POLITICS: Fear Grips The Rwandese Community

By Moyiga Nduru Reprint | | Print |

Moyiga Nduru

NAIROBI, Jun 23 1998 (IPS) - Following the May assassination of a liberal Hutu opposition leader in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, many within the Rwandese community here fear that they too may be tracked down by unknown hitmen.

Seth Sendashonga, a former minister in the current Tutsi- dominated Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF) government between 1994 and 1995, was gunned down by men widely suspected to be state agents.

His death sent many Hutu exiles underground. “We live in fear. Few of us dare venture out at odd hours for fear of being followed and eliminated by state-sponsored terrorism,” said a Rwandese refugee.

The refugee, who declined to be named for security reasons, told IPS on Tuesday that Sendashonga’s death had injected an unprecedented dose of fear into the exiled Rwandese community. Rwanda’s government however, blames Sendashonga’s death on the rivalry within the Hutu rebel groups.

The Hutus, who are waging a bush war against the RPF government, make up about 85 percent of Rwanda’s eight million people, while the Tutsis, who dominate the country’s military and political institutions, comprise 14 percent. The remaining one percent are Twa.

The tiff between the two ethnic groups heightened in 1994 when hardline Hutu militias, known as the Interahamwe (‘Those who fight together’ in the Kinyarwanda language) slaughtered up to one million people, mostly Tutsis and moderate Hutus, whom they perceived to be sympathetic to the RPF. The rebel movement toppled the Hutu-dominated government of the late President Juvenal Habyarimana in July 1994.

When the RPF came to power, over two million refugees poured across Rwanda’s borders into the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania, Burundi and Kenya.

Although over one million have returned home from the DRC since 1996, those in Tanzania and Kenya have remained put, fearing reprisal at home. According to the refugees, security has not improved in Rwanda where people “disappear” every day.

This claim has been supported by a new report issued Tuesday by the London-based Amnesty International. According to Amnesty, the number of “disapperances” in Rwanda has reached a level that many families no longer even try to let the authorities know that their relatives have gone missing.

The report, based on research carried out in Rwanda earlier this year, says that the dramatic escalation in the number of dead and “disappeared”, which started after the return of refugees at the end of 1996, is continuing to this day.

And, it warns that unless the authorities take action to turn the tide of violence, it risks becoming an inevitable part of life in Rwanda.

Large-scale “disappearances” have occurred as soldiers of the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA), the military wing of the RPF, carry out mass arrests in the north-west, where Hutu militia groups still operate. People from other parts of the country also have just vanished, the Amnesty report says.

These people may be detained in military camps, but it is impossible to verify their whereabouts, because access to these camps is strictly denied. Their families wait without news for months on end, it adds.

Amnesty International cites the case of Emmanuel Munyemanzi, a journalist, who “disappeared” in Kigali, the Rwandan capital city, on May 5. In March, he was suspended from his duties at Rwanda’s national television station, following a dispute with the director of the government-controlled Rwandese Information Office.

“Not all ‘disapperances’ can be directly attributed to the authorities, but the government has a responsibility to investigate,” Amnesty says. “Yet investigations appear to be the exception, rather than the rule.”

According to the human rights organisation, thousands of unarmed civilians have been killed since December. The violence has spread from Gisenyi and Ruhengeri in the northwest to the central region of Gitarama.

Some of the killings were committed by RPA soldiers, others by armed opposition groups believed to include members of the former Rwandese army, others by unidentified assailants.

“In Rwanda, there is no room for neutrality,” Amnesty says. “Civilians are likely to be killed by both sides, each suspecting that they are cooperating with the other.”

In May, the Rwandese authorities suspended the activities of the United Nations Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda (UNHRFOR), pending a review of its mandate. The government has been putting pressure on the operation to drop its monitoring work.

“The Rwandese government should allow the UNHRFOR to remain in Rwanda and fulfill all its current tasks, including monitoring and reporting on current human rights abuses,” Amnesty International says. “These functions are critical to establishing transparency and commitment to human rights in Rwanda.”

To reduce abuse, Amnesty International is urging foreign governments to recognise the true nature of the current human rights situation in Rwanda; to publicly denounce the grave abuses committed not only by armed opposition groups, but also by the security forces; and to use any influence they have to try to prevent further abuses.

“Foreign governments should also prevent any further supplies of light weapons and associated other types of military equipment to either the Rwandese security forces or armed opposition groups operating in Rwanda, as long as such equipment is likely to contribute directly to further human rights abuses,” it says.

According to the human rights group, companies in Israel, using Eastern European links, China and South Africa have supplied weapons or military equipment to the former Rwandese armed forces before and during the 1994 genocide.

“Companies from these same countries have continued to supply arms and equipment to the RPA, sometimes arranged through companies in third countries,” Amnesty International says.

It adds that armed opposition groups appear to have also obtained weapons with relative ease — despite the continuing UN embargo on the former Rwandese army — apparently through networks of trafficking, and through close alliances with armed opposition groups operating in neighbouring countries.