Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda RWANDESE ORGANIZATIONS MEMORANDUM PLEA TO THE UNITED NATIONS HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR REFUGEES: TOO PREMATURE FOR APPLYING THE CESSATION CLAUSE TO RWANDAN REFUGEE PROTECTION STATUS His Excellency Mr. António Guterres United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees PO Box 2500 CH‐1211 Genève 2 Dépôt Switzerland. Your Excellency, The attached Rwandese Civil and Political Organizations are greatly concerned by a possible invocation of the cessation clause by the UNHCR for all Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers by the end of year 2011. Following your visit to Kigali in October 2009, you have discussed and explored with President Paul Kagame and his government the prospect of invoking the cessation clause of refugee status protection for all Rwandan refugees and asylum seekers. The official response since then was that “UNHCR is working with all concerned parties, including the Rwandan government and asylum countries toward the possible application of this clause by the end of 2011. Prior to that, UNHCR will promote the voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees still in exile, search for alternative solutions for those who may not be able to return, and meet the protection needs of selected cases. The date of the declaration of the cessation clause will depend on progress in these areas”. Our organizations support the fact that all refugees deserve the opportunity to safely and voluntarily return to their homeland once the conditions that sent them into exile have ceased to exist. This fact is also clearly stated in the UNHCR Statutes, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) refugee convention of 1969 and the Article 1C of the 1951 Convention. We also do understand that it is imperative for your organization to keep assessing the situation of refugees around the world along with the progress of their countries of origin to see if the prospect of encouraging refugees to voluntarily return home or applying the cessation clause for the refugee status protection is possible. We, however, as organizations that not only have a large majority of members who are Rwandan refugees but also have been following closely the social, justice, economic and political development in Rwanda, find extremely premature to consider this cessation of refugee protection status for many reasons as, unfortunately, the conditions that sent all these Rwandan citizens in exile are far from ceasing to exist and in some areas, have even become worse. Our organizations give below a non exhaustive list of facts that shall prevent the UNHCR to invoke the cessation clause for Rwandan refugees at this time. After four years of a bloody war between the ruling RPF and its army wing RPA, against the government forces of Rwanda, war marked by the assassination of President Juvenal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994, igniting the Rwanda genocide, RPF took over power in July 1994 sending millions of Rwandans into exile in the OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda neighboring countries and beyond. Since that date, the RPF government did not engage any substantive effort to set conditions that will encourage refugees to return voluntarily but rather used tactics of coercion and subversion to get some refugees to return, while on the other hand it set new threatening actions and speeches that sent more people in exile. Here are some few tangible examples. Just a recent as last Friday, May 13th 2011, according the British Broadcasting Corporation – Kinyarwanda edition, the British Police in London gave a warning to two prominent Rwandan refugees, Mr. Jonathan Musonera and Mr. Rene Mugenzi that they had reliable sources confirming that the government of Rwanda was hunting them down and that their lives could be in danger. On April 13, 2010, when presiding the swearing in ceremony of high ranking military officers before the Parliament, President Kagame compared Rwandans who were fleeing the country to human waste being excreted. And he added “Those who do well for the country [as well as] understanding the role they have, the country owns them…they live in it. But for the waste, the country throws them out. These are things that are automatic. If that is how it’s supposed to be, so be it.” On April 7, 2007, when presiding to the 13th Ceremony commemorating the Genocide in Rwanda in Murambi in Southern Province, President Paul Kagame stated in his speech that he regretted not to have exterminated enough people who were fleeing the country in 1994 and now he was obliged to welcoming them back to Rwanda. In July 1996, the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA) crossed the then Zaire border, currently Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and with heavy weaponry destroyed Rwandan Refugees camps in Goma and Bukavu areas where many of them were killed. Among the survivors of this horrendous attack, some forcibly returned to Rwanda then others who managed to escape headed west into the Congo jungle. It is estimated that more than 200,000 men, women, elderly and sick people were killed by RPF/RPA army during that period. Most of the current refugees Kigali regime want back are in fact the survivors of these massacres who managed to reach Kinshasa, Brazzaville, Bangui, Lusaka, Lilongwe, Luanda and beyond. These events have now been confirmed by President Kagame himself when he told the parliament in Kigali on April 13, 2010 that “those who preferred repatriation were safely brought into the country, but those who chose otherwise were shot. “We did that,” he said in Kinyarwanda, adding in English, “That’s what we did.” This was only after few months that you met with him in Kigali. How will a speech like this reconcile with the prospect of enticing refugees to return voluntarily after having gone through many traumatic events where most of them have occurred under President Kagame’s leadership. But the most appalling confirmation of these DRC related massacres of refuges came from the UN High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR) which on October 1, 2010, published the final Report of the Mapping Exercise documenting the most serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law committed within the territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo between March 1993 and June 2003. The report describes in details among others how Hutu refugees were methodically and systematically killed by the RPA army and allies. The report continues on to state that “Most of these attacks were directed against non‐combatant civilian populations consisting primarily of women and children. As a consequence, the vast majority of acts of violence perpetrated during these years, which formed part of various waves of reprisals and campaigns of persecution and pursuit of refugees, became collectively, a series of widespread and systematic attacks against civilian populations and could be found by a competent court to constitute crimes against humanity or OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda
confirmed by a competent court could be qualified of genocide”. Among the responsible of these killings, the report name clearly General James Kabarebe, current Minister of Defense in the RPF led government in Kigali, Rwanda. Many Rwandan Refugees truly believe that one of the main reasons of the RPF led government to intensify its quest and do all it can to get all the Rwandan refugees back on the Rwandan soil is primarily to have a better control on preventing the potential Rwandan witnesses who could possibly testify and provide collaborative supporting information confirming or adding to the findings of the Mapping Exercise Report. On April 22, 1995, the RPF army using heavy weaponry dismantled the Internal Displaced People (IDP) camp in Kibeho, Southwest of Rwanda while the UN peace keepings from Zambia and Australia were helplessly watching on. It is estimated that more than 8000 refugees, mostly women and children lost their lives. General Fred Ibingira, who commended the forces responsible of Kibeho massacre, has never been trialed. Instead, on April 22, 2010 he has been promoted to rank of Lieutenant General and appointed Reserve Forces Commander in the Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) formerly Rwanda Patriotic Army(RPA).
It is quite paradoxical to see that while on one hand President Paul Kagame manages to tell you what you want to hear during your visit in Kigali on October 20, 2009 where he stated: "I have no wish for anyone to live like a refugee" and then on the other hand states on April 13, 2010 the statement quoted above where he compares refugees as human waste being excreted and that simply being a natural process acceptable to him. Unfortunately, from this last statement, this is truly the person that many Rwandans and close observers know since 1990 and no real mechanisms that Rwanda’s government has put in place to truly substantially tackle the Rwanda Refugee problems for good besides trying to divert the attention of the UNHCR and the international community that it is doing what it can to welcome refugees. We strongly believe that the current Rwandan regime has rather a hidden agenda behind the charm offensive that it launched in different countries hosting refugees and toward international organizations including the UNHCR, in order to precipitate the application of cessation clause. It is clear that these kinds of actions and official statements made by the same regime that sent these refugees in exile can’t reassure them to come back to their mother land. In addition, the general environment in the country in terms of judiciary, human rights, lack of political space, freedom of press and assembly are far from reaching the minimum requirements for the refugees to safely return home. Here are few examples: On the Judiciary Front: After the Rwandan genocide in 1994, the judiciary system was destroyed along with other state institutions while more than 120,000 genocide suspects were detained. As it became clear that the traditional judiciary system will not be able to handle the task, it was established the traditional courts known as Gacaca Courts composed of men and women of “integrity and elected by their neighbors”. The Gacaca Courts were established by the Organic Law No 16/2004 of June 19, 2006 completed by the law No 28/2006 of June 27, 2006. They were charged to prosecute and trial “the perpetrators of the crime of genocide and other crimes against humanity committed between October1, 1990 and December 31, 1994.” (http://www.inkiko‐ gacaca.gov.rw ). Most people applauded the idea about these courts as the ultimate goal was to reveal the truth, punish the perpetrators and initiate a true reconciliation. Unfortunately, the regime hijacked the courts and transformed them into a repressive tool to hunt down everybody the regime did not like for any reason. It is in this line that OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda many who have been elected to sit on the courts, but who tried to be fair by not following the instructions of the authorities were accused themselves of crime of genocide. Many people, including innocent citizens are now serving heavy jail terms including life in solitary confinement after a judiciary process conducted by no professional judges, some even illiterate, without any legal assistance or a contradictory debate. Gacaca courts had quickly been shaped as a retributive justice tool instead of being a restorative justice process as one of the ingredient of a genuine reconciliation. According to 2010 US Department of State Human Rights report made public on April 8, 2011, it is stated that “Some gacaca judges denied defendants the right to present witnesses and ordered the imprisonment of those who questioned the impartiality of gacaca judges. Poorly qualified judges and ill‐defined guidelines on evidence and hearsay were problems. During the year there were reports that local gacaca officials and citizens abused the process to pursue personal matters and settle grudges unrelated to the genocide, including making false accusations to acquire land. According to the PRI report released this year, local authorities "at times" were reported to have unduly influenced gacaca judges during the course of hearings”. On the traditional courts front, the situation is still critical. In fact, people continue to be illegally arrested and detained in safe houses or simply disappear. The list include General Charles Muhire arrested along with Major General Karenzi Karake, once Deputy Chief of UNAMID, arrested in April 2010, they have both recently been released, Lt Colonel Rugigana Ngabo arrested on August 20, 2010, detained in unknown location to be paraded before the court late in January 2011, Lambert Havugintwari, a lecturer at National University of Rwanda was kidnapped by security operatives in Butare, Southern Province, to resurface in police custody in Kigali late in March after his wife has appealed to President Kagame for help, and the list goes on. If these figures can be kidnapped and disappear, it must be worse for the regular citizens who don’t make the headlines in the media. Furthermore, along with the organic law that established the Gacaca court system, Rwanda’s government subsequently introduced a famous law on “genocide ideology, revisionism, negationism, and divisionism” which for many Rwandans is being used as Damocles sword hanging over them by the governing party, RPF. It is currently used and abused to intimidate, harass, persecute, muzzle any Hutu or Tutsi who dares to denounce the wrong doings of RPF regime. On the penitentiary front, though the government of Rwanda has often sided the fact that most of its inmates have committed crimes of genocides, it is also not understandable to see a significant number of people staying in jail without any judiciary case since 1994. In addition to the long detentions without trial, the prisons in Rwanda are reported to be overcrowded beyond the limits humanly acceptable and therefore the life there is very harsh. The photo below taken recently on March 10, 2010 shows the inmates in the prison of Gitarama, located in Southern Province of Rwanda. This facility is classified as the 2nd Most Horrible Prison on Earth, behind Kwan‐Li‐So N0 22 aka Camp 22 in North Korea.
OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda
Gitarama Prison, Rwanda, March 2010 Source: Akorra.com According to International Center for Prison Studies (ICPS), Gitarama is the most overcrowded prison in the world with 6000 inmates in a building originally designed for 500 prisoners. The report states that “The jail is so congested that inmates have no option but to stand all day and all night and many suffer from rotting feet”. On Human Rights Front The Rwanda regime has been in the news for its human rights abuses in recent years. Human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Reporters without borders, and Commonwealth Initiative for Human Rights and the US Department of State have been on the forefront to denounce the abuses of Kigali regime on its citizens. In its latest 2010 report made public on April 8, 2011, the US Department of State reports that “There were reports of abuse of suspects by security forces and local defense members, and prison and detention center conditions remained generally harsh. Security forces arbitrarily arrested and detained persons. Prolonged pretrial detention was a problem. There were restraints on judicial independence and limits on freedoms of speech, press, association, and religion, particularly in the pre election period. The government forcibly returned refugees. Official corruption and restrictions on civil society remained problems. Societal violence and discrimination against women, trafficking in persons, and discrimination against the Twa and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) community occurred. There were restrictions on labor rights, and child labor occurred. On Free Speech Front Free speech in Rwanda has been in dare situation for years. By year 2010 ends, all independent newspapers have been shutdown by the regime and the reporters in jail, in exile or killed. In fact the newspapers Umuseso, Umuvugizi and Umurabyo have been shut down weeks before the presidential elections of August 2010. Mrs. Mukakibibi Saidati and Uwimana Agnes of Umurabyo have been sentenced to 7 years and 17 years in prison, Didas Gasana and Charles Kabonero fled the country along with Gasasira Jean Bosco of Umuvugizi. Jean Leonard Rugambage, deputy editor of Umuvugizi was not lucky as he has been gunned down in front of his domicile in Kigali on June 24, 2010. One recalls that the Reporters without Borders (RSF) in its 2010 Press Freedom index ranked Rwanda 3rd in Africa (only below Eritrea and Soudan) in Africa and the last ten most dangerous countries for journalists in the world. It was ranked 169 out 178. OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda On Freedom to Assemble and Political Space. There is no freedom to assemble in Rwanda and political space does not exist in Rwanda. In fact, the country is a one party state under the ruling of Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) and there is no surprise if President Kagame won the last presidential elections with more than 93%, as all the genuine opposition political parties and their candidates have been denied the authorization to register and /or to operate freely in the country. One recalls that in the weeks leading to presidential elections of 2010, the sole opposition registered party; the Social Party PS Imberakuri has been split into two opposite movements and its founder, Mr. Bernard NTAGANDA, was incarcerated and later sentenced to 4 years in prison. The second opposition party, United Democratic Forces – FDU Inkingi has been denied registration. His chairperson, Mme Victoire INGABIRE UMUHOZA, after 16 years in exile has voluntarily come to her country to take part on the political processes. She has been incarcerated in October 2010 after six months in house arrest. She is still waiting for her trial. The third party, the Green Party has also been denied registration and his leader Mr. Frank Habineza has fled the country. In addition, it is important to mention the kidnapping from Burundi to Rwanda of Mr. Deogratias Mushayidi, Chairperson of the opposition party PDP‐Imanzi, who later last year has been convicted for threatening security state and sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Charles Ntakirutinka of PDR‐ Ubuyanja and Dr. Théoneste Niyitegeka are both serving 12 and 15 years terms in prison for having expressed the intention to run for Presidency against General Kagame in 2003. It is clear that Kigali regime does not tolerate any dissenting voice, and refugees feel that Kigali regime does want them back home not for their well beings as officially stated, but because for Kigali, they constitute potential critics of the regime outside the reach of Rwandan security operatives. In Conclusion: Most of Rwandan refugees today were sent in exile by the current regime in Kigali. As developed in this memo, there haven’t been genuine signs and actions by the regime toward any sustainable reconciliation. Instead, Kagame has regretted to have not killed a maximum of refugees who were fleeing in 1994, and once again compared them to human waste. In addition, the fact that the government of Rwanda refuses to acknowledge that thousands of Hutus refugees have been systematically killed by the RPF army as confirmed by the UN High Commission on Human Rights does not reassure the refugees on their fate once back home. The international community and UNHCR should put to task the Rwandan government by performing evaluations in the areas of human rights improvements at local and national levels, the independency and fairness of judiciary, laws enforcements and security institutions, the existence of real political parties, free and transparent elections, and finally the existence of a genuine civil society, before declaring the cessation clause as the current situation shows that Rwanda government fails on all these categories. Also, some people who chased most of these Rwandan refugees through the Congo jungle are still senior officials in the current government in Kigali. This is not a sign to assure any survivor of these killings. Therefore, UNHCR should rather focus on working with the UN Judiciary body to prosecute the responsible parties of the killings of Rwandan Refugees in the DRC as indicated in the UN mapping report published on October 1st, 2010 as well as encourage the government of Rwanda to improve the human rights in the country, open up its political space and most importantly open up to a genuine all inclusive dialogue where Rwandans from all walks of lives would be represented and the conclusions of that gathering should constitute a roadmap that will include amongst other the institution of a Truth and Reconciliation process as well as mechanisms of which Rwandans OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda would like to be govern through a consensus based constitution. UNHCR can be assured that once the minimum conditions on ground become friendly to all Rwandans, most of refugees will head home. In fact, they reached the countries and places they are living now by their own means and surely they know more than anybody else their way back home. Also once, the cessation clause becomes official, African countries, where most of the Rwandans refugees lives, risk misinterpreting the decision, and forcibly deporting them to Rwanda, with incalculable consequences to their lives and belongings. For all these reasons, we urge the UNHCR to postpone the implementation of the cessation clause on Rwandan Refugees Protection Status being explored for December 2011 and rather continue to provide protection for those in needs until the situation on ground improves for their safe and voluntarily return. References http://www.unhcr.org/cgi‐bin/texis/vtx/home/opendocPDFViewer.html?docid=419dbce54&query=cessation clause http://www.unhcr.org/3b66c2aa10.html 1951 Convention http://www.africa‐nion.org/Official_documents/Treaties_%20Conventions_%20Protocols/Refugee _Convention.pdf OAU convention on refugees http://akorra.com/2010/03/02/top-5-most-horrible-prisons-on-earth http://www.bbc.co.uk/gahuza/amakuru/2011/05/110513_ukrdatreats.shtml
OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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Civil Society and Political Organizations of Rwanda ORGANIZATION
COUNTRY OF RESIDENCE
OPJDR RIPRODHOR RAYA CNR UMUNTU CRES PAX-UK RDTJ CERCI PDP-IMANZI CARP ARL AKAGERA-RHEIN MDPR-INTIGANDA RIFDP CRC FEIDAR AMICAL –RWANDAIS
USA EUROPE USA SWITZERLAND SWITZERLAND SWITZERLAND UK SOUTH AFRICA COTE D’IVOIRE THE NETHERLANDS THE NETHERLANDS LUXEMBOURG GERMANY GERMANY CANADA/NETHERLANDS/BELGIUM CANADA FRANCE DANEMARK
CLIIR
BELGIUM BELGIUM
CORWABEL JAMBO DIALOGUE ET CONVIVIALITE CPCH AVICA HRRF RFIEKU
BELGIUM BELGIUM BELGIUM BELGIUM BELGIUM SUEDE
OPJDR • P.O. Box 3026 • Manchester, NH • 03105 / PHONE: (603) 361-6473 www.opjdr.org. OPJDR is non-profit and apolitical. Its mission is to promote the respect of human rights and Cultural, educational, and economic development in the Great Lakes Region of Africa.
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