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RALLY FOR THE RETURN OF | |
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PRESS RELEASE nº50
The operation to forcefully close some rwandese refugee camps in Zaire is entering its second week.
After the failure of the 1st phase on Kibumba camp, UNHCR has unleashed its disappointment on RDR, accusing the latter of having sabotaged the operation. This took place over last weekend, during a press conference by UNHCR in the town of GOMA-ZAIRE.
RDR would like to correct any erroneous impression that might have resulted from this accusation. RDR is committed to a quick and peaceful repatriation of rwandese refugees, because the more the stalemate continue, the more refugees suffer.
However, UNHCR should not expect RDR to help it in deceiving refugees, that the situation in Rwanda is conducive for a return in security and dignity.
RDR can not accept to play in the hands of those who handle rwandese refugees like guinea-pigs. They are mature people who know why they fled and whom they fled.
Some of the people now in camps, have fled their homes since November 1990, following atrocities committed by RPF rebels in MUTARA.
They vividly remember RPF shelling the camps where they had taken shelter in Byumba all over the four year of RPF guerilla war. They are still mourning their next of kin, who were crashed by RPF bombs.
By February 1993, there was nearly 1 million people fleeing RPF rebels, living in congested makeshift camps in NYACYONGA, in the outskirts of Kigali.
The international community may have played down this fact, but the refugees do still remember it.
More than fearing retribution for the 1994 massacres of tutsi and hutu moderate, this is a critical factor in the reluctancy of refugees to go home.
Before blaming RDR for the slow response of refugees towards calls for repatriation, which guaranties do UNHCR has that RPF is no longer the same that killed people in Mutara, shelled health centres, hospitals, camps of displaced people, schools and even Red Cross installations ?
Some of those UNHCR officials now claiming that the security situation in Rwanda is bright can not even set their feet in Rwanda because they were nearly declared persona non grata.
RDR has repeatedly called for talks between representatives of refugees and UNHCR in order to see ways and means of speeding up the repatriation, because so long as refugees are not involved, there will be any break through.
RDR called as well for the involvement of refugee representatives, in tripartite commissions (Government of Rwanda, UNHCR and asylum country) dealing with repatriation.
All these calls were turned down and refugees are consistently told that they don't have any right to be represented by any other than the very RPF government they fled and UNHCR. Yet, this was not the case with former tutsi refugees, now in power.
In these circumstances, who is to blame ? It is RDR whose offer for cooperation was turned down, or those who turned it down, notably UNHCR and the RPF government ?
For RDR
Director of Information
Chris NZABANDORA