April 11,1996

The call by the USAID Director to give a clear timetable for the closure of the rwandese refugee camps amounts to putting the cart before the horse.

Despite the growing concerns about Human Right abuses under the RPF regime, Mr Brian Atwood, the USAID Director, on his return from a fact finding mission in the Great Lakes region, declared that there should be a deadline for the closure of refugee camps.

This statement comes shortly after he declared, while touring refugee camps in Ngara, that he didn't foresee any more obstacle to the return of refugees and urged the UN Security council to set that deadline.

The human right abuse in Rwanda is nowadays a open secret. Just to mention a few, the latest letter written to the president of Rwanda by Amnesty International on the occasion of the second anniversary of the tragic events that took place in Rwanda in 1994, a well as the one written to the same by the Director of the International Secretariat of "Reporters Sans Frontières", following the wave of "ethnic cleansing" in ORINFOR ( the National Office of Information), are enough evidence.

Once again RDR would like to register its appreciation towards all donors for the burden they shouldered in catering for the welfare of rwandese refugees. But they should realise that living in camps under the numerous hardships and frustrations is far from being a green pasture.

As rightly pointed out by the latest report of Amnesty International on Rwanda( and Burundi), the main factors that impede the voluntary return of refugees are among others, "the absence of security and the absence of justice at the national and international level".

Therefore, instead of putting the cart before the horse, let donors help in tackling those obstacles and refugees will rush back home on their own.

For RDR

Chris Nzabandora

Director of Information