Rwandan refugees in Uganda: Victims or pawns

On Monday 28th June 2010 the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), Refugee Law Project (RLP) and Social Science Research Council (SSRC) released in Kampala Uganda, a report, titled, “A Dangerous Impasse: Rwandan Refugees in Uganda”. The report was supposed to provide understanding into reasons as to why Rwandan “Refugees” in Uganda are reluctant to return to their country but instead became a channel for the old propaganda propagated by the same groups that held captive Rwandans in the former Zaire in the 1990s. According to the Report, among the reasons “Refugees” gave for their reluctance to return to the country were; Gacaca courts, anti-Hutu stereo-typing, re-accessing property, genocide ideology, accusation that those who are not in RPF are rebels and others. It is important to note that many of the refugees in Nakivale settlements, did not come from Rwanda but from Tanzania in the period from 1998 and 2002, where they had previously lived after the government of the latter in collaboration with UNHCR took a decision to involuntary repatriate them but also the refugees attracted by the prospect of acquiring land as refugees and, hence, being able to earn a livelihood through agriculture. Many of these refugees were last in Rwanda 16 years ago and their imagination is driven by the poisoned government propaganda demonizing the RPA as bloodthirsty beasts with tails that were bent on killing Hutus or through second information from criminals running away from justice in Rwanda. To understand the reasons behind the reluctance to return home of Rwandans living outside its borders, one needs to look back in time to 1994. Between 28 and 29 April, in a period of 24 hours 250,000 people crossed the border and camped in Ngara refugee camp in Tanzania and by the end of the month there were 500,000 Rwandan refugees in Tanzania herded and driven by officials in the regime that planned and executed the Genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda. In late July 1994 800,000 Rwandans crossed into DR Congo, then Zaire, within a period of four days their fears heightened by the incessant messages on the national radio used by the fleeing government with a view to amassing the population and using them as hostages. By October 29, 1996, Mugunga camp alone hosted 420,000 people. In North Kivu Province of then Zaire, the five refugee camps of Katale, Kahindo, Mugunga, Lac Vert and Sake the former leaders in genocidal regime could withhold aid donated by international relief agencies or use it to reward their supporters. It was reported that they got rich either by inflating the number of refugees than actually existed and selling the surplus. They could also force fellow refugees to pay “food tax”. Politicians and ex-FAR soldiers were accorded exceptional treatment. Humanitarian workers reported that former government officials, especially near Goma, were passing out large amounts of money to the militia to control the refugees on their behalf. Those refugees who tried to protest were either injured or killed. To keep Rwandans from returning home, the defeated government operatives circulated falsehoods of pogroms by the new Government in Kigali and promised a more successful genocide that would leave no Tutsi alive. Today there are criminals hiding from justice for their activities in 1994 in Rwanda, who are peddling the same rumours and lies in the collective security of refugee camps. It is important to note the authors of the report on Rwandan refugees in Uganda, interviewed 102 refugees in Nakivale Resettlement, one of the many camps housing the estimated 12,800 Rwandan refugees in Uganda and among those interviewed was a man who argued that he became a refugee because, “If two people fight, it does not help to punish one. This is what happens (with Gacaca). Only Hutus are punished”. In the eyes of the authors and those they quoted, survivors of the genocide should be punished alongside their tormentors. The report wrongly asserts that, “...the process itself – with no appeal process and considerable references to corruption within the courts – was constantly criticized”. This kind of report could only come from people with dismal understanding and interest in Gacaca courts considering the number of convicted persons who were set free after appeals processes. “Gacaca is seen to represent one-sided justice – or victor‘s justice – in which all Hutus are considered guilty or potentially guilty, and all Tutsis innocent victims: ‘Gacaca is biased. It is targeting people who are ruled ...’” asserted the report. Anyone interested in Rwanda’s recent history knows that even when dead bodies of Tutsi mothers, babies and old men were piled on roadsides or dumped in shallow graves, the increasingly defeated genocidal regime told the world that what was happening was “ethnic” revenge by Hutus who had lost their leader. When the planned and executed killings of Tutsis were declared genocide, the ousted regime in the refugee camps in Goma changed and said there had been “excessive massacres” and when they could not change the evidence, they said there had been “double genocide: as we killed Tutsis, those who defeated us killed Hutus”. Such line of argument is peddled by Victoire Ingabire and her partners today. The argument that, “even though both the Tutsi and Hutu have died in this war, now they portray that it is only the Tutsi who died” as the Researchers quoted a refugee in Nakivale camp could have been from a speech by Ingabire at Gisozi Genocide Memorial Center the day she returned from her-self-imposed exile in the Netherlands. The authors of the report knew the reasons behind the “double genocide” theory and its promoters and preferred to follow it anyway or need to understand more the recent history of Rwanda. According to the research there are Rwandan refugees in Uganda who will not return to their country because of Ibuka (the umbrella organization of Genocide Survivors). According to the research, “one of the events organised by Ibuka is a week of remembrance that takes place in Rwanda from 7 – 14 April every year, commemorating the start of the genocide... ‘During that time Hutus don‘t feel fine because they cannot speak. Sometimes there are activities like washing the bones – it is the Hutus who have to do that, not the Tutsis. People say that the bones were Tutsis. During that week we cannot work”. The lies apart, there is belief on part of researchers that in order for the refugees to return to Rwanda, then the commemoration and memory of the victims of the genocide against the Tutsis in 1995 should be abolished. The researchers found out that there are Rwandans in refugee camp who are not willing to return to their country because of “anti-Hutu stereotypes”. They cited as an example, “Kagame does bad things in the way he talks about Hutus. He says every Hutu is guilty of having committed genocide. He only thinks of Tutsis as Rwandans.” This is simply preposterous when used to describe the President of Rwanda. In another reference to purported speech by the President of Rwanda the research quotes one refugee who sums the fear that has been inculcated in the minds of refugees by different groups, “children are now being taught that the Hutus are bad... This was meant to imply that the Hutus will eventually be finished”. Whereas researchers were interested in gathering information from refugees, the inclusion of falsehoods and blatant lies defies the idea of their impartiality. The last part of this article will be published next Sunday. Ends