-educating. Talking with the clients
was often more to inform ourselves about the situation in Rwanda than it was
to help the attorneys.�
The chance to meet with ICTR detainees and observe ICTR proceedings were
incredible opportunities for Gunderson and Munson to learn about Rwanda’s
troubled past
in a light seldom seen by Americans.
The reasons for the killing of over 800,000 Rwandans over the course of
100 days in 1994 are complicated and disturbing. When Rwandan president
Juvenal
Habyarimana’s plane was shot down in April of 1994, there was a massive and
immediate backlash from members of his Hutu party and tribe, the majority in
control of the nation. The party responsible for the assassination has never
been identified, but years of struggle between the majority Hutus and minority
Tutsi ethnic group pointed responsibility in the Tutsi’s direction. Hutus banded
together and began slaughtering Tutsis and moderate Hutus in large numbers.
In July the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a Tutsi resistance group, captured the
capital and declared a cease-fire. By that time over 800,000 people had died
with little or no intervention from Western powers and the United Nations.
Gunderson feels that her experience at the ICTR allowed her to examine
the Rwandan situation more closely than through the Western media’s reports
of
mass genocide: “The American media’s portrayal was very sympathetic to the
Tutsis, of course. Being on the defense side allowed me to critically analyze
whether it was really a situation of victims verses perpetrators or whether
it was more complicated than that. From the defense perspective, there were
several concerns about the basis of the tribunal and its jurisdiction. One
also has to question whether what happened was a true genocide. We examined
the definition of genocide under international law and worked to make sure
the prosecution carried its burden of proof for each element of the crime of
genocide.�
The horrific reality of the slaughter of over 800,000 Rwandans, almost
all of whom were Tutsis, is not lost on Gunderson. In fact, it is because
of the
magnitude of the situation and the severity of the charges brought against
many ICTR detainees that Gunderson stresses the importance of a fair and just
trial: “There seemed to be more Americans on the prosecution side. That may
be because of the media’s portrayal. When some Americans think about doing
human rights work, they are sympathetic toward the alleged victims in situations
such as this and would be inclined to work for the prosecution. Representing
those accused of genocide is a less popular position, to say the least. But
as a lawyer, trial rights and the rights of a defendant are incredibly important.
You need to have a fair trial for justice to be done.�
It has been four years since Gunderson’s Fellowship at the ICTR and many
of the defendants she worked with are still in detention or on trial.
It could
be several more years before all the detainees arrested in connection with
the 1994 killings are finally prosecuted.
After returning from her Fellowship, Gunderson continued her studies at
the law school, graduating in 2002. She now works for Gregerson, Rosow,
Johnson & Nilan,
Ltd., a Minneapolis law firm. As a civil litigator she practices construction
law, insurance defense, and municipal law. She looks back on her Fellowship
as an incredible opportunity to explore international issues and learn about
the importance of upholding the justice system: “My Fellowship was really a
special experience and an unusual opportunity in my career. I don’t think there
are many attorneys who work abroad or do this kind of work, and it was great
to gain some insight into the U.N, into criminal tribunals, and into international
law. I didn’t expect to do it again, but it was an incredible opportunity to
educate myself.�
Gunderson’s work as an intern in an international tribunal and as a part
of the investigation of one of the modern world’s worst human rights
disasters
will remain a strong presence and influence on her understanding of world
events and of the responsibility to work for justice: “I certainly
think that as a
lawyer, no matter what you’re doing, general justice questions and questions
of fairness pop up constantly. You need to question the letter of the law
and the spirit of the law. That spirit of justice then guides decisions
in your
career.�