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Text File | 1994-06-01 | 22KB | 416 lines

<text> <title> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992: Rwanda </title> <article> <hdr> Human Rights Watch World Report 1992 Africa Watch: Rwanda </hdr> <body> Human Rights Developments An ongoing war in Rwanda that claimed thousands of civilian lives overshadowed human rights developments in 1991. Thousands of alleged rebel sympathizers primarily belonging to the minority Tutsi ethnic group were arbitrarily detained under harsh conditions, and twenty were convicted in trials that did not meet international standards. Throughout 1991, military and local authorities used the war as a pretext to beat, terrorize and kill Tutsi and other perceived civilian opponents. Despite a March 29, 1991 cease-fire agreement and several regional summits with the presidents of neighboring Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and Zaire to resolve the conflict, the war continued in northern Rwanda. Each side has accused the other of killing civilians and violating the cease-fire agreement. During the year, the government announced a process of democratization, although it did not show itself to be entirely committed to the process, especially in its attacks against the press. The war began in October 1990 when several thousand members of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) invaded northern Rwanda from southern Uganda. (The invaders belonged to the Rwandan Patriotic Army, the military arm of the RPF. Although estimates vary, the initial invading force included roughly seven thousand insurgents; it now numbers roughly ten thousand. Over half of the soldiers were deserters from Uganda's National Resistance Army.) The RPF presents itself as a national organization, claiming that its membership, almost exclusively from the Tutsi ethnic group, is a result of historical circumstance. Tutsi, who now comprise roughly fourteen percent of the Rwandan population, ruled Rwanda as a monarchy until 1959 when power was seized by members of the Hutu ethnic group, who now comprise roughly eighty-five percent of the Rwandan population. According to the RPF, it invaded Rwanda for three reasons: to overthrow the government and institute democracy; to eliminate corruption, political persecution, and discrimination; and to solve the refugee problem. The issue of refugees is central to an understanding of the invasion, since many of the 400,000 to 700,000 Tutsi exiles have a long-standing desire to return to their country. These Tutsi, who live primarily in neighboring Zaire, Burundi, Uganda and Tanzania, were forced to flee Rwanda following outbreaks of interethnic violence between 1959 and 1966 and, most recently, in 1973. Tens of thousands of Tutsi were massacred and several hundred thousand more were forced into exile. Originally, the eighteen-year-old Hutu government of President Juvénal Habyarimana argued that the country's limited resources prevented it from accommodating the desire of these Tutsi to return. (With a population of roughly seven million in an area about 10,000 square miles, or slightly over 26,000 square kilometers, Rwanda is one of the most densely populated countries in the world--roughly 690 persons per square mile. It also has one of the world's highest population growth rates and is unable to produce enough food to feed adequately over two million of its citizens.) President Habyarimana has since changed his position and said that refugees are welcome to come back. Although the government is supposedly in the process of searching for resettlement sites, no significant number of refugees has returned. Between January and March 1991, over three hundred civilians of a Tutsi subgroup known as the Bagogwe people were massacred in the northwestern region of Rwanda, following a major RPF offensive in the area at the end of January. (Estimates range from 300 to 1,200.) During the offensive the rebels held an important town for a day, opened the local prison, and released hundreds of prisoners. This brief RPF success became the pretext for Rwandan police, military and civilian officials, along with ordinary civilians, to commit the massacre. When the RPF withdrew from the town, some of the freed prisoners followed them, but others simply returned to their homes, only to be re-arrested or killed by the authorities. While the massacre was widely discussed among Tutsi in Kigali, the capital, there was no press coverage of the incident until June 20, when the Belgian newspaper L'Instant broke the story. The Rwandan government did not acknowledge that any killings had occurred until August 14, the day after the RPF held a news conference denouncing the killings; the Rwandan ambassador to Belgium then reportedly admitted that "a massacre of Tutsi civilians had occurred in the region." He did not specify the number of casualties and blamed the RPF for the killings. He also indicated that the government had commenced an investigation into the matter and that those responsible would be prosecuted, although no prosecutions have since occurred. Those Bagogwe who survived the massacre still fear for their lives and some have fled to other parts of the country. On two separate occasions in October, local authorities in Kanzenze, a region not for from Kigali, picked up at least a dozen Tutsi men whom they suspected of recruiting others to join the RPF. At least two of these men were severely beaten before being released without charge, and at least eight others have since disappeared. (The number of disappeared may be as high as eleven.) In November, roughly five hundred civilians, primarily Tutsi, were forced to flee a region in eastern Rwanda following a series of savage attacks in which a local civilian official participated. During the course of the attacks, an elderly Tutsi woman was killed, three young Tutsi girls were gang raped, an eight-month-pregnant Tutsi woman was severely injured, several other Tutsi men were injured with machetes and badly beaten, and several homes were destroyed or pillaged. At least one Hutu man who had attempted to help a Tutsi neighbor during the attacks was beaten the following day by military authorities. In a separate incident in mid-October, a civilian official in this same area ordered the communal police to pick up sixteen men who have not been seen since. In September, in another region in the east, local military authorities reportedly picked up several persons, both Hutu and Tutsi, many of whom lacked identity papers and at least some of whom have since disappeared. In a separate incident in this same area on November 13, soldiers killed the president of a fishing cooperative. Immediately following the 1990 invasion, civilian and military authorities began to arrest arbitrarily and detain without charge or trial several thousand citizens whom it suspected of collaborating or sympathizing with the RPF. Thousands of those arrested remained in detention until April 1991. Many of the arrests occurred in and around Kigali. Although the government denies that the massive arrests were based on ethnicity, roughly seventy-five percent of those arrested were Tutsi, particularly Tutsi priests, intellectuals, businessmen, and other prominent Tutsi whom the government suspected of providing financial support to the rebels. Many Tutsi were arrested because of family relations with individual rebels. The government arrested several hundred Ugandans on the basis of their nationality, undoubtedly due to a drastic deterioration in relations between Rwanda and Uganda after the war began. The Rwandan government maintains that Uganda is providing military assistance to the rebels. Many of those arrested and detained were tortured or severely beaten and were not provided adequate food, water, medical care or toilet facilities. Civilian authorities confiscated and encouraged crowds to confiscate personal belongings from many homes. According to the government, over 2,500 per