April 27, 1996

His Excellency the President of the European Commission

Brussels-Belgium

The Director of the USAID

USA

Dear Sirs,

The rwandese refugee community rallied in RDR is privileged to give here below its considerations on the joint USA-EU mission in the Great Lakes region that took place from 2nd to 4th April 1996.

The mission was composed of Mrs Bonino, European commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs, and Mr Brian Atwood, Director of USAID.

This mission which took place after the failure of the painful operation of closure of rwandese refugee camps in Zaire, and amidst rising tension between RPF government in Kigali and the Zairian government, had raised a lot of hope among rwandese refugees.

This mission came also at a time when the Carter peace initiative is heading towards a deadlock, the last Tunis summit having unveiled the extent to which RPF positions over the rwandese, crisis were rigid.

Helas, statements made by the delegation, during and after its tour of the Great Lakes region do not leave any shade of doubt; the mission avoided the real issues, by making a biased diagnosis of the situation.

Consequently, the solutions put forward are not only irrealistic, but are also likely to compound further the crisis rather than solving it.

After talks with RPF officials in Kigali, Mr Brian Atwood declared, according to an AFP new dispatch, that owing to his assessment, "there was no obstacles to the return of refugees". For refugees, this statement was like twisting a knife in a wound.

Indeed, telling a refugee, who left behind all his property and is currently relying on international handouts, whose children cannot go to school and who , on top of all this, live under a constant fear of being thrown out forcefully, that he has no genuine reason to be in exile, is nothing short of sadism.

It is important to recall that among those refugees are thousands who fled RPF since its invasion of October 1990, who lost their next of skin under bayonets, shells and AK 47 of RPF, and who are legitimately at loss to imagine how RPF could have changed.

In its latest report entitled " Rwanda and Burundi, the return home ; rumours and reality", Amnesty International rightly points out some of the main factors impeding the return of refugees i.e the lack of security, the lack of justice and the manipulation of information.

Despite the fact that more than half of the national budget is allocated to the defense department, the security inside the country remains precarious, especially in the districts that have not yet been turned into Tutsilands such as Ruhengeri and Gisenyi, where an indefinite down to dusk curfew is in place, as well as the districts of Cyangugu, Kibuye and Gikongoro, where exceptional security measures have been put in place.

Reliable informations reaching us confirm the continuing large scale massacres of civilian populations in that area, indiscriminately accused of being Interahamwe militiamen.

The main responsibility of this insecurity lay in the hands of RPF army known as RPA, which is oversized, poorly paid and badly managed.

The lion share of the defense budget go to political mobilizers a few high ranking officers and the purchase of arms.

This oversized so called national army is scattered all over the country, where it sow terror by racketeering, killing, and arbitrally arresting. Those abuses have been denounced so many times, by human right organizations and even some local authorities.

The incident which occurred in Rutsiro Commune, Kibuye district on April 7, 1996, whereby RPA shoot in crowd, killing 37 people, most of them children and women, and seriously wounding tens of others, is a reminiscence of the Kibeho massacres of April 1996, and Kanama in September 1995.

This incident of Rutsiro, which was not condemned by any foreign country, closely followed the mysterious selective assassination of sub-county counsellors in Ruhengeri district, as well as the arrest of many others , in the typical fashion of the Kirambo massacres in 1993 whose architect was none other than RPF.

Following this spate of violence by security services, the population has lost confidence in the army and clashes between the army and angry villagers are increasing everyday.

One may recall the incident in Mutura Commune in March 1996, where villagers, fed up with the harassment of the army confronted it using spears, bows and arrows.

The numerous calls, like the one made by the district security council of Kibuye on April 6, 1996, for the population to "trust the Army", are an indication of the mounting discontent of the population.

Inside the country, the judiciary has not yet taken off, two years after the much publicised and internationally welcomed RPF military takeover.

The Supreme Court and the judiciary Council recently put in place are likely to be shunned by the population because they are an arm of RPF, instead of being an independent body. Indeed the political appointee judges, all of them RPF diehard, will ultimately spoil the ethic of justice.

With regards to the prison situation, more than 100,000 people are languishing in the countless detention centers. According to ICRC and Amnesty International, more than 2300 inmates passed away from July 1994 to July 1995, due to ill treatment "that has replaced justice". Still, those are only official figures.

In order to cool down the International pressure, RPF has started transferring some of the inmates to abandoned public warehouses, or confiscated private buildings.

It has also just set up special tribunals, to try genocide suspects.

Regarding the opening of new detention centres, RDR is of the view that those financing this operation are willingly or unwillingly encouraging RPF to carry on its policy of arbitrary arrests, instead of trying those already jailed. The experience has indeed proved that the opening of new centres has not changed anything on the over-crowding of the existing prisons.

As for special tribunals whose purpose would be to speed up judgement, RDR wonders how special chambers depending on a non functioning judicial system, according to the own confession of the government, will perform better.

At the International level, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, (ICTR), is yet to take off. Rwandese Refugees has hoped that it could throw light or responsibilities in the massacres that bedeviled our country since 1990, in order to avoid the RPF arbitrariness, the justice of the victor on the vanquished.

Taking advantage of the delay of the ICTR, RPF has just launched a diplomatic campaign to arrest all refugee leaders, under the disguise of getting rid or "intimidators", or arresting genocide masterminders, using its own list of suspects, never endorsed, to the best of our knowledge, by the ICTR.

If RPF has, thanks to this subterfuge, managed to bring behind bar refugees outside the country, what would happen to refugees who would throw themselves in its hands, before the trial ? What assurance do they have that they won't just swell the prison population ?

Much as we do appreciate the financial difficulties of the ICTR, we find it strange and suspicious that no single investigator of the latter has ever set a foot in camps, to record statements of refugees. Yet, RPF and some of its international lobbies declare tirelessly that camps are full of "criminals".

Times and again, refugees have requested for visits in Rwanda, in order to see for themselves, the situation prevailing at home, so that they can report back to their fellow refugees because they don't trust informations published by national and international media.

RPF first rejected outright the idea arguing that the those who would make the trip would be "spies" and that therefore, they should do it at their own risk.

Thereafter, it pre-empted by sending its officials in refugee camps in Tanzania and Burundi (never in Zaire) but those officials did nothing but to repeat the RPF gospel daily broadcast by Radio Rwanda and did not obviously convince refugees. RPF later on accepted also guided tours by refugees from Tanzania and Burundi.

On top of the arrest of some of the members of the delegation on mere denunciation by the informers who are paid for the nasty task of cooking up false stories, the fact that none of these delegations was able to move freely has reinforced the prevailing suspicion that RPF is concealing something.

So long as refugees will not have a first hand information provided by reliable sources on the situation, neither the information broadcast by Radio AGATASHYA run by NGO's in camps in Zaire and whose connection with UNHCR are well known, nor the UNHCR program on radio Rwanda where according to a letter of "Reporters Sans Frontières" dated April 5, 1996, "an ethnic cleansing" might be in progress, nor the video tapes will convince refugees that it is safe to go home.

On top of Amnesty International testimony, the UN Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination in its session of March 1996, the UN Commission for Human Rights, the Vatican , NGO's and RPF own dissidents, have all declared that the return of refugees under the prevailing conditions in Rwanda, would be risky.

Likewise, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Mrs SADAKO OGATA, made it clear on 29th February 1996, in Addis Ababa during the OAU ministerial meeting on the crisis of refugees, in the Great Lakes region, that she was requesting RPF government to "show strong and unequivocal signal ensuring the respect of human rights, assuring refugees of their security upon return, and the restitution of their property". She also stressed the need to "release all the people not guilty of genocide, in order to allay fear, of arbitrariness among refugees."

Two months later, refugees are still waiting for those signals.

During his press conference of 7th April 1996, the strongman of Kigali, Major General Kagame Paul, reacting to Zairian government threats to resume the expulsion of rwandese refugees, before the 1997 elections, gave the foretaste of his signals, by declaring unequivocally that "his government had repeatedly said that refugees were free to come back, and that if they did not want to come (without conditions), it is no longer his concern".

This is all that RPF can offer!

Straightaway, RDR regrets the double language used in Rwanda and Burundi. Indeed, whereas in Burundi the mission deliberately adopted a strong stance threatening even to freeze aid, should the government keep on refusing negotiation with the armed rebellion, in Rwanda, the tone changed and all the responsibility of the current refugee deadlock seems to have been put on refugees who, according to statements made by the delegation at Benaco-Tanzania, "do not know that the situation in Rwanda has improved"!

Yet, like the Burundi government, the RPF government has refused negotiations with representatives of some 2 millions refugees, a third of its population, in order to solve peacefully the crisis of refugees. It has chosen to hunt them down in their exile. Given the fact that the underlying factor fuelling the crisis in Rwanda and Burundi is exactly the same i.e the unshakable determination by a military and political minority clique to cling to power by force of arms, why this double language ?

Is it because the opposition in Burundi has taken arms contrary to RDR, that has always advocated for political dialogue ?

In an interview with the press in a rwandese refugee camp in Benaco in Tanzania on 4th April 1996, the two envoys, Mr. Brian Atwood, and Mrs Bonino declared that, a solution could be suggested to the UN Security Council, consisting of fixing a deadline for the closure of the camps. An other possible solution could be, for those guilty, will never go back home, to encourage asylum countries to give them permission to settle there.

Upon his return to USA, Ms Brian Atwood reiterated, according to radio BBC, his stand on the need for the UN Security Council to fix a deadline for the closure of camps, suggesting a period of six months maximum.

The same operation has already been tried in Zaire where the government had set the date of December 31, 1995 as a deadline for the closure of camps. The policy failed due to the following reasons :

If against all expectations, the principle of closing camps were to be adopted at any one time, the deadline can only be set in line with the improvement of the security situation in Rwanda.

Instead of looking for an easier way out by harassing the weak side, i.e refugees; the USA, champion in the defense of democracy, which is well aware of the security situation in Rwanda due to the presence of US military experts, and the EEC should set a deadline to RPF to have put in place all the conditions for the return of refugees in safety and dignity. Once the necessary conditions are created for the safe and dignified return of refugees, the latter will have no reason for staying in camps. For refugees to act otherwise would be suicidal.

Otherwise the simple act of setting a deadline for the closure of camps is admitting that refugees and host countries alone control all the variables of the crisis, leaving out the role of RPF.

The second solution proposed by the mission allegedly is to " encourage host countries to grant asylum and therefore resettlement to those who will never go back to their countries because of being guilty". This solution makes a very serious assumption following which refugees would be reluctant to return because of their possible involvement in the 1994 massacres. However such an assumption cannot stand the test of facts.

Indeed among the refugees, there are those who fled their homes in Byumba and Ruhengeri Prefectures since RPF invaded Rwanda in October 1990.

On the eve of the April/June massacres, there were about million displace people fleeing RPF military offensives.

The USAID and the European Union who are among the donors who assisted these displaced people know it very well.

Could anyone at any moment say that those people had fled their homes out of simple whims or that they felt guilty of a wrongdoing ?

Who can deny that RPF committed atrocities in war zones ? Who can contest the authenticity of the appeal made by the expatriate priests of the deanery of MUTARA in March 1992 concerning RPF atrocities ?

Besides, the solution proposed is an insult to host countries. Indeed if it were true that those people were guilty of having participated in 1994 massacres, why ask host countries to grant them political asylum instead of bringing them to justice ? Which country would accept to be a dumping place for rwandan criminals? Is this different from the position of the Central Committee of MRND party in July 86 that RPF and to a large extent the international community criticised ?

Finally a resettlement in host countries, if ever it were accepted by the countries concerned, can only be a temporary solution.

How many former rwandan refugees, naturalised according to the law in host countries, some of whom held important positions in diplomatic missions of those countries and in international organizations under the same ticket, militated within RPF ranks and are now back to Rwanda ?

This solution could only work as long as regional geopolitics remains favourable to RPF, but once the balance of forces shifted against the RPF, the "resettled groups" would return willingly or by force. Even if we put aside the political dimension of the problem, which country in the sub-region could accept to give asylum to two million rwandan refugees, since apparently all of them fear to return home ? A durable solution must be found.

The present Burundi crisis has degenerated into armed confrontation because of hesitation on the part of the international community to put in place a machinery for prevention of conflicts. It would be unfortunate that the situation in Rwanda comes to that stage while it is still possible to avert such eventuality.

For this to happen, the same firmness shown in Bujumbura during the mission should apply to RPF, so as to make the latter accept the principle of negotiations with representatives of refugees on the conditions of return, so as to dispel sentiments of repulsion of one side towards the other.

Issues for discussions, through they would have to be agreed upon by the two parties, would necessarily include the issue related to the security and dignity of refugees.

The RPF government must also address, as a matter of urgency, the issue of insecurity prevailing inside the country, because so long as people will be fleeing the country in such a big number, there is no way refugees will be encouraged to go back home. It would be like jumping from a frying pan to fire.

With regard to the international community, besides putting pressure on the RPF to accept indispensable dialogue, it would have to provide material and human resources promised to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to make it really operational.

Indeed, considering the collective demonisation to which refugees are subjected by RPF and its lobby, nothing can dispel fears of arbitrary condemnation as long as the ICTR has not made its verdict. However such a verdict must be arrived at without external pressure especially of a political nature.

Everything should be done to avoid a temptation which can already be seen, to carry out trial against an ethnic group or a political generation that would be a parody of justice. Justice must be done to the whole people of Rwanda without prejudice or any form discrimination. It is only on this basis that the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda can appease tension and contribute to the restoration of a climate of justice and national reconciliation.