Eleven Years On, Rwandans Continue to Flee

The International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI)
Refugee Rights News
Volume 2, Issue 1
May 2005

It seems the ghosts of those who died in the Rwanda genocide of 1994 have come back to haunt this tiny central African country again. Eleven years on, a new wave of Rwandans fleeing the country seems reminiscent of the millions who fled this hilly country after a particularly violent 100 days in which close to one million people were slaughtered.

If events in the month of April are anything to go by, then these fears are not far fetched.

And it comes at a time when a major repatriation effort by governments in the region and the UNHCR is drawing near completion.

Already some 2,000 Rwandans have crossed into Burundi while close to 1,200 others crossed into Uganda. According to aid agencies working in Uganda’s southwestern region, there has been an average of 25 people arriving each day. On the border with Burundi some 400 mainly Hutu Rwandans crossed the border into the Ngozi Province of Burundi alone while others are scattered along the common border between the two countries.

According to reports, the new wave of flight has been triggered by the fears about the justice system based on local customs in Rwanda called gacaca which began hearing cases of those suspected to have been accomplices in the 1994 genocide.

Gacaca trials opened nationwide in Rwanda in March with 12,000 of the village tribunals hearing cases as a measure to clear a heavy backlog of those suspected to have participated in the genocide.

The gacaca courts are based on the traditional village mode of delivering justice and the new system that opened in March this year has the power to try, acquit or convict of genocide and hand down sentences ranging from community service to life imprisonment.

A United Nations official in Kampala says that more asylum seekers are expected in the coming days, raising fears that a new outflow of Rwandans into neighboring countries might cause more concerns for the governments in the region. There are already reports that the Rwandan government has blocked all the major exit points from in the country as a measure of stopping those who are intent on leaving.

In March this year, three human rights organizations; Amnesty International, the Refugee Law Project of Makerere University and the International Refugee Rights Initiative issued a joint statement condemning the forcible return of Rwandan refugees from many countries in the Great lakes region. In a press release, “No Forcible Return of Refugees to Rwanda,” the organizations said the situation in Rwanda was not conducive enough to return to warrant the haste with which the refugees were being herded back to Rwanda, some against their will.

Many refugees had expressed the fear that gacaca would be used as a vindictive tool that against them upon return to Rwanda.

The Rwandan government, the UNHCR and the Ugandan government were quick to rebuff the reports of the three human rights organizations as misguided and out of touch with reality. However, even before the ink of the denials could dry, Rwanda began exploding once more.

In its report, the Refugee Law Project of Makerere University documents how fresh flight from Rwanda of former returnees is indeed occurring—almost 20% of those who were repatriated from Uganda during the last year are estimated to have made their way back to Uganda once again.

Rwandans have been forced to live in temporary camps and cite continuing harassment and ethnic discrimination. Refugees allege not only facing difficulties with the reclamation of their land and property, but the arrest and the disappearance of male returnees.

RLP believes that “repatriating these refugees prematurely for the sake of political and financial expediency will only cause unnecessary human suffering and set the stage for further unrest.”

A report by Human Rights First and presented in the region by the International Refugee Rights Initiative acknowledged that concerns about security often complicated states’ responses to arriving refugees – and to repatriation. The report points out however that there are mechanisms available to states which permit the identification of persons who may have committed crimes or who are engaged in military activity and are not genuinely seeking protection.

The Rwanda government is convinced that those fleeing the new gacaca courts have something to hide. But for those arriving into neighboring countries clearly there is more to the story. And until a thorough assessment is made of their fears, protection must be available.

The NGOs joint statement on the return of Rwandans, “No Forcible Return of Refugees to Rwanda” is available online.