Rwanda: Hands off my refugee status

By Amani Tuyishime
Jambonews.net

December 5, 2011

The initiative Mpore, Memory and Justice, is conducting an awareness campaign at the international level with the theme: “Hands off my refugee status” [1] to denounce UNHCR’s decision on the cessation of the status of political refugee for Rwandans and to attract the attention of the international public opinion and the Rwandan people concerned in particular, on the consequences of the cessation of the status of political refugee for Rwandans.

It is important to also mention that on December 5, 2011 many demonstrations in support of Rwandan refugees threatened by the suppression of the status of political refugee will be held through out many European and African capitals including, Brussels and Geneva.

The consequences of the cessation of refugee status

The effective implementation of the cessation clause of the status of political refugee for Rwandans starting with June 30, 2012 will have dramatic consequences on the future of these refugees who are mainly settled in the DRC (22,000) [2], Uganda (16,000), Congo Brazzaville, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Cameroon.

These refugees would be deported to Rwanda. It will be up to each host country to decide on what to do with these former refugees: their regularization or expulsion.

Such a situation creates uncertainty about their future in addition to a set of dangers and problems inherent to the refugee condition.
The precariousness of these refugees is another consequence resulting directly from the application of this cessation clause which profoundly weakens the refugees. Therefore, there are for instance strong reactions coming from the Rwandan community settled in Cameroon, which shows a strong opposition towards a return to Rwanda.

The Cameroonian bimonthly Integration [3] reported on 23 September 2011 that a delegation composed of Ntwari Gerard, Rwandan Ambassador to Senegal, Dusenge Martin, former Rwandan refugee in exile and a reporter from Rwandan Television met with the Rwandan community at the Adventist College of Yaoundé. He engaged in a seduction exercise and demagoguery to persuade the community to return to their homeland.

In his speech, the ambassador said that the authorities in Kigali were “ready to welcome their children.” He added that “Rwandans who wish to return will be welcomed according to the Rwandan tradition”. However, the audience did not hear it that way. A Rwandan young student residing in the Cameroonian capital Yaounde questioned the ambassador saying, “Who do they think they are fooling? …. They encourage us to go back, but under which conditions? “. The topic became hot in Yaounde. “I want to return with honor and dignity. No one should show up here and hold such a speech that does not reflect the reality of my country”. That’s what we usually say to anyone who cares to listen.

In their speeches, the refugees categorically oppose the return to Rwanda. Very often they are well socially and economically integrated. College graduates for the majority of them have jobs and adequate living conditions in Cameroon. From Cameroon to DR-Congo, through Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa, refugees point out serious concerns in terms of land, traditional justice, discrimination and segregation afflicting the Hutus in Rwanda.

While some UNHC technocrats such as Fatoumata Lejeune Kaba, UNHCR spokesman in Geneva simply insist either through ignorance of political realities or because of pressure from Kigali that the crackdown on refugees is no longer a reality in Rwanda and that this feeling of terror is the result of trauma [4], refugees and associations defending human rights attest that these fears are well founded.

The fears of the refugees

Justice is the second cause of fear. Indeed, the Gacaca courts were formidable instruments of repression used against anyone who was not appreciated by the regime. The prisons are overcrowded with prisoners, including people who were kidnapped and held without trial. Justice is tailored; elements of the RPA, the armed wing of the RPF, enjoy a scandalous impunity for committed crimes, including the massacre of Kibeho on April 22, 1995 or the atrocities committed against Hutu refugees in Congo between 1996 and 1997, to cite a few.

The situation of human rights and freedom of expression is far from being reassuring.

Political assassinations and death squads reinforce these fears; this includes for instance the recent murder of journalist Charles Ingabire, Editor of Inyenyerinews.org, an online newspaper critical of the Kigali regime, in the night of November 30 to December 1, 2011 at 2 am (local time) in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

The hate speech of Paul Kagame against refugees troops fuels the fear amongst refugees. These speeches include the one of April 13, 2010 [5] in which he compares the Rwandan people who fled the country to “human wastes” that the body automatically rejects or the one of April 7, 2007 in which he said that he regretted not having destroyed enough people among those who crossed the border in 1994 fleeing his troops.

Under such conditions, the recovery of thousands of Rwandans who fled their homeland has been difficult and painful. It would therefore be unthinkable to further deprive them of the hope for a better future, free choices and free opinions. Indignation and claim for guarantee of international protection which they are rightfully entitled to given the fact that Rwanda today is characterized by assassinations, partisan and biased justice and arbitrary imprisonments, are the answers we have to send to our leaders and to the international opinion that manifest a culpable indifference to the fate of these thousands of refugees.

Translated by Amani Tuyishime

Original french version by Marie Umukunzi

Note:
If you want to help be a voice for refugees, you may want to seek a degree that will help you fight for human rights