RWANDA: European Union Helps Both Sides

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Mar 10 1997 (IPS) - The European Union (EU) said humanitarian aid in Rwanda should not discriminate between the refugees and members of the armed militia.

Emma Bonino, EU commissioner for Humanitarian Affairs denied the regional block had criticised the United Nations High Comissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) for helping the Hutu militia in the Tingi Tingi camp of eastern Zaire.

“It is not our job to be judges,” said Bonino during a press conference in Geneva.

Rather, we human rights organisations “need to help the people who are suffering, without being stopped by the fact of whether or not they are criminals or perpetrators of genocide.”

Bonino criticised the Banyamulengue rebels – fighting against the regime of Zaire – who have been blocking access to some areas of the Kivu region since last September, when the guerrilla uprising occurred.

The Banyamulengues, of Rwandan Tutsi extraction, settled in the eastern zones of Zaire last century. At present they support the Aliiance of Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Congo-Zaire (AFDL) who are fighting against the Kinshasa regime.

The 1994 civil war in Rwanda resulted in the genocide of 500,000 people – mostly Tutsis – and there are still around 370,000 Rwandan refugees in Zaire.

Most of the Rwandan refugees in Zaire are Hutus, and many of those believed guilty of the 1994 genocide now form part of the clandestine armed militia in the camps.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Sadako Ogata, rejected accusations of having abandonned the Rwandan refugees and of killing 25,000 people lodged by the government of Zaire.

Ogata said Kinshasa’s declarations were not founded on fact, in Geneva Monday.

However, the Zairean government expelled 11 UN employees last week, including four UNHCR officials.

This decision was taken after the humanitarian organisations abandonned the Tingi Tingi and Kisangani camps for security reasons.

Ogata said the expulsion was “unjust and unjustifiable.” She added that the accusations against the UNHCR “of the deaths of 25,000 people, are unfundamented.”

The refugee organisation said it had received no news of any murder of 25,000 Rwandans in early March.

The UNHCR officials are currently preparing to return to the camps in Zaire. Two of their employees travelled to Kisangani on Sunday, and an evaluation mission will arrive in Ubundu, 100 km South of Kisangani Tuesday.

A source within the World Food Programme (WFP) said the refugees are still arriving in Ubundu in their hundreds.

“They are in terrible conditions and food and medicine are in short supply,” said Christiane Berthiaume, WFP spokeswoman in Geneva.