An Inter Press Service Feature

By Lahai J. Samboma Reprint | | Print |

LONDON, Nov 16 1994 (IPS) - Calls by the Rwanda Government for food aid to the internally-displaced inside Rwanda to be cut in order to pressure people to return to their homes has received a mixed response from international relief agencies here.

The calls were made Monday by the prime minister of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF)-led government, Faustin Twagiramungu, who said that his government would impress upon the United Nations the imperative of evacuating the camps for the internally displaced in southwestern Rwanda and other areas.

“We need to pressure these refugees into believing there is a government and they can’t stay in the camps,” Twagiramungu said. “Are they going to stay in camps being fed forever.”

Aside from the fact that keeping the camps will serve as a disincentive for the displaced to return home and start re- building their lives and livelihood, the government also fears that the camps, like those in neighbouring Zaire, are providing cover for armed extremists bent on destabilising the government.

“First we have to persuade and convince. Then we have to decrease what we give them. Then we have to cut it off,” the prime minister said.

But aid agencies here say that the situation in Rwanda is more complex than the picture drawn by the government and they do not contemplate stopping aid supplied to the camps.

The people in the camps, they contend have legitimate fears of the consequences awaiting them is they return to their homes and should not be forced to leave.

“Of course, we understand the frustration of the government. But from a humanitarian point of view, we don’t think it is good policy to withhold food supplies from people who really need it. Their survival depends on it,” said Juliet Sober of the British Red Cross.

While the Rwanda Government will not take kindly to their operation in the camps, Sober says, the Red Cross is determined to provide food aid to the camps for as long as there are people there who need it.

She added: “We have to accept the fact that these people are just not going to get up and leave. They are afraid and, if we have the resources, we are not going to starve them into submission.”