By Hereward Holland
AlertNet
Alerting humanitarians to emergencies
NAKIVALE, Uganda - Perched on a fraying bag of charcoal in a Ugandan refugee settlement, Noel Hiziryayo says he won't go back to his native Rwanda.
It doesn't matter that the U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) plans to stop food aid by August, Hiziryayo says. If he goes back, he fears arrest or possibly worse.
"People like me who would support the opposition will be persecuted for their choice," he said.
In the lead up to next year's presidential election, only a handful of the 15,000 Rwandan refugees living in Uganda have chosen to return.
Hiziryayo said he fled Rwanda after the last presidential election in 2003 because he believed he would be arrested for having supported opposition leader Faustin Twagiramungu.
"There was a team that had been organised to kill me and after I heard that I decided to run," he explained.
Rwandan rebel-turned-president Paul Kagame has been praised for rebuilding the tiny central African nation after the 1994 genocide in which Hutu extremists killed 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.
The country has enjoyed robust economic growth in recent years which climbed to 11.2 percent in 2008.
But critics accuse Kagame of becoming increasingly authoritarian and clamping down on opposition.
The vast majority of Rwandan refugees in Uganda live in Nakivale camp, some five hours' drive from the border to the south. And most are choosing to stay put.
Saidi Bigiranfura is among the few exceptions. Boarding a Kigali-bound bus, he said he wanted to see if the rumours of persecution against returning refugees and those opposed to the government were true.
"I have been hearing that people are being killed and imprisoned but I have taken the decision to go back," he said.
In 1994, as the international community stood by, Kagame's rebels routed the Hutu extremists responsible for the genocide. Some 2 million Rwandans fled the country in the aftermath, presenting UNHCR with one of the worst refugee crises the agency has faced.
Although the majority of civilians and soldiers have since returned home and been reintegrated into society, Kigali says many of the genocide's orchestrators still live freely in Europe, and remnants of the former army and genocidal militias continue to wage a protracted war in Democratic Republic of Congo.
Many of the Rwandan refugees in Uganda worry that the Rwandan government will equate refugee status with tacit involvement in the genocide.
"When UNHCR hands us over to the Rwandan government, they will ask us why didn't you come back when Kagame took power," Bigiranfura said.
"I pray that the government of Rwanda respects that these people are refugees and that they need to go back to their motherland."
Rwanda's state-owned newspaper reports that some 20 Rwandan refugees per day are fleeing camps like Nakivale and heading deeper into Ugandan territory, fearing forced repatriation.
POLITICS OR ECONOMICS?
But UNHCR official Veronique Genaille says economics more than politics may be influencing some refugees to stay. In Nakivale, refugees get land to grow food and materials to build houses, she says. But in Rwanda, Africa's most densely populated country, the future is less certain.
"Because of this facility to have the land allocated by the (Ugandan) government, it's maybe a better chance to get income (than in Rwanda)," she said.
The Refugee Law Project (RLP), a refugee rights organisation in Uganda, says regardless of the general atmosphere of peace in Rwanda, some refugees have legitimate concerns about their safety.
RLP says the fact Kampala has not revoked refugee status for the Rwandans indicates it recognises some continue to require protection in Uganda.
The project's director, Chris Dolan, said UNHCR was not doing enough to inform refugees that despite the cessation of food aid, they have the right to seek citizenship in Uganda or apply for asylum in a third country.
"They haven't made clear that voluntary repatriation means exactly that, and if you choose not to take up the option that does not affect your refugee status," Dolan added.
"If the food rations are cut ... for some people it will constitute a push factor."
Bigiranfura was among 80 refugees who left Uganda last month in a convoy organised by UNHCR.
Wearing threadbare clothes, colourful shawls and sandals or wellington boots, they took what possessions they could carry, having sold the rest.
A man in an oversized grey tweed suit said he wanted to go back because he felt Rwanda had changed.
"I feel in my heart that the government is ready to take care of us," he added.
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