Brussels, April 20, 1998
His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan
United Nations Secretary General
United Nations Plaza
New York,
N.Y. 10017,
USA
Subject: Current status of the Rwandan conflict and its solutions.
Dear Mr. Secretary General,
We have been pleased by your recent visit to the African Great Lakes region in the beginning of May 1998, and therefore by your increasing interest in the accurate problems of the area.
Your recognition of the responsibility of the international community in the Rwandan crisis is as we believe, a worthwhile step for your organization to stop the repetition of the recent tragic events. We appreciate that the outcome will be for you and the international community a true assessment of the current problems in Rwanda, in order to recognize and assume the ongoing genocide of Hutu populations, to allow more support to the human rights observation in the country, to support for a fair and free justice, and to allow more support to the investigation team in the Democratic Republic of Congo for the fate of Rwandan refugees. May your visit usher in true peace and reconciliation for the suffering people of the African Great Lakes region, in general, and the Rwandan people, in particular.
Your Excellency,
In recent decades, the Rwandan people have seen one cycle of violence after another, today's turmoil being the result of yesterday's social injustices and divisions, and today's injustices and human rights violations being the seeds for tomorrow's violence. The task before the Rwandan society and the international community now is how to break such cycles of violence. Countries in Europe, such as Germany, Italy and others, experienced such cycles of violence too. World War I was followed by World War II. The explanation for those cycles of violence lies primarily in the imbalance of overall social structural conditions put in place after the war. After World War II, the establishment of democratic political institutions in Germany, Italy, and Japan has been the main bedrock for a lasting peace and development.
History has shown us a statistical evidence in international relations: two democracies almost never go to war with each other. And within one country, democracy, with its societal institutions which exercise checks and balances on government, plays a key role in the prevention of internal conflict too. Free speech, access to information and a free press allow the actions of the government to be monitored and the voice of the people to be heard. It is virtually impossible for a democratic government to wage a war in the absence of popular support. In our organization, the RDR, we believe that the structural conditions now in Rwanda are conducive to nothing but future violence if not addressed immediately. The absence of a democratic government accountable to the Rwandan people, the lack of an independent parliament and competent judiciary, the continued violations of human rights with impunity, the lack of independent media, the prevalence of draconian and ruthless censorship which result in a culture of fear are the main roots of the cycle of violence in Rwanda.
Since October 1990, Rwanda has been the theatre of grave violations of human rights and international laws, including crime against peace, genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, which horrified the Rwandan society and the international community. All perpetrators of those crimes, whatever their ethnic background, political affiliation and current status, have not been apprehended and punished. Suspected criminals in the former guerrilla movement, Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), now in power in Rwanda and whose victims are mostly Hutus, occupy high positions in the RPF self-appointed dictatorial government, national legislature, army and civil service. They are still free and enjoying complete impunity while their victims are searing in the flames of injustice, crippled by the chains of brutal ethnic discrimination policies. Only suspected criminals who lost the war are being apprehended and prosecuted by the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda based in Arusha, Tanzania. Those who are in power in Rwanda are protected by the state. Defense witnesses in Rwanda are too frightened to risk their lives by testifying at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda based in Arusha.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda (HRFOR), there are currently 126,000 people detained in Rwanda, mostly Hutus, without trials on suspicion for involvement in genocide. The majority of detainees in RPF's overcrowded jails have been arbitrarily arrested and have no legal files; they don't know exactly the reasons for their arrests and detentions since 1994. Most of them have their houses and properties occupied by those in power who won the war. More than 4000 have already perished in jails without trials. About 200 trials have been conducted in Rwanda by the RPF-appointed justice system, a predominantly Tutsi, government-sponsored persecution machine that inspires no confidence in the Hutu population. Except very few cases, the trials in the RPF-installed justice system have been conducted without attorneys, in the absence of defense witnesses, most of whom are too frightened to attend, and defendants being denied their right under the law to cross-examine prosecution witnesses. As strong believers in the universality of human rights and fundamental freedoms, we call upon the world community to condemn and sanction the Kigali government for its continued flagrant violations of human rights and its total contempt for human dignity.
Even though the RPF self-appointed government's army, R.P.A., has managed to keep discreet its violations of human rights by denying human rights investigators access to the scenes of its crimes, many Rwandan and international human rights organizations, such as the London-based Amnesty International, U.S.-based Physicians for Humans Rights, Human Rights Watch, the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH), the Brussels-based Center for the Fight against Injustice and Impunity in Rwanda and the United Nations Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda (HRFOR), all have documented many human rights abuses committed in Rwanda, most of them by the Rwandan government's army. Some countries in the international community have chosen to overlook the true nature of the government's human rights record for commercial and political reasons. Current military spending represents more than 34% of the Rwandan government's total budget while the majority of the population lies in poverty and misery. According the UNDP's 1997 report, the annual human development index, an aggregated assessment of the national levels of income, education and life expectancy figures, has placed Rwanda as the second least developed country in the world for that year. This is the worst that Rwanda has faired in recent years. The lack of human dignity experienced by the Rwandan people is the direct result of destructive governance and a disastrous economic and political mismanagement by the current government.
Since assuming power in July 1994, the RPF has appointed dictatorial government, legislature and judiciary, whose powers lie exclusively in the hands of ethnic Tutsis members of the RPF. However, in an effort to portray his government as broad-based, General Paul Kagame, Vice-President and Minister of defence, has picked himself some Hutus officially affiliated with different political parties but who, in reality, have opted for subservience to him and the RPF to save their skin, and has banned all political activities by the opposition. He did so hoping that those chosen Hutus will lead the way, like Pied Pipers of Hamelin, blindly followed by their people and help win them over. However, the population has never regarded them as their legitimate spokesmen. Former competent Hutu doctors, engineers, managers, lawyers, jurists and teachers have been denied access to government's jobs.
Worse yet, the Rwandan National University has become the most segregated institution in the country, with less than 5% of young Hutu students being admitted each year. When you know that Hutus represent 85% of the population and Tutsis 15%, you come to the sad conclusion that Rwanda today is no different than South Africa during the Apartheid era. Rare Hutu ministers and civil servants who have dared to voice some opposition to their master have been deposed forthwith, imprisoned, killed by the RPF death squads or forced into exile. Hoping to annihilate all political opposition and reduce the entire country to his absolute despotism, General Paul Kagame has continued to severely infringe upon the people's inalienable rights to life, liberty, free speech, free association and the pursuit of happiness. The repressive policies of the current regime have been reflected not only in the staggering numbers of Rwandan martyrs who have perished from its guns and bullets, but also in the total national control of all military, economic, political and social activities by ethnic Tutsis, the merciless persecution of political leaders and the brutal repression of political opposition. As if his massacres of unarmed civilians in Rwanda were not enough, General Kagame unleashed into former Zaire in 1996-97 the most implacable killers of his army, the RPA, at whose hands hundreds of thousands of Rwandan and Burundian Hutu refugees perished.
This militaristic strategy of violence and revenge has brought much suffering and destruction upon many people and is threatening to derail the emergence of harmonious relations between the Hutu and Tutsi communities for decades, if not for generations. Since its foundation, RDR has urged its members to favor the methods of persuasion and debate believing that in the end reason will prevail. We appealed many times to General Paul Kagame and his government for dialogue to put an end to dictatorship, oppression and ethnic discrimination in Rwanda. But Kagame has decided to harden his heart against all appeals by the Rwandan people for a reasonable approach to the problems of the country. He has interpreted the peacefulness of the political opposition as a weakness; all people's non-violent policies have been taken as a greenlight for government violence. With time, Kagame's intransigence risks to be met with similar intransigence in some of the Rwandan opposition groups. If the policy of non-violence starts to appear to yield no result to the Rwandan ordinary man, the only option left for some people may be to resort to other methods to achieve their freedom. Thousands upon thousands of our people have refused, refuse, and will always refuse to accept their oppression as God-given and to submit to tyranny.
Our national aspiration lies in building a non-ethnic democratic Rwanda that shall be an example of a "brotherly community" with no one in its midst discriminated against on grounds of race, ethnicity, color, sex, religion or opinion. We urge those in power in Rwanda and all our compatriots still harboring doubts about a democratic future in our country to join hands with us and together as fellow Rwandans, we have it within our power to transform our country into the land of plenty for all, where the nightmare of dictatorship will just be a faint memory of the past. So, as true democrats of Rwanda, we will be satisfied with nothing less than the fullest democratic rights. Administratively, we will not be satisfied with anything less than the direct individual adult suffrage and the right to stand for and be elected to any positions at all levels of government. Economically, we will be satisfied with nothing less than equal opportunity and the full enjoyment by all of our entire national patrimony. Culturally, we will be satisfied with nothing less than the complete opening of all avenues of learning on the sole criterion of ability. Socially, we will be satisfied with nothing less than the total demolition of the final vestiges of all discriminatory practices. We do not demand these things for the oppressed people alone; we demand them for all Rwandans. Our ideal has always been that of a democratic and free Rwandan society. Only on this basis can peace in Rwanda be firmly entrenched and take hold. We take our cause to be noble: equality between people and nations. Only thus can brotherhood of man be firmly established. On these simple principles we are proudly uncompromising.
Your Excellency,
As true Rwandan democrats, we appeal to you to:
- make sure that all suspected criminals now in the Rwandan and Democratic Republic of Congo's administrations who committed genocide against the Rwandan and Burundian Hutus, war crimes and other crimes against humanity be tried by an international tribunal;
demand all countries in the international community to stop all exports of arms to Rwanda until a negotiated solution to the Rwandan conflict is implemented and democratic institutions installed;
- demand the Rwandan government's army and other warring factions to stop murdering the civilian population and all types of arbitrary arrests, imprisonment, summary executions and assassinations;
- demand the RPF self-appointed dictatorial government to start unconditional dialogue and negotiations with the political opposition with the goal of establishing democratic governance, promoting national reconciliation and the rule of law, enforced by an independent and competent judiciary that will be entrusted with bringing to justice all suspected criminals, including all the perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other human rights abuses, regardless of their ethnic background and their current status in the Rwandan administration;
- demand the Rwandan government to restore all basic human rights, including political rights for the Rwandan people to choose its leaders and the right to free speech and the right to free association;
- demand all countries to condition aid flows to the Kigali government to its true human rights record and steps taken on the road to democracy and freedom for all.
In so doing, you can be assured of our full support, for the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda has made a total and unwavering commitment to the peaceful settlement of the rwandan conflict, and stands ready to participate fully and positively in all efforts aimed at achieving these objectives.
Sincerely Yours,
For the RDR
François Nzabahimana
Chairman