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RALLY FOR THE RETURN OF | |
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4, RUE A. CLUYSENAAR 1060 BRUXELLES BELGIQUE Tél: 32-2-5348035 Fax: 32-2-5348053 |
7, RESIDENCE MONTESQUIEU 49000 ANGERS FRANCE Tél/Fax: 33-41489987 |
MARCH 17, 1997
The Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) would like to express its deep gratitude to the President of the Republic of Kenya, His Excellency Daniel T. ARAP MOI for his deep concern and sympathy to the suffering of millions of rwandan refugees and the displaced people in Eastern Zaire. It would also like to thank the Heads of State and of Governments who have responded positively to the call of His Excellency President Daniel T. ARAP MOI to study ways and means of alleviating the suffering of these people and finding a lasting solution to the present crisis in the Great Lakes Region.
The ambition of Tutsi armies in Uganda , Rwanda and Burundi is to control the Great Lakes Region. Anybody or anything in their way has to be crushed.
Since RPF took over power in Rwanda, the problem of refugees, that was yet a corner stone of the protracted Arusha negotiations claimed by RPF has been dumped in the dust bin. At one time, the strongman of Kigali, major general Kagame Paul declared in an interview with a belgian paper "Le soir" that the problem of refugees had ceased to be his concern.
The repatriation of refugees has never been the concern of RPF government. The harassment of refugees through physical elimination, kidnapping, raids in camps, intimidation, character assassination, blackmailing etc ..., has been a permanent feature in its foreign policy. The DMI( Directorate of Military Intelligence ) and ESO( External Security Organisation ) were specifically assigned the duty of implementing this battery of measures.
A special hit squad force of 600 men was set up for this sole purpose. It is the one terrorising neighbouring countries that are accommodating rwandan refugees.
But such a sinister adventure could have not successfully been undertaken, without a massive and well orchestrated campaign, demonizing refugees and external support.
The present crisis in Eastern of Zaire cannot be interpreted in the mere context of quest of democratization , as some pro RPF lobby groups want the world to believe. For one to make some sense out of what is happening, the following questions have to be answered first:
1. At the beginning of the war, Kabila and his ADLC umbrella group had no troops of their own. The first of his own combatants passed out in February 1997 and the ceremony was covered worldwide by the media. Yet he made serious advances right from the word go. Who was fighting for him ?
2. Kabila , the ADLC leader was a modest refugee, living first in Tanzania and later in Uganda, where the plan of using him as a proxy was hatched. How did he manage to gather such a sophisticated and huge armoury of the latest technology ? Who financed him , and where did he stock the arms ?
3. It is a well known fact that none of Eastern Zaire neighbours manufactures arms. Who then supplies Kabila's forces? Where do the supplies pass ?
4. There has been a lot of initiatives to impose an arms embargo on the Great Lakes region . In the case of Rwanda, under the previous regime, it took less than a week for the Security Council to impose it. Lifting it after RPF took power sailed through the Security Council amid protests from the Zaire Government against arming Kigali regime, since she knew that the RPF regime was preparing to invade Zaire.
While the embargo against RPF Government was being lifted attempts were made at a very high level, to shift it on Eastern Zaire, so as to squeeze former RGF, who were suspected of buying arms .
When Kabila forces entered on the scene, the imposition of the arm embargo on Eastern Zaire was dropped from the agenda even through Kabila attacked a legitimate Government which has nothing to envy to the Kigali Government on that score ; in the same time regional efforts to isolate the Burundi regime to force it to negociate have failed due to the support that it gets from the backers of Uganda , Rwanda regimes and Kabila.
An objective and in depth answer to these question could prove beyond any doubt, that Kabila is springboard for Rwanda , Burundi and Ugandan militarist regimes, which are out to curve for themselves a large chunk of zairean territory and install a satellite regime to defend their interests.
The present crisis is a well planned strategy being jointly carried out by the burundian and rwandan governments with full knowledge and participation of Uganda and on advice of their supporters as a means of getting rid of what they call a "refugee threat". It now clear that the three Governments want to realise , besides advancing foreign interests, the HIMA TUTSI empire in tha sub-region.
Attacks on refugee camps by rwandan and burundian troops which started in early October 1996 have left thousands dead.The rest are facing sure death by starvation, exhaustion, and lack of medicine.
When it became clear that RPF soldiers and their puppets were deliberately targeting refugee camps instead of Zairean military targets, some peace loving countries, organisations and personalities called for a foreign intervention force for the protection refugee camps and the resumption of humanitarian operations.
On November 15, 1996, the UN security Council passed a resolution nº 1080 (1996) authorising the deployment of multinational force in Eastern Zaïre.
Owing to the pressure from the USA Government , the idea was dropped leaving refugees at the mercy of tutsi rebels. Refugees were assassinated in their tens of thousands : it is generally estimated that hundreds of thousands of refugees have already died , most of them massacred, others died of hunger, exhaustion, diseases,thirst...This explains why at the end of the day, only between 200,000 and 250,000 were found at TINGI TINGI, AMISI, and SHABUNDA, out of the 650,000 rwandan refugees who never crossed into Rwanda.
With the unstoppable advance of "rebel "troops, it is more and more likely that one will have to add very soon on that disastrous list, the 200,000 refugees of SHABUNDA and TINGI TINGI.
The refugees who are massacred are not killers: these are families that flee at the speed of their children and move in groups, thinking that it is more secure to do so.The alleged genociders mainly the INTERAHAMWE , former soldiers in the presidential guard, to whom most of the massacres are attributed, are young and strong; they run fast and swiftly disappear in the forest at any attack.
Since the beginning of the conflict, there has been a war around figures concerning the number of refugees still present in Zaire. The "rebels" and Kigali Government state, from the beginning , that the quasi-totality of refugees returned back home; the only people who failed to return are the "Interahamwe" and the "ex-FAR" and the genociders in Zaire (it is therefore legitimate to hunt them down). Kigali states that more than 500,000 to have crossed the border out of the 1,030,000 rwandan refugees in Eastern Zaire ; It is clear that 603,000 never left Zaire.
The war around figures was strategic: on one hand, it was aimed at preventing any foreign intervention in favour of the remaining refugees ; on the other hand, it was aimed at attracting the maximum of foreign aid to Kigali, for "reconstruction"... Finally, as projected in the KAGAME's "last plan", it was aimed at making sure that the majority of refugees in Zaire die, particularly the elite which has not accepted the RPF regime.
While the RPF intention of wiping out hutu refugees is now becoming crystal clear the UNHCR has thus failed to fulfil its mandate of protecting refugees under its care. In fact, when refugees managed to find their way out of the jungle and settled at Tingi Tingi the Un Security Council was the first body to blow trumpets on the alleged arming of strawing refugees, quoting UNHCR, which had abandoned the refugee long before.This was greenlight for Kabila 's forces to attack again refugees as military target.
It did not take long before Kabila launched a bloody attack on Tingi Tingi, sending surviving refugees to the forest. On the eve of the assault, UNHCR and humanitarian organisation had pulled out of the camps, enabling ADLC forces to kill without witness. Over 25000 refugees perished in the attacks while another estimated 10,000 died on the way, out of starvation, lack of medical care, and exhaustion.
Although the Zairian government filed a case against Uganda, Burundi and Rwanda in the Security Council, no condemnation, let alone a warning to Burundi and Rwanda was issued. All was done as if Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda were implementing a wide conspiracy. The EU is the only body that took a bold stand, not only against the invasion of Zaire, but also against the slaughter of innocent refugees.
The only step forward suggested by the UN Secretariat is the convening of an international conference on the Great Lakes Region. But the idea is likely not to materialise, given the fact that the countries that blocked the previous similar initiative i.e Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda will oppose it.
In any way, what is most needed now is an emergency plan to save the refugees from starvation and massacres.
It is extremely disappointing that many non governmental organisation including human rights organisations (AFRICA RIGHTS, HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH etc...) except AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL, have not raised any finger to condemn the deliberate plan of RPF to exterminate refugees including women, children and the elderly. Even the floating dead bodies in Rusizi and Lac TANGANYIKA reminiscent of the terrible sight in Lac Victoria in 1994 that was wholesale attributed without any investigation to hutu militiamen, has not moved them. Yet, all the bodies are bearing Kandoya torture style, a trade mark of RPF/RPA.
With all the harassment of refugees in camps in eastern Zaïre and in northern
Tanzania, it is quite legitimate to ask oneself what is behind the reluctancy of refugees to go home ?
The main concern and source of fear of refugees is their safety and dignity once they return to a country where there is no rule of law, where the judicial system is not working, and where people do not enjoy their civil and political rights as enshrined in international conventions.
With over 100.000 prisoners who have been languishing in jail for 2 years without charge, the Rwandese judicial system is unmistakably the worst in the world. As if to compound further the situation, the rwandese government has just released another list of 1900 people to be arrested over charges of planning genocide, to be hanged in case they are found guilty by local courts according to the Director General in the Ministry of Justice.
The list amalgamates political or administrative post held by people with the charge of genocide.
In practical terms, none of former politicians, senior military and administrative officers, clergymen, intellectuals and prominent businessmen should escape RPF nets.
Given the line up of magistrates made up 90% of tutsi, the sentences are a foregone conclusion.
Besides, contrary to reports by UNHCR, the reintegration of refugees recently kicked out of Zaïre, is still a headache. People are yet to recover their property and are still in camps in MUTURA, at RUYENZI, GITICYINYONI and REMERA in the outskirts of Kigali and in KIBUNGO.Some had found the situation so trying that they had already crossed back into Tanzania although they are also hunted down. For the specific case of refugees currently being thrown out of Tanzania, most of them hail from the prefectures of Byumba and Kibungo. Most of the area having been turn into Tutsilands, refugees are reluctant to return home for fear of victimisation by those squattering their properties.
A number of other returnees have either been killed, Association pour la Défense des Libertés et Droits de l'Homme (ADL) based in Rwanda and some others NGOs mention more than 600 people killed between January and February 1997. Others disappeared or arbitrarily arrested as was the case early this year during the forced repatriation from Burundi, upon which over 1000 arrests were made according to Amnesty International.
There is also uncertainty over the future of the country, as the democratisation of the institutions is no longer on the agenda of the RPF government, and the institution of a truly national army which can secure anybody seems a dream.
With regard to the sorely needed broadbased administration, there is still a long way to go. Although RPF propaganda states that the Arusha Agreement remains the pillar of its policy, the so called broad based government is just a myth. In fact after taking over power,the first step was to exclude what was perceived by RPF as the most dangerous protagonists to its power i.e MRND Party and the Rwandese Government Forces (RGF). Under this cover, all members of the anti-RPF factions of MDR, PSD, and PL, as well as other small political parties were also excluded, bringing in a government representing a very tiny fraction of the population. No wonder that RPF has up to now a narrow political base and relies on intimidation and violence to maintain itself in power. It has ruled out any chance of holding elections.
By accepting this "fait accompli" of RPF, the international community gave a licence to RPF to eliminate physically or exclude from the governance of the country, any potential opponent. Indeed, for anybody to be labelled militia or "Interahamwe", whichever party he belongs to, is enough to be arrested and detained without arousing international indignation. Those who managed to escape and run to camps inside or outside the country are considered criminals and the international community seems to take it the way RPF wants it. All rwandan refugees are now ostracised because hardly any country allows them entry into its territory.
This creates a very painful psychological torture which amounts to another form of genocide.
All those problems discourage refugees from going home. The so called intimidation is just a smoke screen to blind fold people, and divert their attention from the real issues.
The rwandese crisis is political by nature, and calls therefore for a political solution.The present rwandese refugees crisis started way back in 1990, and not in 1994 as some people may think.
Indeed, people started fleeing in October 1990, after the RPF invasion and by February 1993, there was 1 million displaced people in the camps of NYACYONGA in the outskirts of Kigali. With the RPF military take-over, the phenomenon of collective demonisation exacerbated the crisis, with over 2.000.000 people crossing into neighbouring countries. If some have ever since returned home, others have continuously left the country.
It is therefore absolutely irrelevant and useless to try to isolate the refugee problem from the political background that gave rise to it.
The issue of intimidation has been used as a magic word by the RPF government and the UNHCR and at some political fora, especially the Carter Peace Initiative, to scare refugees from claiming their inalienable rights. Anybody who dares criticise UNHCR programs or talk about the well known human rights situation in Rwanda is branded as "intimidator", a crime that can land somebody in any trouble without arousing any concern.
In order to break the circle of violence that threaten the whole sub-region, RDR welcomes the ideas of an International Conference on Peace, Security and Development in the great Lakes region whose idea has been endorsed in Resolution 1080 (1996) of the Security Council.This conference should be opened to all interested parties without exception, and should comprehensively address all the problems that face the sub region including the issue of governance, the nature of the security services, as well as the respect of national borders.
The solution lies entirely in the hands of RPF regime. Indeed, rwandese exiles on their part have always pledged their readiness to give their contribution through a genuine political dialogue. The latest appeal for dialogue was made in July 1996, just before RPF finalised its plan for the violent dismantling of the camps. It is up to RPF regime to reciprocate this gesture of goodwill by putting in place the minimum confidence building measures .
The latter should include:
1. Vacate and free immediately and without condition, property held illegally, without waiting for the return of their rightful owners;
2. An end to the climate of insecurity, summary executions, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and unexplained disappearances of innocent civilians carried out by the Rwandese Patriotic Front, as reported by report by a number of prominent personalities, human right organisations, NGOs, and newspapers;
3. Immediate and unconditional release of people detained illegally, and opening the cases of those who may have charges;
4. Removing soldiers from the countryside where they are a source of terror and insecurity and confining them in barracks;
5. The formation of a broadbased government , that includes all political forces and shades of opinion representative of refugees as recommended in item 5 of the joint communiqué of the regional summit on Rwanda held in Nairobi on 7th January 1995, and an end to the policy of ethnic exclusion;
6. Formation of a truly national Army;
7. Establishing a transitional Parliament that includes all political forces and shades of opinions representative of refugees;
8. Reorganise as soon as possible the judicial system and make it capable of safeguarding the rule of law;
9. Undertaking a firm commitment on allowing political pluralism by lifting the ban on normal political party activities in the country and the freedom of speech. In this connection the national radio should cease to be the mouth piece of the ruling RPF political movement.
This set of actions is the only way to avoid the recurrence of any more suffering for the rwandese people.
Regarding the present tragedy in Eastern Zaïre, RDR earnestly recommends the Regional Summit to take the following steps :
1. To condemn unequivocally the genocide being committed by the RPF Army and its allies against hutu refugees and take necessary steps to protect the survivors;
2. To put in place mechanisms to create security for the supply of food, water and medicine to refugees;
3. To condemn the destabilising internationalist adventures of the tutsi extremists in the sub-region;
4. To pressure on UNHCR for the latter enable refugees who have been registered for the voluntarily repatriation at TINGI TINGI to do so, and resettle those who do not wish to go home;
5. To support the idea of an humanitarian military intervention to protect supply routes to refugee camps and camps themselves;
6. To invite the UNHCR to do its duty of protecting refugees instead of involving itself in non humanitarian issues;
7. To support immediate convening of a regional conference on the Great Lakes as adopted by the Un Security council countries to examine the political causes of the crisis which is essentially the issue of power sharing and security as well as participation of all interested parties in the running country;
8. To condemn the Rwanda , Burundi and Uganda regimes for their aggression against the Republic of Zaire;
9. To call on all countries to stop arms sales to the militarist and aggressive regimes of Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi;
10. The summit should send clear and unequivocal signals to all regimes of Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda that are fuelling the crisis in the eastern Zaire , to stop violating the territorial integrity of Zaire.
But above all, RDR reiterates that no durable solution to the crisis will be achieved, so long as representatives of exiles and all those who are excluded from the governance of the country will be shut out from the fora dealing with their problem.
The Honourable Heads of State and delegations are therefore requested to impress upon RPF government the need of a dialogue with refugees, exiles and all people excluded from the governance of the country.
1. The majority of Rwandan refugees did not go back to Rwanda: 450,000 at most returned back to their homeland, out of 1,103,000 Rwandan refugees. Most of the returnees came from Mugunga and Kibumba camps and the head count is between 300,000 and 400,000 refugees.
Given the strategic nature of their repatriation, the media from all over the world were invited to film this "massive repatriation" and to force the cancellation of the international intervention force, intervention which had been very difficult to agree upon.
2. Rwandan refugees are not fleeing the fighting: they are fleeing massacres. The military operation that is taking place in Zaire has all the ingredients of a new genocide. Large mass graves are found all around Goma. Women, children lie next to the elderly and men, hands tied on their back, a bullet lodged in their heads. According to estimates in Goma, several hundreds of thousands of refugees have already died since the beginning of the conflict, either massacred, or by starvation or exhaustion. Stories of massive massacres are coming from Masisi and Walikale in particular. For the "rebels", Rwandan refugees are a military target.
3. Rwandan refugees are not the only ones targeted by these massacres. Zairean Hutu populations are also targeted. Everywhere in eastern Zaire, but particularly in Goma, disappearances are increasing, and every influential Hutu is enlisted on a "black list". All over Masisi region, massive massacres of civilians took place.
Monday January 26, 1997, two unknown people came to my house some where in Goma.
One of them was in military uniform and was carrying an automatic rifle; the other was in civilian attire, but was carrying a revolver underneath his shirt, a gun usually reserved to senior military officers. They asked for me by my name, but my watchman was wise enough to say that I was absent. They said they would be back one hour later.
There was no time to waste, I assembled a few items in a rush, and managed to run away, taking advantage of an ICRC vehicle that carried me across the border to Gisenyi (Rwanda). I had just escaped an assassination. Three Spanish World Doctors were less fortunate in Ruhengeri on January 19, 97; they lost their lives.
Like myself, they probably knew a lot, they had witnessed a lot, or were likely to do so...
The events succinctly related in this chronicle are factual information that I personally compiled. Given the sensitive nature of these facts, the reader will understand that they can only be revealed under the protection of anonymity. I hope everybody will understand that lives are in danger.
Since the beginning of the conflict, there has been a war around figures concerning the number of refugees still present in Zaire. The "rebels" state from the beginning that the quasi-totality of refugees returned back home; the only people who failed to return are the "Interahamwe" and the "ex-FAR" and the genociders in Zaire (it is therefore legitimate to hunt them down). Kigali states that they are more than 500,000 to have crossed the border.
This war around figures is strategic: on one hand, it is aimed at preventing any foreign intervention in favour of the remaining refugees (why intervene if there are no more refugees in Zaire?); on the other hand, it is aimed at attracting the maximum of foreign aid to Kigali, for "reconstruction"...
What is really the number of refugees still present in Zaire?
Let us simply use the official figures of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
a. Total number of refugees in Bukavu region: 316,000 persons scattered among different camps: INERA, KASHUSHA, NYANGEZI, PANZI, KALEHE, KATANA,BIRAVA,northern part of IDJWI island (Bugarula) and the southern part (Kashofu),
b- Total number of refugees in Goma region: 715,991 persons scattered in different camps: MUGUNGA\LAC VERT, KIBUMBA, KATALE, other camps (MINOVA, SAKE,...)
c- Total number of refugees in Uvira region: 180,144 persons
Rwandans: 71,828 Burundians: 117,316
GRAND TOTAL OF REFUGEES(Uvira, Bukavu, Goma): 1,221,483.
Let us say: 1,220,000 refugees (Rwandans and Burundians), present in Zaire in October 1996, at the beginning of the war. Not knowing the whereabouts of 117,000 Burundian refugees, I will deal only with 1,103,000 Rwandan refugees.
Out of 1,103,000 Rwandan refugees, how many did cross the border back to Rwanda?
Since the beginning of the war, there have been only one massive movement of refugees back to Rwanda: the return home from Mugunga refugee camp, located at 7 KM (4.5 miles) from Goma.
Mugunga had become the "world's largest refugee camp"; I visited Mugunga camp one day before the fall of Goma takeover, Wednesday October 30. I saw the arrival of refugees who were fleeing from KIBUMBA camp. These refugee camps had been shelled the previous day from Rwanda, by the "rebels". I saw many wounded refugees,in a relatively serious condition, some hit by shells, others by shrapnel of bombs. It would be impossible to accurately state their number, which was swelling as more refugees were coming. The wounded would be sent to different treatment centers within the camp. I saw around 100 wounded refugees, in only one center that I managed to visit. It would be difficult to know how many people were killed in KIBUMBA camp.
All in all, there were 500,000 persons at the Mugunga site , originating from Mugunga camp itself, and Lac Vert (300,000), and from KIBUMBA camp (197,000)which were attacked before. The refugees who crossed the border on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday November 15, 16 and 17, 1996 came from this group.
I saw a relatively important influx of refugees on Friday 15, and in Goma, we estimate that 50,000 persons crossed the border that day. The next day, I saw an extraordinary crowd of refugees on the same road, all day long. That Saturday, on November 16, 200,000 persons probably crossed the border. On Sunday 17, the flow of refugees was again less important, similar to Friday's: we estimate that 50,000 persons crossed the border that day.
All in all, according to our estimates, between 300 and 350,000 refugees returned back home in three
days, which is a lot of people, compared to 500,000 who were living in Mugunga refugee camp a
few days earlier. This estimate is comparable to the ones produced by a well-known medical
NGO.
At this point, four observations must be made:
1. I saw only modest families, families of peasants crossing the border. I did not see any of the intellectual families that I knew in Mugunga. Didn't these educated families walk toward Masisi instead?
2. X, Y, and Z, school teachers in Goma, who fled along with their families toward Matanda, on the Masisi road, during Goma fall, told me that they saw, "in great numbers", refugees walking across Matanda, from Mugunga camp toward Masisi.
3. The operation "Mugunga Liberation" took place in front of world cameras, as the final arrangements for an imminent international intervention were in near completion.
Journalists, up until then very restricted in their action and movement (they were routinely given visas only for 2 to 4 hours) were given free ride to report on this special event, visibly with the goal to impress the international public opinion.
The "massive return of refugees" did in fact stop the idea of the military intervention.
4. Within the gigantic crowd that crossed back to Rwanda, there were very few people from Katale and Kahindo camps. They only appeared toward the end of the queue on Sunday, Nov.17, 96. They were visibly very much weakened by a very long trip and they were vulnerable. For example, we picked up a young woman who did not weigh more than 30 KG (90 lb.), clearly very exhausted. She died a couple of days later.
The following weeks, very small groups of refugees would be escorted at the border posts of Bukavu (Ruzizi) and Goma ("Grande Barriere") by the High Commission for Refugees (HCR).
They were mainly women, children, and elderly. In all, 80,000 refugees were counted.
Briefly, 450,000 refugees at most crossed the border back to Rwanda, from a total of 1,103,000,000 persons. 653,000 refugees did not go back to Rwanda, and they are therefore in Zaire. It appears that between 200,000 and 250,000 refugees have finally made it to the camps of TINGI-TINGI, AMISI, and SHABUNDA. At least 400,000 Rwandan refugees are missing (without counting 117,000 Burundians): what did happen to them?
If it were just a matter of fighting, Rwandan refugees wouldn't have more reason to flee than Zairian populations: Rwandan refugees are fleeing massacres that are specifically targeting them from "Tutsis "rebels". For Tutsi "rebels", Hutu refugees constitute a military target. The "rebels" talk is to say that refugees who did not return back to Rwanda are all "genociders". It is obvious that those involved in the 1994 atrocities could not go back to Rwanda at any cost, but many innocents could not either , (according to the UNHCR estimates, 7% of the refugee population are believed to have been involved in killings). The intellectuals, for example, the civil servants, property owners, successful businessmen, particularly those coming from cities, were afraid to return.
Calling "genocider" every Hutu refugee is aimed at legitimizing the slaughter in the eyes of the international opinion, but also in the eyes of "rebel" troops, the use of force, even total annihilation of these refugees.
During the genocide in 1994, the Interahamwe had adopted the word "Inyenzi" (cockroaches) to designate Tutsi and thereafter kill them with a clear conscience.
The great number of mass graves attest to the systematic resolve to annihilate refugees, and the military target that they have been considered as, since the beginning of the war. These mass graves are everywhere,but they are always carefully hidden and located in area of difficult access. It is obviously extremely dangerous to be found by "rebels" in area where mass graves are located: it means immediate execution.
I saw near Mugunga, at one hour walking distance in the North, three mass graves of around 10, 12 and 30 bodies each. Bodies included men, women, sometimes holding babies on their back, children and the elderly. Each one of them had a bullet in the head, including the babies.
In Kibumba, I saw at the deep end of the camp, on the Rwandan border, in the small wood which serve as the border line, metric piles of skeletons. There were three such sites, containing fifty (50) to one hundred (100) skeletons each. There too, the bodies had one bullet in the head. A thorough search would surely lead to other sites, but who would risk his life in such a dangerous place ?
On November 26, in the forest North of Sake, on the pathway which goes down the hill, after five days of walk from Kahindo camp, (on the Rutshuru road), I saw a dying man, abandoned on makeshift stretcher. This man had deep wounds of machete all around his head. Through one open wound, one could see his brain. We asked him who did that to him, and he said, "it is the Tall Men"; we asked him where was his family; and he answered that his wife and all his children had been killed with machetes a few days earlier in the forest, by the "rebels", who wanted to prevent them from reaching Mugunga. His brothers, very weak and exhausted, could not carry his stretcher any more, and abandoned him near the road. Farther North, we found the remaining of a camp that appeared to have been abandoned in hurry. A pregnant woman was lying on the ground, a bullet in the head. She must have been unable to run away.
There were bodies scattered all the way along the pathway that leads to Kahindo and Katale camps. On December 24, two "rebels" kidnapped two young Zairian Hutus from village R. They came back two days later, after being severely tortured. They have now became the guides for between 70 and 100 Tutsi "rebels" (one pick-up truck and one truck) heavily armed.
In one incident, they( the two zairian guides) took them on the site of three little camps hidden in the forest. Result: "Waliwauwa wote, wale wakimbizi, wote kabisa, hakuna hata mmoja aliyepona" (they killed all of them, really all, those refugees, not even one survived), the "guide" told me when he came back.
It was probably three little camps of around 100 persons each. Many refugees from Katale are still hidden in the Virunga park forest, blocked at the entry and the exit by the mass graves and the military operations. One of those operations took place on January 30, 1996. Two hundreds fifty (250) "rebel" soldiers were brought at Katale camp, at the entry of the forest, to have it" cleaned up".
It is difficult to estimate the number of refugees still hidden there, but there were more than 300.000 refugees between Katale and Kahindo. It is estimated that between 30 and 80.000 among them have been able to reach Rwanda. Many die in the forest, where they have been feeding for months now on wild plants and drinking rain water, when it is raining. We met, for example, a young lady absolutely exhausted and dehydrated. She could make it no more, and despite our efforts, she died in our hands.
Farther North, under a shelter made of branches, lays the body of a woman, dead of exhaustion, while giving birth. On her feet, the body of a four year old child lays, no doubt hers, dead of loneliness. Helping those people is considered by the "rebels" as helping the enemy, an active supporter to the Interahamwe. It has been suggested that the refugees who have stayed in the Zairian forests are after all in their natural environment. I can testify, for having been there tens of times, that it is false.
The Zairian forests of Goma are located on a volcanic land, where one cannot find any source of water, nor animals, nor any kind of food. To condemn those refugees to stay in the forests is to condemn them to death. Mr. Boutros-Ghali has talked of "genocide by starvation".
On December 17, 1996, in the weekly confidential meeting of the officials of NGOs, EUB, the local organisation in charge of collecting dead bodies on the main roads (Goma/Sake; Goma/Rutshuru) announced that 6537 dead bodies had already been collected , among them 2743 for the sole town of Goma. EUB had no mandate of searching for bodies in the bush.
On the road Kibumba/Rutshuru, after crossing the little forest after Munigi, one is extremely distressed (it is then necessary to close all the windows) by a terrible smell of dead bodies in decomposition.
Days and weeks pass , but the smell doesn't disappear, as if the corpses were "renewed" as time passes. That road is the only one that goes to Katale. The refugees who take the risk to use that road on foot to go back to Rwanda are diverted to that forest and executed. Soldiers are continually patrolling that place.
A tutsi "rebel "did not try to hide it; on a roadblock at Rumangabo; he told me on December 19: "those refugees are a pest, when I meet them in the bushes, I have to eliminate them". The same day, on December 19, on the road from Tongo, heading to Kalengera, I saw a small pick-up truck carrying refugees, around twenty of them, with four armed "rebels". The refugees were shouting and crying. Our car was following theirs. At the little junction from where the old road turns to the right, now cut off by the lava flow, the pick-up turned right, towards a dead end. We took the left, heading towards the tarmac road Rutshuru-Goma: those people were going to the secret place of their execution; it was about 18 Hrs.
At Katale camp, when one approaches the river by the left side, after about 30 minutes of walk past the camp, at the entry of the bush on the West side, I saw many large mass graves. The first contained about 200 persons, all killed with an automatic riffle. The second, a bit further, bigger than the first one, with 300 bodies in it, some rolled in sheeting (for evacuation?), followed by 2 more others of the same size.
Many women and children, all of them shot in the head. Men, killed with a bullet in the head also, have their arms tied on the back. Our guide, a refugee, assures us that two other mass graves were located not far from there, and that much larger mass graves, with "thousands" of dead bodies, were located even further at many hours of walk, in the forest. He offered to lead us there. Unfortunately, we had to refuse, for obvious security reasons.
On the lava plain behind Katale and Kahindo camps, heading to the West, in the opposite direction to the Rwanda side, one can see thousands of skeletons, mowed down with a machine gun while they were fleeing, and covered by sheeting that have been burnt in the attempt to make those remains disappear.
I met at the hospital a refugee who was being treated for 6 bullet wounds in the back. That man had been left for dead among dead bodies; he had been able to scramble up to an NGO car and had been evacuated to Goma. He told me that tutsi "rebels" have rounded his "quarter" in Katale camp; they separated men from women, ordered them to lay down face on the ground, and opened fire with machine guns. How many died, he can not tell, but a quarter in the camps was home to two (2) to three (3) thousand refugees. This happened at the beginning of November.
I met, again at Mugunga, a man who was keeping a little diary of his wandering since the attack on Katale camp to that of Mugunga. That testimony has also been collected by a well known medical NGO. The man tells of how they left Katale under intense fire of heavy and light machine guns, how they fled to the forest in the panic. The forest, where again the "rebels" were waiting for them; back to Katale, the "rebels" again, and this up to three times before his refugee group was flown over by a small reconnaissance plane.
We also found North of Mugunga, at about 5 hours walking distance on the road heading North to Katale camp, in the forest behind the Nyiragongo volcano, a small camp of about fifty refugees. There were among them 17 persons who survived the massacres at Kahindo camp.
The 3500 persons who had camped there were rounded by soldiers. At first, they acted friendly, and offered to escort the refugees back to Rwanda. They indeed escorted them, but led them to the opposite direction to Rwanda. As soon as they reached the bush, the "rebels" opened fire, killing them all, except those 17 refugees, who were now scared to death, and were not willing to go back to Rwanda. Among those people was a little boy who had lost his 7 brothers and his parents in that killing.
At TONGO, I met peasants who told me that one month before the events started, Tutsi soldiers were already at TONGO and that they had paid dollars to peasants to dig deep pits in the thick of the forests.
In the dispensary of GOMA , I met a young girl of 12 years, half of her body seriously burnt. She was arriving from BUKAVU. Before the flight, her camp had been attacked: her self and her mother rolled down in their sheeting which had been put on fire. Her mother died in the fire.
On the 24th of December, I met a young rwandan from one of the camps in IDJWI island called BUGARURA. He had fled in a canoe towards the shores of NYABUBWE. It was too late: the " rebels " were waiting for them. The rebels drowned with their own hands his parents, brothers and sisters. Him alone was able to swim and reach GOMA. This time he was returning to Rwanda.
We helped to ferry refugees arriving from BUKAVU, from SAKE. We were beaten together with all officers from other organisations present because they had found among refugees, only women, old men, and children of female sex. It was later explained to me at NYABIBWE that rebels screen refugees before allowing them to get out of the forest: every boy of the age above ten years, was killed; only old men and women were allowed to pass. This was confirmed by Channel Africa in its broadcast of January 23, 1996: it was alleged that men( old men ) constituted 30% of refugees who returned to Rwanda.
At the beginning of November, in the region of BUKAVU, at Burhale, REV Father Jean Claude BUHENDWA, a young MUSHI priest ordained in August 1996, was killed when he tried to stand between rebels and a group of refugees composed of families which were running away from KASHUSHA camp moving to NGWESHE. The Red Cross counted more than 600 victims, but another priest who was accompanying a colleague and was hiding in a banana plantation testifies that more than 2000 people were killed. Peasants were forced to bury in mass graves as many corpses as possible before the arrival of the Red Cross.
I could give many other examples: I just wanted to give examples which we witnessed ourselves. But I never had access to the regions of MASISI and WALIKALE which are out of bound to foreigners. Testimonies that come from that area point out the same determination to finish off refugees. Larger scale massacres are alleged to have taken place in WALIKALE where a very reliable source and who was at the spot points out that "dozens of thousands of refugees were physically eliminated ".
One is struck by the similarity of the accounts and of experiences. From North to South, the same method were used in a systematic and planned manner. On the day following the fall of GOMA, the offices of UNHCR, at the BDGL ( Banque de Dévelopement de la Communauté des Grands Lacs), all the sensitive equipments, particularly computer hardware were all taken . All the lists of all refugees were all taken to GISENYI_ RWANDA, along with all the confidential information that refugees had given in order to get some little food.
On December 20, 1996, talking to a high ranking officer of the UNHCR, I blamed him for not denouncing these killings. He answered : "we know very well that refugees are being assassinated in their tens of thousands in the forest, but what can we do ? we are not an army, it was up to the intervention force to act"....
WHY THIS SILENCE?...
Refugees were assassinated in their tens of thousands : it is generally estimated that hundreds of thousands of refugees have already died , most of them massacred, others died of hunger, exhaustion, diseases,thirst...This explains why at the end of the day, only between 200 and 250,000 are found at TINGI TINGI, AMISI, and SHABUNDA, out of the 650,000 rwandan refugees who never crossed into Rwanda. ( We do not include once again 117,000 burundi refugees ).
With the unstoppable advance of "rebel "troops, towards LUBUTU, it is more and more likely that one will have to add very soon on that disastrous list, the 200,000 refugees of SHABUNDA, which has fallen , and TINGI TINGI. Aid agencies have already left. The camp most probably already surrounded for many days now will then be " cleaned" to borrow the expression of Mr KABILA.
Will the problem of the genociders of 1994 be finished for that matter? Nothing is farther from the truth, because the genociders mainly the INTERAHAMWE , former soldiers in the presidential guard, to whom most of the massacres are attributed, are young and strong; they run fast and swiftly disappear in the forest at any attack. The refugees who are massacred are not killers: these are families that flee at the speed of their children and move in groups, thinking that it is more secure to do so.
As soon as they entered the town of Goma, Friday November 01, 1996 soldiers started hunting down Zairian soldiers and Hutu refugees. Any refugee who was found had to be shot down. Every refugee was labelled "Interahamwe". This label eventually turned into a mockery. A Zairian Hutu family I know very well lost an eight-year old child very rapidly. This family had adopted him at the age of six during the Rwandan exodus of 1994. January 06, two soldiers came and threatened the family because it had given shelter to an "Interahamwe".
Very quickly, it is also a hunt for Zairian Hutu that began. These were not "Interahamwe" but "Magrivi". Magrivi is a Hutu friendly society similar to others of other tribes founded after the National Conference. Those organizations defended tribal ideas, especially recently with rising ethnic tensions and the Rwandan war.
Kidnapping increased particularly in the Goma area and in the whole northern Kivu in general where the Hutu community is strong with estimates ranging from 500,000 to 700,000 people.
In Goma, every educated person or person with some wealth or anybody with some influence is directly targeted. Rafael M. is for instance hunted down because he has contacts in Europe where he went to school. His contacts make him an influential person. He must disappear. Because he cannot be found, it is his wife who is targeted. The military are hunting her down. Friends are hiding her. For how long?
The old R. is also hunted down. He was director of a school in Birambizo in Masisi. He is a Hutu. Armed soldiers went to his house three times during the day. In the night of December 17, they came back again. They were seven well armed. They knocked at the door of his house at midnight and called him by his name. He did not answer and had his children stay silent. Disappointed by this , the military went to his neighbour's house. His neighbour was a nineteen-year old Hutu, owner of a shop. They looted his shop and sent a bullet into his head.
R. has moved elsewhere but he lives in fear. What I am saying happened in the district of Mabanga.
M. is a Hutu businessman. His source of livelihood is his Toyota pick up. In the afternoon of January 12, soldiers went to his house. They wanted to buy his car and offered him $2,000.00. M. refused because on one hand the price was ridiculously low, on the other without a car M. is without work. The same day, at eight in the evening,they came back and forced their way into his house. M. had enough time to escape using a back door. However, they found his twenty-year old son in the kitchen and summarily executed him.
Many people are kidnapped at night, others in broad daylight. In general people disappear for good. However some come back from their detention center after having been beaten up and told to shut up. Some are kidnapped, released, kidnapped again. Then, they disappear.
Witnesses who live near the border report a large number of cars crossing into Rwanda at night when borders are supposed to be closed. Also a number of Hutu are directly killed in Zaire, probably on Rutshuru road, in the bushes of Munigi, on both sides of the road.
In Goma and Rutshuru, the kidnaping have really reached alarming proportions in recent weeks. Even Bukavu is not spared. The last Hutus who are still in hiding are hunted down, be they Zairian or Rwandan, but also Zairians who for instance worked for refugees in an NGO. It is estimated that 4 to 5 persons disappear every night in Bukavu, compared to 40 per week in Goma.
The hunt of Hutu is carried out in cities but it is particularly in Masisi that the man hunt is massive. In fact the Hutu community of Masisi is very important, easily identified because it lives in villages of the same clan. Finally, during the unfortunate war in Masisi, stirred up since the Rwandan exodus of 1994, this population sometimes carried out violent activities against Tutsi and Hunde that led to the departure of all Tutsi who lived in Masisi and sometimes the massacres of Tutsi. (Mokoto for example, April 96). "Rebels" have therefore carried out systematic and violent massacres at a large scale. In Jomba for example, they entered from Rwanda and killed every person they met. Very often they only met mothers and their children because youths had fled. It is these mothers who were executed, as was the case for the mother and the little sister of R. This wave of executions lasted about three weeks at the beginning of November.
Even the parish Priest, an influential person, known for his moderate opinions was kidnapped with four nuns who used to run the high school of Jomba, and were taken towards Uganda border post of Bunagana. They were never seen again.
In the village of Chanzu, Jomba Parish, people were called to a political meeting where the agenda of the new government was going to be discussed. The meeting started, they closed the doors and killed everybody, using a small worn out hoe (Agafuni in Rwandese vernacular). Every person was hit once on the front. Villagers counted 207 bodies. The remains were tossed, some into mass grave, others into toilets, the head first. Similar scenarios were repeated in all the sectors of Masisi, Matanda, Nyakariba, Birambizo, Katwe, Bibwe, Rutshuru, Rugari.
In Birambizo, a Hutu combatant injured a"rebel" in early January. Soldiers sealed off the village, called the population to the village square in front of a church. They separated parents from their children. Then, "the rebels" killed all the children in front of their parents, and tossed the bodies behind the church. To retrieve the body and bury it, one had to pay $3.00. The majority of parents who are mere farmers did not manage to raise this amount.
In many places, massacres went along with the profanity of the sacred.. Thus in Nyakiriba two young Hutu priests were assassinated on December 24, 1996. Days after, "rebels" were seen walking around wearing the priests' albs. A similar account comes from Bukavu, Panzi. In Jomba, the tabernacle was riddled with bullets.
Everywhere church leaders and their families were targeted because they are influential in society. Thus a nun lost 18 family members in Matanda, and 15 in Nyakariba. Their names are on the top of the lists being circulated in Goma. The existence of those lists was confirmed to me by individuals close to the new regime in Goma during a confidential conversation on January 23.
This ethnic cleansing is not just settling old scores as it is the case in all war when the victor wipes out his old adversaries. Hutu are systematically targeted, moderates as well as extremists. The evidence of this systematic hunt of Hutu is the existence of lists of names.
The reader might wonder how, given the extreme gravity of the elements reported here, the international press has hardly covered them.
There are many reasons to that:
1. The press has considered as over the question of refugees when they went back to Rwanda in large numbers from Mugunga, on November 15th, 16th, and 17th.
Thereafter, there were almost no journalist in Goma and Bukavu. The media attention had shifted to Tanzania, where another massive return of Rwandan refugees was being engineered.
The media sensation made it that each one of them would give higher and higher figures and more and more fantasist. For example, in the evening of November 16,G. Perez, Radio France International (RFI), reported that 400,000 refugees were waiting downtown in the city of Goma to be able to cross to Rwanda the following day on Saturday November 16th; that was twice the population of Goma! I was there; I estimate that there were no more than 25,000.
2. The " rebels" consider, and they are right, that the war has to be done on the media front the same way it is done on the battle ground, because it is in the West (Europe, North America) where decisive alliances for the victory on the ground are made.
The accesses to the war zones or any other sensitive zone are strictly controlled. For example,on Friday November 1st, all the journalists and organisations present in Goma were evacuated from UNHCR premises where they had gathered, by Major David of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), while at the same time the fighting was raging in Goma.
There were only a few expatriates remaining in Goma; the town was strewn with corpses (more than 2,500 have been counted). The journalists were all at the border, prevented from entering, until all the corpses were buried, which took four days. Thereafter, they were allowed to enter the city, CNN at the front line, and were queuing up to take pictures one by one of a decomposing corpse, with a military uniform, an oversight (?) at the Signers roundabout.
The road to Mugunga was closed until the " liberation "of the camp, where, as it has been seen, all the cameras from all over the world had been invited, had been completed.
The road to Rutshuru was closed to all Westerners until December 6, 1996. That road leads to the camps of Kibumba, Katale and Kahindo (where 500,000 refugees had been living).
No one knows what happened to the refugees in the camps of Katale and Kahindo. All we know is that these camps were heavily bombarded. What did happen to all of those refugees? No body seems to be interested to know.
Not a single journalist has been able to go beyond Sake, and visit Masisi for example, or Walikale, even though everybody knows that the refugees who fled west-ward took those roads on their way to Kisangani.
Until now, journalists are retransmitting press releases from the military top command, broadcasted without any verification, for they don't know better. This has already been seen during the Golf war. A war in the 20th century has at first to be won in the media. The " rebels "distribute to the editorial staffs very well prepared press releases, with all the statistics already established.
3. The eyewitnesses have to keep quiet; or can only speak under the cover of anonymity.If they speak, they risk death or expulsion, or they put in danger their staff working on the field.
As for the journalists themselves, the ones who search their information outside the top military hierarchy, they are closely monitored, feel unsafe, and they do not hesitate to submit their articles to the new authorities for reaction before publication. The very simple presence of journalists put in great danger eyewitnesses of these situations. When they interview someone in public or in a crowd, in general, someone else in this crowd is in charge of keeping an eye on what is being said: people know that and they prefer to say nothing. It is then difficult to have crucial and reliable information from the population.
All these reasons make it very difficult to have access to objective information, and impose on the eyewitness the burden to be very cautious, despite the seriousness of the situation.
During contacts obtained at a very high political level, in Europe, I was surprised to see that, in general, decision makers are very well informed of the situation, also known in their chancelleries and embassies, even if they do not know the exact extent.
Could one believe General Baril when he declared, in mid-December, at Sake, that not one single Rwandan refugee was remaining in Zaire, because after having spent a half-day on the road leading to Masisi, in a vehicle of a " rebel " officer, he had not met one single refugee?
This declaration, which sealed off the end of the multinational force, will have been the cause of the deaths of thousands among them. Could he ignore that? Diplomatic calculations prevent people from doing anything, in the same way, paradoxically, the silence of the media does.
Finally, everybody knows, but everybody keeps silence. And the refugees continue to die, women and children first.
Done in Europe, February 19, 1997.
Enrico Marcandalli, enrico@urra.it
e.marcandelli@peacelink.it
http://www.freeworld.it/peacelink