Repatriating the Kibati Group: Some Return, but Solutions Remain Elusive

Refugee Rights News
Volume 4, Issue 1
January 2008

Some of the most critical challenges to refugee protection in the Great Lakes region were highlighted in the recent repatriation of Rwandan refugees from Uganda. As a result of the controversial October decision, thousands of refugees who had settled in the Kibati section of the Nyakivale camp in the Isingiro district of Western Uganda were ordered to return to Rwanda after years in Uganda and found themselves yet again perilously on the move.

The repatriation exercise

This repatriation of approximately 3,000 members of the so-called ‘Kibati group’ began in early October 2007 on the principle that peace has been established in Rwanda and that there were no security threats for returnees. This stance had been affirmed in July when a tri-partite agreement was reached in Kigali by Rwanda, Uganda and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR). UNHCR has not been officially active in the repatriation process, however, as most members of the Kibati group had not been legally recognized as refugees. Only about 20 members of the group carried refugee identification papers and were therefore permitted to stay by Ugandan authorities.
 
The majority of the group had found their way to Kibati after the Tanzanian government issued public statements starting in 2001 indicating that they were no longer welcome in the Tanzanian settlements which had been their homes since fleeing the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Many of the refugees remained unwilling to return to Rwanda. Fearing possible mass expulsion and deportation, many of the refugees slipped across the border to Uganda, seeking a safe haven.

Allegations of forced repatriation

While Rwandan and Ugandan officials assert that the repatriation is a positive step, reports of coercion and forced removal have raised questions concerning the legitimacy of the operation. According to an October 4th article in Uganda’s New Vision, returnees claim that they were not informed about the removal until police and local defense surrounded the refugees and proceeded to forcibly remove them from the settlements in the night. They stated that although were able to take some belongings, they had to leave livestock and other property behind. In the midst of such reports, government officials continue to insist that the repatriation was voluntary.

The legality of the move though, has been publicly questioned by local media and NGOs, including the Refugee Law Project (RLP) at Makerere University in Kampala. One of the concerns cited was the possibility that individuals who should have been protected by the right of non-refoulement, the international legal principle forbidding the return of those who might face serious harm in their home countries, might have been removed. Among those who had spoken of fears about return were those concerned that they  would will be punished under the gacaca system for crimes committed in the genocide, whether they had participated or not. With limited independent monitoring of the human rights situation in Rwanda generally, and the operation of the gacaca courts specifically, it is difficult to assess the credibility of this threat.

RLP charged that Rwandans with official refugee status may have been unlawfully removed and that many asylum seekers had not been afforded the opportunity to exhaust all legal channels to regularize their stay in Uganda. Although the Ugandan government claimed that all of those who were removed had been screened for refugee status and found not to qualify, RLP expressed concerns that there may have been irregularities in the process of refugee status determination.

These events have also incited apprehensions among Burundians in Kibati, who fear that they too may be expelled.

The way forward: building new identities?

It has been reported that up to one third of those who were repatriated as part of this exercise have already returned to Uganda, indicating that Rwanda’s push and pull relationship with this group has not ended.

The Rwandan government has been pushing aggressively to ensure the return of its refugees abroad in an effort to build an image of a strong and ethnically harmonious country emerging from its traumatic past. The reluctance of those still in exile to return, however, shows that many are not assimilating easily into this new image. And that the goal of ethnic harmony remains elusive. Many of those who have returned again to Uganda are making their fourth and fifth journeys, underscoring the depth of their resistance.

A traditional, refugee rights based approach has been unsuccessful in mediating this tug of war. In this context, a broader focus, based on identity and citizenship rights might provide a useful avenue for pursuing solutions.

For example, research aimed at understanding more fully what the refugees see as obstacles to their reintegration might form the basis for effective reform of the Rwanda laws and policies which are currently impeding return. Exploring alternative, regional understandings of citizenship, for example through the East African Community (to which Rwanda has recently acceded), might on the other hand form the basis of a new set of identities and a new framework within which the rights of this group could be protected.

The International Refugee Rights Initiative is currently beginning to explore these broader issues through our work with the Citizenship Rights in Africa Initiative (CRAI), which seeks to raise awareness about the crisis of citizenship rights across the continent. In addition we are exploring how to build a stronger base of empirical knowledge to tackle these complex policy issues through a partnership with the Social Science Research Council.