U.S. Committee for Refugees World Refugee Survey 1999 - Rwanda

Approximately 12,000 Rwandans were recognized refugees at the end of 1998, including about 7,000 in Uganda, and some 5,000 in Tanzania.

An estimated 500,000 Rwandans were internally displaced at the end of 1998, although some estimates ranged as high as 650,000.

About 50,000 Rwandans were living in refugee-like circumstances – their entitlement to full refugee status remained undetermined pending possible future screening – including an estimated 30,000 in Congo-Kinshasa, some 7,0000 in Kenya, about 5,000 in Congo Brazzaville, approximately 5,000 in Tanzania, and about 3,000 in other countries.

Rwanda hosted about 36,000 refugees at year's end, including nearly 35,000 from Congo-Kinshasa, and almost 1,000 from Burundi.

Pre-1998 Events

Rwanda and its estimated 8 million people have a history of politically inspired conflict rooted in tensions between the ethnic Hutu majority – about 85 percent of the population – and the ethnic Tutsi minority. Hundreds of thousands of Tutsi fled the country in the 1950s and 1960s and remained refugees for more than 30 years, one of the longest exiles in modern African history.

Civil war erupted in 1990 when armed Rwandan exiles, primarily Tutsi, launched an invasion from neighboring Uganda to assert their right to resettle in their homeland and share political power with the country's Hutu leaders. Three years of warfare led to a 1993 peace agreement that acknowledged the right of longtime refugees to repatriate to Rwanda and share political power in the country's democratization process.

The country's extremist leaders attempted to sabotage the peace accord and eliminate all political opposition by launching a campaign of mass murder in April 1994. Politically moderate Hutu and the country's entire Tutsi population were targeted for extermination.

Up to a million persons, overwhelmingly Tutsi, were massacred in a three-month period by the military, by civilian militia, and by civilians acting under the direction of government officials. The scale and intensity of the genocide were "unprecedented in the history of theŠentire African continent," a UN report stated.

The largely Tutsi rebels, known as the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), responded to the genocide by ousting the government and its military in mid-1994. Some 1.7 million Rwandan Hutu refugees fled the country. Some refugees fled because they feared RPA retribution. Other refugees were forced to leave Rwanda by their own hard-line political leaders.

The new government persuaded an estimated 800,000 "old caseload" Tutsi refugees to repatriate during 1994-96. Most Hutu refugees suddenly returned in late 1996 under controversial circumstances precipitated by civil war in Zaire (now Congo-Kinshasa) and expulsion by Tanzania. Another 200,000 Hutu refugees returned to Rwanda during 1997.

Political and military officials of Rwanda's former extremist government mounted an increasingly aggressive armed insurgency in western Rwanda during 1995-97. The insurgents' attacks against civilian populations and the RPA's counterinsurgency tactics killed thousands of civilians, particularly in the country's densely populated northwest.

The continued bloodshed aggravated ethnic tensions throughout the country and undermined reintegration efforts. By the end of 1997, nearly one-third of Rwanda's population consisted of former refugees, Hutu and Tutsi, who had repatriated since 1994. Approximately 50,000 persons were internally displaced by the violence in the northwest.

1998 Political and Military Situation

Violence in northwest Rwanda peaked in early 1998 as insurgents widened their attacks against civilian targets and the RPA took strong counterinsurgency measures. Security improved in the second half of the year, although bloodshed continued at lower levels.

Estimates of the year's death toll ranged from several thousand to more than 10,000, according to human rights investigators. Many incidents of violence, particularly early in the year, remained unreported because international aid workers and human rights workers evacuated from the northwest because of security concerns.

Among the reported incidents in January, at least 34 people died when insurgents ambushed a bus along the highway; 40 people were killed in two attacks by insurgents; and nine local religious workers were massacred.

In February, 34 or more people died in an attack attributed to insurgents. In late March and early April, nearly 100 people were killed in a series of insurgent raids.

Insurgents particularly targeted local government officials, Tutsi survivors of the genocide, camps for displaced persons, and civilians – Hutu and Tutsi – regarded as sympathetic to the government. An attack against a newly constructed resettlement village in southeast Rwanda in March killed five civilians and three local aid workers. Insurgents massacred uprooted civilians at two displacement camps in the northwest during a two-week period in late May and early June.

The insurgency appeared to weaken in the final months of the year, in part because of a Rwandan government policy of depopulating strategic rural areas by temporarily moving people into towns and villages. Warfare in neighboring Congo-Kinshasa, where Rwandan insurgents maintained rear bases, might also have weakened the insurgents.

The UN Human Rights Field Operation in Rwanda ceased its work in mid-1998 after four years of operations. Rwandan officials stated that UN human rights observers were ineffective. Some human rights officials credited the RPA with improved human rights practices in its counterinsurgency efforts during 1998 but continued to express alarm about the government's overcrowded prisons, new detentions, and "increasing reports of alleged disappearances," according to a report by the UN Human Rights Commission.

U.S. President Bill Clinton visited Rwanda in March to commemorate the 1994 genocide. Insurgents increased their attacks in the days before and after his visit. Clinton told Rwandans that "the international communityŠdid not act quickly enough after the [1994] killing began. We should not have allowed the refugee camps [in neighboring Congo Kinshasa] to become safe haven for killers," he stated. "We did not immediately call these crimes by their rightful name: genocide."

USCR had urged President Clinton to visit Rwanda to demonstrate the importance of halting genocide and to acknowledge the U.S. failure to stop the Rwandan genocide of 1994. In a January letter, USCR urged President Clinton to spend time in Rwanda "to pay homage to the victims of [genocide], and to lead the international community in an act of repentance for our collective failure in 1994Š"

Uprooted Rwandans

Some 50,000 to 100,000 persons already were internally displaced when 1998 began. Displaced families included Hutu and Tutsi pushed from their homes by violence in the northwest, and former Tutsi refugees who awaited new homes after repatriation. Some lived in camps, but most lived temporarily with relatives or friends until security conditions permitted them to re-occupy their property.

Government officials at first discouraged establishment of displacement camps. Insurgents attacked a camp in February and killed some 50 people of both ethnic groups, according to Amnesty International. A similar attack killed 20 camp occupants – Hutu and Tutsi – in March. Some 50 displaced persons – primarily Tutsi returnees – died in June when guerrillas attacked a camp temporarily housing 6,000 people.

USCR testified at a Congressional hearing on Rwanda in March and reported that "insurgent attacks and counterinsurgency tactics by the Rwandan Patriotic Army have reportedly left thousands dead in the northwest. Pockets of population displacement have occurred, sometimes lasting several days, sometimes lasting indefinitely," USCR stated.

The number of displaced people in northwest Rwanda increased dramatically in the final five months of the year. WFP reported that the number of uprooted people in need of food assistance quadrupled by November. Aid workers and government officials reported long lines of families traveling along main highways toward local government buildings. Others moved temporarily into major towns in the northwest, or relocated to Kigali, the capital.

Government authorities estimated in November that 630,000 people were internally displaced. A UN official stated that "we have no reason to dispute [the government's] figures" within a 10 percent margin of error.

The rapid increase in displaced people surprised many observers. Rwandan government officials claimed that the displacement indicated that local residents in the northwest had turned against the insurgents and were seeking government protection. Some observers said that violence had disrupted farming activities, creating a food shortage that drove many people off their land.

Many aid workers attributed the massive displacement to the Rwandan government's efforts to depopulate the northwest countryside in order to deprive the insurgents of food and other support. Authorities deliberately moved many rural residents from their homes and relocated them to designated sites; some families moved to the sites voluntarily, others relocated involuntarily. Government authorities indicated that some relocation sites would become permanent new villages, moving people out of their traditional homes.

International donors and aid groups expressed skepticism about the government's permanent relocation program, known as "villagization." Some aid agencies chose to provide only minimum humanitarian assistance because they did not want to facilitate forced relocations by the government. UNHCR supplied blankets, soaps, and other basic aid to displaced households but refused to assist the transfer of families to permanent new sites.

Occupants of displacement camps suffered food shortages and poor medical care, resulting in some deaths. UNDP estimated in November that it required $30 million to provide aid to displaced families for the next six months.

By year's end, thousands of displaced persons were returning home or slowly settling into new home sites. The pattern of population displacement in the northwest remained irregular – up to 85 percent of the residents in some localities reportedly remained uprooted, while in other localities most families remained at their homes.

Rwandan Refugees and Returnees

Several thousand Rwandans fled to neighboring Tanzania during the year.

The new refugees said they fled because Rwandan security forces sometimes detained young Hutu males during security sweeps, resulting in alleged disappearances. Rwandan officials disputed the allegations and charged that many new asylum seekers in Tanzania were either insurgents or were trying to escape local food shortages.

With an estimated 60,000 people living outside the country as refugees or asylum seekers, Rwandan authorities stated that they would continue to encourage repatriation. "The Rwandan government is not going to leave a single stone unturned to ensure that these people, whether they are innocent or not, return home," a government statement said in January.

UNHCR pointed out that security concerns in northwestern parts of the country hindered the agency's access to half of the Hutu returnees who repatriated during 1996-97.

Thousands of Tutsi returnees, meanwhile, continued to await permanent housing and lived in temporary camps that were vulnerable to insurgent attacks. [See section above.] Some 40 Tutsi returnees died in an attack on their settlement in March. Nearly 30 were killed during a similar attack in early June. A mid-June attack on Nkamira camp killed more than 50 Tutsi returnees.

Reintegration Conditions

The country's difficult process of reintegration continued in 1998, made more difficult by persistent armed conflict in the northwest. As many as 2.5 million Hutu and Tutsi refugees have repatriated in the past five years. Rwanda remained one of the poorest and most densely populated countries in the world, with little vacant land suitable for resettlement.

The largest number of recent returnees were in the northwest region, where violence and displacement crippled the local economy and hampered farming on the country's most fertile soil, causing food shortages during the year.

UNHCR issued an appeal to international donors in March for $159 million to address refugee and repatriation needs in Central Africa, with much of the money needed for reintegration in Rwanda. UNHCR helped construct 70,000 new houses during 1997 and early 1998, and other aid agencies helped build tens of thousands of additional homes.

Rwanda contained 120,000 to 300,000 orphaned or abandoned children in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide and subsequent population movements, according to various estimates. Some 60,000 to 80,000 child-headed households and tens of thousands of female-headed households required special help.

A USCR report, Life After Death: Suspicion and Reintegration in Post-Genocide Rwanda, published in February, documented the array of issues confronting Rwandans after the genocide and massive return of refugees.

"Rarely in human history has a society asked – insisted – that all its people live together again, side by side, in the aftermath of genocideŠ. The people of Rwanda are attempting to do what few societies in recorded history have ever done," the report stated. "For the first time in Rwanda's 35 years of national independence, the overwhelming majority of Rwandan refugees, Hutu and Tutsi, have returned to their homeland."

The USCR report reviewed security concerns, prevalent social attitudes and tensions, special assistance needs in housing, health, agriculture, and local governance, and offered 15 policy recommendations to help reintegration.

"The combination of high population density, subsistence agriculture, pervasive poverty, and ethnic suspicions means that land and housing issues will probably be highly sensitive in Rwanda for years to come, long after the current 'reintegration' phase has passed," the report concluded.

USCR met with U.S. State Department officials in March and submitted 15 recommendations for U.S. government action, including increased funding for UNHCR protection officers, special training for Rwandan trauma counselors, and stronger financial and diplomatic support to determine the refugee status or criminality of some 40,000 Rwandan asylum seekers scattered throughout Africa.

USCR's testimony at a March congressional hearing reviewed a range of recommendations to the Rwandan government, including steps to resolve local property disputes, more aggressive prosecution of RPA abuses, and changes in government programs that aggravated tensions in Rwanda.

"The international community tends to oversimplify Rwanda," USCR stated in its testimony. "Many foreign observers overestimated how quickly Rwandans could 'reconcile' after the genocide and refugee repatriation, and more recent conventional wisdom incorrectly threatens to dismiss Rwanda as a 'lost cause.' Both characterizations are wrong. Rwanda is an incredibly traumatized society going through a difficult transition."

USCR testified at a congressional hearing in May on the Rwandan genocide and the world community's failure to stop it. USCR reviewed the U.S. government's inaction during the genocide and urged U.S. policy makers to launch a study to identify the reasons for the U.S. policy failures during Rwanda's mass killings.

USCR also warned that Rwanda's ongoing insurgency was corroding efforts to re-establish ethnic trust and reintegration.

"Many Tutsi view the insurgency as proof that the campaign of genocide continues against themŠ Many Hutu fear that they might be victimized by revenge killings, detention, or other injustices," USCR explained to Congress. The lack of international response to the insurgency "has intensified the sense of isolation felt by many local residents who believe the international community has abandoned them," USCR stated.

Refugees from Congo-Kinshasa

Ethnic violence and civil war in eastern Congo-Kinshasa pushed up to 25,000 refugees into Rwanda during 1995-96. Some 10,000 repatriated during 1996, but thousands more continued to flow into Rwanda during 1997-98. Most of the refugees were ethnic Tutsi Congolese.

Rwandan insurgent attacks against Mudende refugee camp in northwest Rwanda during 1997 left more than 450 refugees dead. The attacks prompted Rwandan officials to move the refugees to a safer location in the final weeks of 1997 – a step that UNHCR had long urged.

The nearly 35,000 refugees at the end of 1998 primarily lived at two sites in Rwanda. Gihembe camp, in north central Rwanda, housed a majority of the refugees, many in tents. Refugees at the new camp complained in January that the site lacked sufficient food or medical care. UNHCR disputed the charges.

The smaller Kibiza camp near the western town of Kibuye contained approximately 13,000 refugees. UNHCR urged Rwandan officials to transfer Kibiza camp to a new location, but the government refused. USCR also recommended that Rwandan officials should transfer the Congolese refugees to a safer site. "Authorities should ensure that the refugee population is properly protected at any location," USCR stated.