April 26,1996

The UN Security council has passed yet another resolution nº1053 on the enforcement of the existing arms embargo against non government entities in the Great Lakes region.

The resolution, while purporting to be checking the circulation of arms in the sub-region, ignores or seems to sanction the no less destabilising military cooperation between the regimes in Kigali, Bujumbura and Kampala.

While appreciating the international community's concern about the proliferation of arms in our sub-region, RDR strongly believes that the UN Security Council is treating the symptoms rather than diagnosing and treating the disease which is nothing else but bad governance in Rwanda.

The UN cannot pretend to ignore the issues at stake namely the security situation in Rwanda, gross human right violation, political repression and a mono-ethnic army that cannot inspire confidence to all citizen of the country.

Instead of boldly facing these issues, the Security Council is fighting against all odds to consolidate the power of an intrinsically unviable political system.

The issue is not the supply of arms to refugees alone, the issue is that any human being will always find a way of resisting and getting rid of injustice meted out on him from any quarter however apparently powerful.

The biased position of the UN Security Council will likely lead refugees to despair and indeed tempt them to do the very adventure the UN wants to avoid. History is full of such incidents.

RDR is so surprised that since the RPF took over in Kigali, despite all the accusations made by human rights organisations, and UN agencies, on the situation in Rwanda, the Security Council has never passed any resolution condemning those acts by RPF, so as to allay fears of refugees about the untouchability of RPF. Even after the infamous Kibeho massacres of April 1995, and of Kanama in November 1995, the position of the Security Council was full of ambiguity.

RDR does not have any quarrel with the imposition of the arms embargo to non government entities in the sub-region as long as it is made in good faith, but this should not discharge the respective governments from their responsibilities in the mismanagement of the country.

Therefore the only arms embargo on refugees will not settle the problem in Rwanda if no fundamental change is undertaken in the governance of the country.

For RDR

Chris Nzabandora

Director of Information