Citation
December 1994
Vol. 6, No. 12
RWANDA
A NEW CATASTROPHE?
Increased International Efforts Required to Punish
Genocide and Prevent further Bloodshed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction ...........................................................................................................2
Summary..................................................................................................................................................2
Closing the Camps within Rwanda...
. .......................................................................6
"They went home singing": Genocide at Cyahinda...............................................8
Killings by the Rwanda Patriotic Army.................................................................................................................10
Blockage of the Judicial system....................... ..................................................... 11
The Question of Property...................................................................................... . 15
Bringing RPA Soldiers to Justice.......... ...............................................................15
Monitoring the Human Rights Situation............ ...................................................16
The International Community....... ....................................................................... 16
Recommendations... ............................................................................................ . 19
Human Rights Watch/Africa
485 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6104 Tel: (212) 972-8400
Fax: (212) 972-0905 1522 K Street, NW, #910, Washington, DC 20005-1202
Tel: (202) 371-6592 Fax: (202) 371-0124
Human Rights Watch/Africa
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INTRODUCTION
Summary
At the time of the genocide in Rwanda, the international community stood by
while more than half a million people were slaughtered. Since the new government
brought the killing to an end by its military victory over the genocidal authorities, the
international community has continued to be paralyzed and ineffective, unwilling to
put up the resources needed to avert further war, to bring the guilty to justice, or to
protect human rights in Rwanda.
The authors of the genocide have profited from international inaction to
regroup. They are now ready to resume war against the new government of
Rwanda with an expressed intent of eliminating those Tutsi who survived the first
campaign of killing. A highly placed political source in the region told Human Rights
Watch/Africa that the very authorities who directed the genocide are preparing to
step up incursions across the Zairian border. This assessment was confirmed to
Human Rights Watch/Africa by Major General Guy Tousignant, commander of the
United Nations peacekeeping force in Rwanda (UNAMIR). Some 30.000 soldiers of
the army responsible for the genocide are assembled in and around the refugee
camps in Bukavu and Goma. Zaire. Over 10,000 militia members, veterans of the
slaughter of unarmed civilians, train with them. The Security Council has expressed
"alarm" over these preparations for war but has recommended only "further
elucidation" from the Secretary-General of his proposals to establish security in the
refugee camps. It directed him to consult potential troop contributors to assess
willingness to participate in a peace-keeping operation in Zaire, but neither
diplomats nor U.N. staff expect the consultation to produce any of the troops
needed.
As of December 5, the international community had delivered a mere
$567.000 dollars for the United Nations field operation to protect human rights in
Rwanda, about five percent of the amount requested by U.N. High Commissioner
for Human Rights José Ayala Lasso last August. The High Commissioner told
Human Rights Watch/Africa that some $45,000 was left in the Rwandan account
just at the time W hen contracts for the first human rights monitors were due to
expire and would have to be renewed if the operation were not to be cut back. Poor
organization, turf battles, lack of training, and absence of contact with Rwandansboth victims of abuse and local human rights associations have also limited the
effectiveness of the operation.
Investigation by Human Rights Watch/Africa in Rwanda in October and
November confirmed earlier findings that the genocide last spring was well
organized and well funded. In dramatic contrast to the campaign of killing, efforts to
bring the killers to justice remain limited. scattered and poorly supported. The
international community has failed to muster the resources necessary to apprehend
and prosecute the authors of the genocide. Investigative efforts, poorly organized
as well as poorly funded. make little progress w hile the guilty successfully establish
themselves abroad and the evidence needed to convict them is in danger of being
lost.
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The creation of the International Tribunal on Rwanda in November offered
the only hopeful sign in the otherwise inept and indifferent response to genocide.
But it is unclear Whether the international community will provide adequate funds
and personnel to carry out effective prosecution of the accused.
The international community has thus far failed to deliver any substantial aid
to the new Rwandan government, which took power with virtually no resources of
its own. Lacking the means to establish a functioning civilian administration and
judicial system, the government has been unable to begin orderly prosecutions of
persons accused of genocide. Thousands have been arrested and are awaiting
trial, lodged in inhumane conditions in prisons and in a variety of irregular detention
sites. With the judicial system paralyzed, reprisal killings and disappearances
continue. Increasingly, people use accusations of genocide to cover efforts to settle
private disputes. In the absence of an effective civilian administration or police,
property disputes and banditry are increasing.
The Rwandan government also faces renewed militia activity in displaced
persons' camps within the country. To avoid further growth of these organizations
devoted to Hutu ethnic supremacy and to spur the return to normalcy, the
government is forcing the internally displaced to return to their homes. In a recent
visit to Rwanda, Human Rights Watch/Africa found that this policy has cost some ten
lives and poses the real threat of many more deaths.
Summary of Recommendations
The international community should
•
Deter imminent and catastrophic war in the region by restoring security in the
camps in Zaire.
•
Ensure that those guilty of genocide and other human rights abuses are
brought to justice, whether before the International Tribunal, in Rwandan
courts, or in other national courts.
•
Assist in the safe return of the displaced to their own communities.
•
Support and improve monitoring of the current human rights situation. The
government of Rwanda should
•
Act immediately and forcefully to end arbitrary killings and other human rights
abuses by Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) soldiers and civilians who recruit
their help for such acts.
•
Arrest and prosecute RPA soldiers and civilians associated with them in
killings and other abuses.
•
Devote the highest priority to establishing an effective civilian administration,
including a functioning judicial system and civilian police force, so that those
accused of genocide and other grave violations of human rights can be
prosecuted with full respect for fair trial guarantees.
•
Ensure that arrests are carried out according to due process and that the
detained are kept in official prison facilities, in humane conditions, and that
their detention be recorded in registers available to the public
•
Prevent the use of unnecessary and excessive force in closing displaced
persons' camps.
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THE WAR TO FINISH THE GENOCIDE
Theodore Sindikubwabo, president, and Jean Kambanda, prime minister of
the government that carried out the genocide were named recently to head a new
government-in-exile. Their role in the genocide, already well established, has been
further documented by a Human Rights Watch/Africa investigation at the Cyabinda
massacre site (see below). Kambanda's strident calls for renewed war, such as those
delivered at the Katale and Kibumba camps in October, have been reported by
humanitarian relief organizations as well as by the international press. Among others
continuing from the former government to government-in-exile are Jerome
Bicamumpaka, who as foreign minister vigorously defended the genocidal
government at the United Nations last June, and General Augustin Bizimungu, the
army chief of staff, who acknowledged that he had the power to halt the genocide,
then ten weeks old, but refused to do so until the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF)
accepted a cease-fire. The statement was quoted by the Special Rapporteur on
Rwanda to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in his first report,
published at the end of June.
According to numerous observers in the region, the government-in-exile uses
extensive propaganda to keep the refugees ready for war. Human Rights
Watch/Africa secured a prime example of such propaganda, a tract entitled "Le
peuple rwandais accuse...." In it, the authors of the genocide assert that the
"catastrophic situation" of the Rwandan people is the "diabolical work" of the RPF,
assisted by the "massive collaboration" of certain foreign powers, namely, the United
States, Belgium, Uganda and the United Nations. According to this nineteen page
pamphlet, circulated at the end of September by then Minister of Justice Agnes
Ntamabyaliro, it was the RPF that was guilty of genocide and the Hutu who were
the victims. In this brazen distortion of the events of the recent past, there is no
mention of the slaughter of more than half a million Tutsi by the then-government
of Rwanda. The tract accuses the RPF of having "shown no respect for places of
worship," a particularly cynical charge from authorities who themselves were
responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands inside churches. It asserts that
RPF massacres and a United States-engineered arms embargo (to which the
defeat of the former Rwandan army is attributed) forced the exodus of the "near
totality" of the Rwandan people, leaving the RPF masters of "an empty country."
The pamphlet labels "Operation Sustain Hope," the U.S. humanitarian effort, "a
Machiavellian manoeuvre" to bring the Rwandan people "back under the RPF
yoke." According to this document, the massive effort was meant not to relieve the
suffering of the million or so refugees, but rather to lure them back within Rwanda.
The tract accuses the U.S. of "active intervention at the side of the RPF" and
suggests that this policy results from the tendency of the English-speaking world
"to extend its influence in French-speaking countries."
The agents of genocide are also keeping their soldiers primed for attack.
Representatives of nongovernmental organizations and of the international media
have reported that troops of the former Rwandan government are drilling at a
number of sites, including those near the Katindo and Mugunga camps, a report
confirmed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations in his November 18
statement to the Security Council. These soldiers are well armed. Although some
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were obliged to surrender machetes and rifles as they arrived in Zaire, many
others passed the frontier with their arms, including some heavy weaponry.
Rwandan soldiers reportedly guard and maintain howitzers and armored
personnel carriers hidden in a warehouse in Goma that is supposedly under the
control of the Zairian military. During its mission to the region in October and
November, Human Rights Watch/Africa obtained a detailed inventory of arms held
by the former Rwandan government army. Among the equipment are:
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6 helicopters (l Dauphin, 2 Alouette, 3 Gazelle)
50 anti-tank weapons (75mm recoilless rifles)
40-50 SA-7 missiles
15 Mistral AAM missiles
46 air defense weapons (37mm, 23 mm, 14.5 AAMG)
255 mortars (120mm, 82mm, 81mm, 60mm)
6 105mm howitzers
56 armored personnel carriers (with cannons or machine guns)
According to the UNAMIR commander, General Tousignant, the former
government army has already begun incursions into Rwanda, ambushing a RPA
patrol near the eastern frontier in early October and attacking a group of homes in
the northwest later that same month. Human Rights Watch/Africa visited the
northwestern prefecture (province) of Gisenyi where a raid at Rutagara, some one
hundred meters from the Zairian frontier, had been executed with military
precision. The assailants, either soldiers of the former Rwandan government army
(FAR) or well-trained militia, struck three separate households simultaneously at
about 3 a.m. They killed thirty-six people, twenty-six of them children, and left no
survivors.
As they prepare attacks on Rwanda, the authorities who directed the
genocide of the Tutsi increasingly use terror and violence against the Hutu refugees
whom they obliged to follow them into exile. The international media,
nongovernmental humanitarian agencies, and representatives of United Nations'
agencies have amply documented the human rights abuses, including murder and
rape, that are flagrant and unpunished in the camps. The President of the Great
Lakes Human Rights League, Joseph Mudumbi, reports that his organization
documents an average of two killings per day per camp, in Goma and areas of
Bukavu. The authorities refuse to let the refugees return home, knowing that
keeping them in the camps gives them leverage on the international community
and through it, on the new Rwandan government. They are also well aware that
being surrounded by a strong and reputedly fiercely loyal contingent of supporters
will make it more difficult to apprehend them for trial on charges of genocide. They
use threats and violence against anyone who shows interest in returning home or
who is suspected of sympathy for the RPF. The authorities confiscate food and
equipment intended to sustain the poor and weak, leaving them prey to illness and
death. Comfortably established in their villas outside the camps, these politicians
either sell the supplies for immediate profit or stockpile them for a future invasion
of Rwanda. They have refused to permit a census of the camps, where the actual
number of refugees is apparently several hundred thousand fewer than official
estimates. A more accurate count of the refugees would likely result in a reduction
in the amount of aid delivered and hence would cut into their profits.
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The authors of genocide, in collaboration with the army and the militia, have
re-established in the camps, the political structures that existed in Rwanda before
the genocide: cells, sectors, communes and prefectures. From the beginning, the
United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the aid agencies and
the host governments relied upon authorities of the former Rwandan government
to facilitate the delivery of aid to the refugees. Once in command of the
distribution of food and other essentials of life, these authorities used that control
to further intensify their hold over the population in the camps.
Former government officials, such as Francois Karera, who was once
prefect (governor) of Kigali, exercise influence also through a "Social
Commission" that purports to represent the interests of all the camps in the
region. Karera openly proclaimed his views about Tutsi in an interview published
on August 13 in the New York Times. He described them as "originally bad,"
"murderers," whose killing was justified. According to Karera, the use of the term
genocide to describe the killings of Tutsi was inaccurate because a number of
Tutsi had in fact survived. In Tanzania, the UNHCR encouraged the creation of a
security force drawn from the ranks of the former government army. No check was
done on the background of those recruited for this work of policing the camps.
The government-in-exile has established a system to tax those refugees
who have hired out their labor to local farmers. The refugee workers usually earn
1000 Zaires or about thirty cents a day. They are required to pay 200 Zaires of
each 1000 earned to the government-in-exile. The authors of genocide use buses
that they seized when leaving Rwanda run a profitable transport service for both
Zairians and refugees in the vicinity of the camps.
Agents of international organizations, official and nongovernmental, have
also been threatened by militia or soldiers. On several occasions, aid
organizations have curtailed their activities to protest such incidents and to protect
their workers. Medecins sans frontieres has closed its operations in Bukavu
because it was "ethically impossible" to continue aiding the perpetrators of
genocide who had installed a reign of terror in the camps. Even the UNHCR has
felt it necessary to take the unprecedented step of considering removing its
representatives and assistance from the camps.
CLOSING THE CAMPS WITHIN RWANDA
The Rwandan government faces not just imminent attack from the outside
but also a rebirth of militia activity in displaced persons' camps inside the country.
The displaced, most of them Hutu, fled before the RPF advance southward and
westward in June and July. They sought refuge in the "secure humanitarian zone"
created by the French as part of its Operation Tourquoise. The displaced, like the
refugees outside, include many killers who have sought cover among the masses
of people in the densely-packed camps. And, in a pale but chilling imitation of
developments outside Rwanda, former authorities within the displaced persons
camps have rebuilt their power, in part through control over humanitarian relief.
They actively discourage people from leaving the camps to return home, arguing
that returnees will be killed by the RPA. In addition, gangs of the displaced are
using the camps as bases from which to launch raids to rob and kill local people.
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Human Rights Watch/Africa collected complaints about such attacks from
residents of several communes near the displaced persons camps in Gikongoro
prefecture. Some of this banditry may have been purely criminal, but other
instances were more clearly politically motivated, apparently intended to
destabilize the situation and to show that the new government is not in control.
Efforts to persuade the displaced to return home voluntarily, relatively
successful in September and early October, have proved less so in recent weeks.
Reports of arrests and disappearances of returnees, some false but others
accurate (see below), have increased the determination of the displaced to remain
in the camps, as have accounts of the large-scale seizure of property by
squatters.
The Rwandan government has decided to close the camps, by force if
necessary, to avert the continued growth of the militia and other forms of
organized resistance. According to a United Nations official, Rwandan authorities
closed a first camp, at Rubengera in Kibuye prefecture, without injury or loss of
life. Some 6,000 persons had been sheltered there. But on October 15, RPA
soldiers forced the closing of a larger camp at Birambo, where about 20,000
persons had been gathered. When some in the crowd resisted the orders to leave,
the RPA soldiers opened fire. One civilian was killed and two were wounded.
Three days later, about forty RPA soldiers surrounded the 10, 100 people
at the Ndaba camp and ordered them to come down from their shelters on the
hills to listen to a speech by the burgomaster. The local official told them they
would have to leave the camp. Some of the displaced refused to obey the order
and the RPA fired into the crowd, wounding four persons, including a three-year
old child and an elderly woman. The camp population was forced to depart
immediately, leaving behind all their belongings. That night RPA soldiers came
and looted the camp and the next day they beat savagely those persons who tried
to return to reclaim the property left behind. When Human Rights Watch/Africa
visited the site in late October, the shelters had all been burned.
On October 29, RPA soldiers moved to close down the camp of 15,000
people at Rugabano. Eliel Mucoye, who had been running an orphanage at the
camp, was taken away at night in the direction of Bwakira. Two days later he was
found beaten to death. The forty-three children housed in the orphanage fled to
save their lives and ten of them remain unaccounted for.
When RPA soldiers closed the camp at Musange in early November, they
burned down the shelters and killed seven civilians. They wounded four others in
the effort to disperse the 13,000 or so people who had sought protection there.
As Rwandan authorities proceed with their stated intention of requiring the
displaced to return home by the first of the year, they will seek to close the far
larger camps in Gikongoro prefecture, where the majority of the displaced, some
370,000 people, are now concentrated. In attempting to clear camps such as that
at Kibeho, which houses about 75,000 people or that at Ndago, where 45,000
have taken refuge. they will likely encounter more substantial and organized
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resistance. Without careful planning and determined efforts to prevent violence,
there is a serious risk that large numbers of persons will be killed or injured.
"THEY WENT HOME SINGING": GENOCIDE AT CYAHINDA
The displaced who cluster in the camps came mostly from the adjacent
central and southern parts of the country. In these areas, many hills remain
largely empty. At Nyakizu, a commune which lies between the important town of
Butare and the frontier with Burundi, the population in early November was just
over 4,000. Before the genocide, it was some 60,000. According to one witness
who lived through the events, most of the Tutsi of Nyakizu were killed in the
genocide and most of the Hutu have fled and refuse to return home because they
or members of their immediate families participated in the killing. This witness, a
Hutu school teacher who works near Kigali, was home on vacation at the time of
the genocide. "It was beyond belief here, truly carried to excess .As I watched it in
horror, I kept rubbing my eyes and saying [to others around me],'Do you see what
I see?"'
The testimony collected by Human Rights Watch/Africa at Nyakizu and
elsewhere substantiated earlier findings about how the former Rwandan
government carried out the genocide. Witnesses to the slaughter of thousands of
Tutsi at the church of Cyahinda, in Nyakizu, stressed the role of both national and
local authorities in mobilizing the killers.
When the people of the commune saw houses being burned and refugees
fleeing from adjacent regions, they turned to the burgomaster, Ladislas
Ntaganzwa, for leadership. He publicly reassured the community but at the same
time held private meetings with close supporters to plan the massacres. The
presence in Nyakizu of a substantial number of Hutu refugees who had fled
violence in Burundi the previous fall made the job easier. Angry about being
forced to flee their own homes by Tutsi in Burundi and concentrated in a camp
where they had nothing to do with their time and energy, the people from Burundi
(known as Barundi) offered the ideal recruits for launching an attack on the Tutsi
of Nyakizu.
As the violence continued in the adjoining communes, the Tutsi of Nyakizu
began gathering in and around the church at Cyahinda. On April 15, the Barundi
refugees came rushing up the hill to the plateau dominated by the red brick
church. They were accompanied by four police from the national police force, a
branch of the Rwandan military, and by other local policemen. The burgomaster
arrived in the communal pick-up truck. He assured the Tutsi that they had nothing
to fear and ordered them to put down the sticks and stones they had gathered to
protect themselves. As they did so, the police fired into the crowd and the Barundi
refugees began to attack. The Tutsi resisted as best they could and killed one of
the policemen. But the Barundi assailants were joined by others from the
community led by local Interahamwe militia members. Among them were several
teachers and other state employees, people regarded as the leaders of the
community because of their superior education and positions of authority. All day
long they slaughtered the Tutsi. At 5 p.m., they quit for the day and "went home,
singing," according to one witness. They returned the next morning at 7 a.m. to
resume the killing. Each day, they appeared, like bureaucrats going to work, to
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continue the genocide. When several assistants to the burgomaster attempted to
halt the killing, the burgomaster delivered them over to the killers and they were
executed.
After several days of killing, the Interahamwe and their local supporters still
had not succeeded in breaking into the church. On April 20, Theodore
Sindikubwabo, the president of the so-called interim government created by Hutu
extremists at the start of the genocide, came to thank and encourage the killers.
One witness present that day related that Sindikubwabo promised that he would
send soldiers to help local people finish killing the Tutsi who were barricaded in
the church. He also promised that the people of Nyakizu would be rewarded for
their efforts. The next day, soldiers of the Presidential Guard, the elite troops most
committed to the genocide, arrived and helped the Interahamwe to break into the
church. It took the killers two days to finish massacring the several thousand
people who were inside. A small group of survivors who had fled to the top of a
nearby hill were killed the next day.
Several days later, the burgomaster ordered the local people to begin
burying the dead. He told them participation in the burial was required as
umuganda, a kind of labor tax which people were customarily obliged to perform
for the commune. In the course of the clean-up, a group of dead children were
tossed into a hole. One young girl, wounded but still alive, was thrown in with the
others. She cried out for help and, for more than a week, was kept alive by water
brought to her by other children. When the burgomaster learned of this, he
ordered the hole sealed.
After six days of burying cadavers, the local people refused to do any more
because the stench had become too overpowering. They hid in the bush when the
authorities came to call them to work. The prime minister of the interim
government, Jean Kambanda, arrived to help local authorities with the clean-up
problem, just as Sindikubwabo had done with the killings. Near the end of May he
came to deliver 200,000 Rwandan francs (about $1500) to pay for finishing the
burial. A part of the money bought beer for the workers, who were thus
encouraged to complete the disagreeable task. Most of the bodies were buried in
this final effort, but Human Rights Watch/Africa found fragments of human bone
still scattered all over the church grounds.
This testimony of official participation in the genocide accords with
evidence gathered elsewhere by Human Rights Watch/Africa. An army officer
played the decisive role, for example, in intensifying militia attacks on Tutsi in the
neighborhood of Nyamirambo, in Kigali, at the end of May. Tutsi who had been
hidden and protected by Hutu neighbors were finally killed after a new commander
was put in charge of the local military post. He ordered that the remaining Tutsi in
the area be slaughtered. Two were killed the day after he assumed command of
the post and some twenty others-all women-were assembled several days later
and machine-gunned in front of a row of hibiscus bushes. The bodies of several of
these women were thrown into a neighboring latrine, along with two babies who
were still alive.
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In a visit to the massacre site of Nyarubuye, in southeastern Rwanda, Human
Rights Watch/Africa found other evidence of military participation in the genocide.
In a church courtyard, hundreds of bodies still lay heaped together in mute
testimony to the horror of a final stampede to escape slaughter. Many of the victims
were killed by machete, hammer or club in the attack, which took place at the end
of April. But others were shot, apparently by members of the army of the former
government. On the ground were spent cartridges of bullets manufactured by the
Belgian National Arms factory. A canister of gun oil, produced at the same factory,
stood on the window sill of an adjacent building. Such materials are sold under
license by the Belgian government only to other governments and presumably had
been supplied to the former Rwandan government before a Belgian embargo on
arms sale to Rwanda went into effect in 1990.
KILLINGS BY THE RWANDAN PATRIOTIC ARMY
The Rwandan Patriotic Front ended the genocide by driving the former
government and its army from Rwanda. But as the RPF forces advanced, they
committed several massacres of unarmed and unresisting civilians, often in areas
where large numbers of Tutsi had perished in the genocide. In addition to
previously documented cases, Human Rights Watch/Africa has gathered
information on several others.
Local witnesses have compiled a list of 197 persons who disappeared from
the sectors of Rukina, Rwoga, Nyakogo, Munanira, Kirwa, Kadaho and Karambi,
commune of Masango, prefecture of Gitarama, during the months of July and
August. All are believed to have been killed by the RPA.
Residents in the commune of Tambwe, prefecture of Gitarama, indicate that
thirty-six persons were killed there by the RPA during the month of August. Other
sources report that sixteen civilians were killed in the sectors of Gahogo, Shyogwe,
Munyinya, Ruli and Gihuma, commune Nyamabuye. Some forty persons from the
sector of Remera, commune Mushubati, are said to have been killed and buried in
a mass grave next to the house of Jean Ubarijoro at Biti, in the commune of
Nyamabuye. They were all relatives or friends of Gabriel Hategekimana and his
wife Suzanne. Another thirty-six persons are missing and reported to have been
killed by the RPA in the sectors of Remera, Karama, Gikomero, Gatikabisi,
Gifumba, Mwaka and Muhanga of the commune of Mushubati. All of these
communes are located in the prefecture of Gitarama.
In another case that dates from the early days of the RPA victory, Human
Rights Watch/Africa investigated the killing of some sixty persons arrested at a
barrier in the Goma section of the town of Butare on the night of July 27 to 28. The
victims, who had previously fled to the west before the RPF advance, were en route
back to their home communes in four pick-up trucks. After their arrest, they were
taken to the Karubanda School for Social Workers, where they were executed.
Among the victims were eighteen members of the family of Nkiko Nsengimana, a
prominent member of civil society and opponent of the former Rwandan
government. Their murder appears to have been part of the generalized violence
directed against passers-by rather than a deliberate attack meant to injure and
intimidate a politically important leader.
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Two more recent massacres by the forces of the new government resulted
apparently from efforts to extend control over regions where their authority had
been previously unacknowledged. On October 25, RPA soldiers killed more than
thirty-five persons in the sector of Gicaranga, commune of Gisovu, prefecture of
Kibuye. This region, first controlled by French troops during Operation Tourquoise,
was subsequently supervised by UNAMIR soldiers who had left the day before the
killings. The UNAMIR soldiers, alerted to the massacre, returned to find the bodies,
one in a house, the others scattered in a tea field. Apparently others had already
been buried. The prefect of Kibuye, Lt. Col. Turagara, admitted that RPA troops
were responsible for the killings but sought to justify their actions by saying that the
local people had killed one of their soldiers.
In a similar incident, RPA soldiers killed nine people and wounded thirteen
others in a market place at Musebeya, Gikongoro prefecture, on November 11.
They say they shot in self-defense after their patrol of ten soldiers was attacked
by people in the crowd who threw stones and a grenade. UNAMIR troops
disarmed the RPA soldiers and escorted them to their base. Apparently, the
civilians involved in this incident were displaced persons from a local camp.
BLOCKAGE OF THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM
Shortly after assuming power in mid-July 1994, the new Rwandan
government announced its intention to prosecute all accused of killing during the
genocide. But because the former government fled with virtually all the funds and
most of the usable vehicles and equipment belonging to the state, the new
government has had virtually no resources to carry out an orderly investigation
and prosecution of the crimes. In addition, many judges and prosecutors were
killed during the genocide, were themselves implicated in the killings, or fled the
country. According to the Minister of Justice, thirty-six judges and fourteen
prosecutors and assistant prosecutors are still available for service. Of the
fourteen prosecutors, only three are trained jurists. There are only two functioning
prosecutors' offices, one in Kigali and one outside the capital.
One hundred and three police officers have been trained by UNAMIR and
have just been assigned to duty. But in most parts of the country there is no
civilian police and RPA soldiers are the only force maintaining law and order,
including arresting persons accused of genocide. Only a few of these soldiers
have been officially granted the status of police inspectors, which gives them legal
authority to investigate crimes and arrest civilians. Most soldiers enforcing the law
are unfamiliar with Rwandan judicial procedure and with those parts of the legal
code guaranteeing human rights. In these conditions, complicated by the anger,
fear and hatred consequent to the genocide, numerous and serious human rights
abuses have taken place.
Human Rights Watch/Africa documented dozens of cases of persons
arrested at night and without proper warrants, in violation of Rwandan law. It also
documented four cases of prisoners who were taken from detention facilities
during the night, a practice which is hard to explain except as an attempt to hide
their removal. These cases occurred during the month of October in Gitarama and
Cyangugu. In one. the prisoners were simply transferred to another, more secure
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facility, but in two other cases, Human Rights Watch/Africa was unable to learn
the destination of the prisoners that night or their whereabouts since. An
additional case reported to Human Rights Watch/Africa concerns a prisoner who
is moved from camp to camp, following the movements of the RPA officer who
arrested him, as if he formed part of his personal property.
The RPA soldiers arrest persons accused by others on the basis of the
denunciation rather than as a result of criminal investigations. A significant
number of these denunciations are false, motivated by hopes of personal profitespecially where questions of property are involved-or by the desire to settle
some private score. The public prosecutor for the capital of Kigali estimates that
as many as 20 percent of the prisoners now housed in Kigali Central Prison are
innocent.
Although Rwandan law requires that detained persons be brought before a
magistrate within forty-eight hours, the majority of the persons now in jail have not
been arraigned or even systematically interrogated. Of the 4,623 in Kigali prison
on November 1, only 1,224 had appeared before a magistrate. Some have been
in prison for as long as five months. The authorities have lacked the staff and the
office equipment to establish even an adequate register of persons detained. The
public prosecutor of Kigali, who is responsible for the largest prison in the country,
and his staff of five did all work until recently by hand; it was only in November
that they received the two manual typewriters and one computer, all gifts of
nongovernmental organizations, which will permit them to begin keeping track of
detained persons.
The three prisons under the control of the Ministry of Justice are severely
over-crowded. The prison in Kigali, built for a population of 1,500 housed over
5,000 in mid-November and additional prisoners were arriving at the rate of
between fifty and one hundred per day. Over one hundred women are housed apart
from the men. Ninety-five children are in the prison, some very young ones confined
with their mothers because there was no other adult to take responsibility for them.
About forty others-boys aged twelve to fifteen accused of killings-are housed with
the adult male prisoners. The similarly over-crowded facilities in Butare and
Gitarama held more than 2,700 and 800 respectively. The fortunate are crammed
into fetid, overcrowded barracks, but the rest are forced to spend the nights outside,
sleeping on the ground, even though it is now the rainy season and often rains
during the night. The World Food Program provides corn meal and beans to the
prisoners once a day, since the government has no money to buy food. Sanitary
conditions are deplorable and medical attention, provided by the International
Committee of the Red Cross, inadequate. Between two and seven prisoners die
each day at Kigali prison, most of them from dysentery. There are no ambulances
to take the most seriously ill to the hospital. Until recently, there were no vehicles to
transport the dead to the public cemetery and prisoners who had died were being
buried on the prison grounds.
Few prisoners in these jails showed evidence of recent torture or beatings,
although several at Butare prison claimed that prisoners had been beaten there
following an attempted escape. When Human Rights Watch/Africa visited the prison
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in late October, one prisoner showed a deep gash on the leg that had been inflicted
that day.
Miserable though conditions are in the Kigali jail, one prisoner said it was
"like paradise" compared to the place where he had been detained prior to his
transfer to the official prison. As many as 5,000 persons are detained in other
facilities: lock-ups at communal offices, jails at military camps, private houses,
latrines, and even shipping containers. Human Rights Watch/Africa questioned two
witnesses now in Kigali prison who had been transferred from a shipping container
on the outskirts of the city. They reported that thirty-eight persons had been
confined in the container for a month and a half. During that period three had died.
From all accounts collected by Human Rights Watch/Africa, beatings and torture
are frequent in these facilities which are not supervised by the Ministry of Justice
nor visited by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Human Rights Watch/Africa also took testimony concerning the arrest of
several men by RPA soldiers in the prefecture of Gitarama. They were detained first
in a residence occupied by the soldiers and then in the jail at the military camp in
the town of Gitarama. They displayed clear signs of having been beaten during their
detention. They reported that six soldiers of the former government army and about
eighty civilians were being detained at the military camp.
In a small number of cases, RPA soldiers have released persons detained by
civilian authorities, without having obtained their consent. But in general the
problem is the opposite: detained persons vegetate in jail with no immediate
prospect of the investigations or trials that would result in their release if they were
found innocent. Some ten detainees were released from Butare prison after RPA
soldiers, properly invested with the authority of court officials, investigated and
dismissed the charges against them. Another forty were released from Kigali prison
in early October by the judge Gratien Ruhorahoza, but most of them were detained
again by RPA soldiers. The judge himself, President of the Tribunal de Premiere
Instance in Kigali, was detained by RPA soldiers on the night of October 5, 1994,
and is believed to be held with charge in Kami military camp. Human Rights Watch
believes him to be a prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the non-violent
exercise of his freedom of conscience and expression, and is calling for his
immediate and unconditional release.
Rwandan authorities, including the President of the Republic, Pasteur
Bizimungu, and the Minister of Justice, Alphonse-Marie Nkubito, have appealed for
the assistance of judges and prosecutors from other countries to begin the
enormous task of investigating and prosecuting the persons charged with genocide.
After months of delay, it appears that such help may finally be forthcoming.
The Kigali prosecutor has issued warrants for the arrest of a number of
persons accused of having played a major role in the genocide. Two of these
persons are now in Zaire, two in Belgium and one in Kenya.
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DISAPPEARANCES AND SUMMARY EXECUTIONS
In all communities visited by Human Rights Watch/Africa in the northwest,
central, west, south and southeast of Rwanda, witnesses reported that persons
accused of having played important roles in the genocide have been taken away by
RPA soldiers. Among the more recent cases reported to Human Rights
Watch/Africa was the arrest of Aphrodis Mugambira, a well-known businessman
from Kibuye, who was removed from the Hotel Kiyovu in Kigali on October 23. In
another case, seventeen persons were taken during the night of October 26, 1994,
all from the sector Kimegeri of Mukingi commune, in the prefecture of Gitarama.
They were reportedly detained in the lock-up of the commune and in a house
occupied by RPA soldiers behind the office of the commune. One of the seventeen,
a man named Leonidas Hategekimana, was so badly beaten that he died the next
day. During the night of October 29, another four persons were arrested from the
same sector, and the day after that a teacher named Marie Therese Iyamuremye,
wife of a man detained in the original group of seventeen, was also arrested by
three RPA soldiers and imprisoned at the commune.
According to a UNAMIR officer, three RPA soldiers shot four prisoners whom
they were transferring from the commune of Gisovu to the prefectural center of
Kibuye on October 18. The RPA soldiers said the prisoners had tried to escape, but
all were apparently shot in the head which, if true, makes it unlikely that they were
shot while fleeing.
Many of the persons taken away by soldiers of the RPA have more
education or more property than most of their neighbors. A substantial number are
or were employed by the state or by some international agency. They are people of
standing and their disappearance or killing has significant impact on their
communities. One notable example is Judge Ruhorahoza, mentioned above. Given
that the genocide was directed from the top down, it is not surprising that persons
of local importance are among the first accused of having played a leading role in
the killing. But the removal of such persons has generated fear that this is more a
campaign to eliminate leaders who might cause problems for the new authorities
than an effort to bring those responsible for the genocide to justice. The
government has failed to notify families of detainees of their whereabouts, in part
because it has no adequate means of registering and tracking even those jailed in
official prisons. There is still less likelihood that authorities will keep track of those
detained in unofficial facilities. In the current atmosphere of fear and tension,
families and friends of the disappeared usually assume that they have been
executed. In fact, substantial numbers of the disappeared may be alive in jails or
irregular detention sites.
The case of Antoine Sibomana, the former burgomaster of Mbazi commune, in
the southern prefecture of Butare illustrates this pattern. Sibomana was arrested by
the RPA on September 10 and was widely rumored to have been killed. Three days
before, he had returned from a displaced persons' camp in the neighboring
prefecture of Gikongoro, bringing some four hundred of the people of his commune
along with him. Sibomana, a graduate in anthropology from Laval University in
Canada, was widely acknowledged to have played an honorable role in attempting to
limit the genocide in Mbazi. He had protected many Tutsi, as well as such others as
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December 1994. Vol. 6, No. 12
the children of the human rights activist Monique Mujawamariya. Assured by the
authorities that his innocence was recognized, he had returned home expecting to
continue his work as burgomaster. News of his arrest soon after spread quickly and
Human Rights Watch/Africa was notified that he had been executed. In fact, he was
imprisoned in Butare jail, where he is still awaiting trial. He is ill, apparently from
complications of severe diabetes, but has received medical attention and has been
transported to the local hospital where he was treated by an Italian physician. When
visited by Human Rights Watch/Africa, Sibomana affirmed his innocence but added
that he bore no resentment to the authorities who had arrested him. He understood
how they might have to treat all former officials with suspicion until given the time and
means to investigate their actual behavior. He hopes only for a speedy trial to clear
his name. Human Rights Watch believes his detention to have been arbitrary. In the
absence of formal charges or evidence that he has committed any crime, Human
Rights Watch is calling for his immediate release as a prisoner of conscience,
detained solely for the exercise of his fundamental human rights.
THE QUESTION OF PROPERTY
The new government quickly recognized the primacy of the rights of current
property owners. But an influx of more than three hundred thousand refugees, most
of whom had been living in exile since the earlier Tutsi exodus of the 1960's, has
made government policy virtually unenforceable. The new arrivals have occupied
apparently vacant property, residential, commercial and agricultural, in various
parts of the country. The problem is most critical in Kigali, where more than half the
property is apparently occupied by squatters. Original owners who return and seek
to re-occupy their holdings rarely succeed without serious difficulty. The
government has established a commission to resolve property disputes but,
according to Minister of the Interior Seth Sendashonga, only about 30 per cent of its
decisions have been complied with. Human Rights Watch/Africa documented a
number of cases where property owners were threatened, attacked, or falsely
accused when they attempted to repossess their property. The majority of such
victims are Hutu, but cases involving Tutsi victims were also reported to Human
Rights Watch/Africa. In such cases, the initial dispute over property rights may lead
to more serious violations as squatters enlist RPA soldiers to "arrest" or simply kill
troublesome proprietors, often for a price. Because the RPA soldiers receive no
government salary, they are susceptible to such offers and they increasingly
participate as well in small-scale extortion and banditry to fill their pockets.
BRINGING RPA SOLDIERS TO JUSTICE
The government has arrested more than one hundred RPA soldiers charged
with killings or other human rights violations. According to a report made to the U.N.
special rapporteur, investigations have been completed in some twenty of these
cases. Among those under arrest are Major Bigabiro, reportedly responsible for
killing civilians and mentioned in a previous report by Human Rights Watch/Africa,
and Lieutenant Auther Butare, accused of a killing for vengeance. A list of accused
soldiers obtained by Human Rights Watch/Africa in early November includes mostly
corporals and privates.
The government has established two jurisdictions for judging soldiers, a War
Council and a Military Court, whose decisions may be appealed in the civilian
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judicial system. It has also set up a military police system and has adopted a policy
of restricting insubordinate soldiers to a training camp.
MONITORING THE HUMAN RIGHTS SITU ATION
The government of Rwanda has repeatedly committed itself to permitting
free monitoring of human rights throughout the country. On a number of occasions,
however, RPA troops have forbidden UNAMIR troops or U.N. human rights
monitors access to certain sectors where abuses have reportedly taken place,
particularly in the southern prefecture of Butare. General Tousignant, for example,
had to insist in order to overcome the initial refusal of RPA soldiers to permit access
to the site where a Canadian priest was murdered in October.
Representatives of Rwandan human rights groups have been granted
permission to visit prisons, including those on the grounds of military camps. But
one such monitor, Jean-Paul Biramvu, was arrested in Cyangugu in early
November, supposedly because the papers for his vehicle were not in order. In fact,
his detention may have had more to do with his visit the day before to Butare prison
in the company of Human Rights Watch/Africa. Biramvu was transported to Kigali
under guard several days after his arrest and after protests by his colleagues in the
capital. There he spent another night in detention before being released promptly
the next morning by an officer of the general staff. Biramvu was not injured or
threatened but his arrest in these suspicious circumstances could well have been
meant to discourage him and his colleagues from pursuing their work.
THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
The first reaction of the international community to the genocide, a rapid
retreat, betrayed the faith of many Rwandans who had looked to the United Nations
for protection. In past times of tension, when opponents of the Habyarimana faction
felt themselves in danger, they had left Kigali altogether or had taken other
precautions, such as not sleeping in their own homes at night. But in early April,
people at risk had remained in Kigali even though there had been obvious
preparations for an attack against them. When Human Rights Watch/Africa asked
the survivors of the massacres why they had stayed in the city, they all replied that
they had not been able to imagine the UNAMIR troops standing by while Rwandans
were massacred.
After nearly six weeks of slaughter and the loss of hundreds of thousands of
lives, the United Nations reversed its tragic decision to withdraw and voted on May
17 to send an expanded UNAMIR back to Rwanda with a more extensive mandate.
It took six months to complete deployment of the force, a process that was finished
just as the UNAMIR mandate was about to expire. The delay in deployment
resulted from inefficiency, inertia and indifference at the United Nations itself; the
complications of applying a new United States policy on peace-keeping operations;
and the haggling of various member nations seeking to maximize the profit that
could be obtained from their participation in the operation.
The May 17th mandate directed the new UNAMIR to "contribute to the
security and protection of displaced persons, refugees and civilians at risk in
Rwanda." Its soldiers have sometimes failed in that task. UNAMIR soldiers did not
intervene, for example, when RPA soldiers fired into a crowd of civilians at the
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Ndaba displaced persons' camp, wounding four. They failed to react when RPA
soldiers savagely beat civilians who returned to the camp to try to recover their
belongings. Nor have UNAMIR soldiers taken action to protect detainees being
beaten by RPA soldiers at Rubengera, in Kibuye prefecture. In some cases,
UNAMIR has sought to respond to reports of alleged abuses by the RPA but has
been prevented by RPA soldiers from entering the regions in question. Recently
UNAMIR soldiers appeared more ready to act to protect civilians at risk. On
November 11, they disarmed RPA soldiers who had killed nine civilians at
Musebeya in Gikongoro (see above) and escorted them back to their camp.
The Security Council on November 30 extended the UNAMIR mandate for
another six months and added to its charge responsibility for protecting personnel
of the International Tribunal and human rights monitors and for assisting in the
training of a national police force. Although the reputation of UNAMIR was tarnished
by its inaction during the genocide and by its failure to intervene in several cases of
blatant abuse by RPA soldiers since then, many Rwandans still view the
international soldiers as their best hope of protection in a highly insecure situation.
According to UN officials and representatives of humanitarian associations,
displaced persons are most willing to return to those areas where they are sure UN
forces have been deployed.
Given that genocide constitutes the ultimate violation of human rights, United
Nations organs and agencies charged with the protection of human rights should
have intervened promptly and forcefully in Rwanda. But, in fact, their performance
has been as unsatisfactory as that of the military forces. Seven weeks after the
genocide began, the United Nations Human Rights Commission voted to name both
a special rapporteur and human rights field officers to investigate the genocide and
the current situation. It was expected that the presence of the field officers,
generally called monitors, would help deter abuses. One monitor was put in place
on June 10, but she remained alone for two months, a single person to attempt to
discourage and investigate abuses for a population of some five million people.
Until late August, she had no vehicle, no communications equipment and no
computer.
Over the next three months, several dozen more monitors arrived and
clustered in the capital city. None received any training, either in methodology or in
the particular circumstances of the Rwandan case, a serious lack given that many
had no previous field experience in monitoring human rights. By the end of October,
some fifty monitors were in Kigali, but only a few Rwandans-most of them officialsknew that they were there. During the last week of October and the first week of
November, several dozen Rwandans sought assistance from Human Rights
Watch/Africa in dealing with cases of human rights abuse. Not one had ever heard
of the United Nations Human Rights monitors. Nor had the monitors established
any links with Rwandan human rights organizations. Several monitors were
surprised to learn from Human Rights Watch/Africa that such organizations existed.
The first two teams of monitors were deployed outside the capital at the end
of October. Five more teams were deployed in the prefectures at the end of
November. It took six months from the time the Human Rights Commission
established their posts to get some thirty monitors equipped with vehicles and
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December 1994. Vol. 6, No. 12
communication equipment in the field. They still had had no training. In August, the
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ayala Lasso had reached an
agreement with the Rwandan government that provided for the establishment of
147 monitors, a number equal to the number of communes in the country. Each
commune has a population of some fifty thousand people. But by mid-November,
U.N. officials were saying that monitors would never be numerous enough to be
deployed at the level of the communes. At best, they would be deployed in the subprefectures, units that encompassed some 250,000 people.
The investigative effort to gather evidence of the genocide has not fared
much better. As the special rapporteur remarked in his report of November 11,
commenting on his conclusions after a recent visit to Rwanda, "The genocide is
confirmed, but the investigation of the genocide is considerably delayed." The
Human Rights Commission had made the rapporteur and the monitors responsible
for this investigation, but a special investigative unit to document the genocide was
set up among the monitors only at the end of October. In addition a three-person
Commission of Experts was established by the Security Council in July to
investigate the genocide. They amassed enough evidence to conclude that both
parties to the Rwandan conflict had been guilty of large-scale killings and that the
former Rwandan government was guilty of genocide. But they did not carry out an
organized effort to prove accusations against a large number of persons. Their
efforts ended when their mandate expired on November 30. The United States sent
a team of investigators in September who gathered some evidence and Spain
provided forensic physicians to evaluate several massacre sites. But such efforts
hardly approach the large scale organized investigation needed to document the
genocide of more than half-a-million people.
One reason for the slow and troubled beginning of the human rights effort
was lack of funds. In August Ayala Lasso had called for $10 million to pay for the
human rights work in Rwanda. By December 5, only seventeen nations had
responded to his appeal, with pledges amounting to just over $4 million, and of the
seventeen, only five (Ireland, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United
Kingdom) had actually paid their pledges. The United States had promised
$750,000, which was making its way to the relevant account and several other
nations (Finland, Germany, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, the United States) had
delivered services in kind. In actual dollars received, the U.N. human rights
monitoring effort had actually collected just over one half a million dollars. It had
been able to mount its effort, restricted as it was, only because of a $3 million loan
from the U.N. Department of Humanitarian Affairs. As of early December, the High
Commissioner told Human Rights Watch/Africa that only about $45,000 was left in
the account for Rwanda. The contracts for the first group of monitors expire in midDecember and the Human Rights Center may find itself unable to renew them
unless more money is forthcoming immediately. If the funds are not received, the
program may risk being dismantled even before it is fully in place.
But the difficulties were not solely financial. The special rapporteur points to
personal conflicts and to ambiguity in instructions from the center as other reasons
for the unsatisfactory performance. A number of observers had traced difficulties to
differences between the new High Commissioner for Human Rights and the head of
the Human Rights Center, Ibrahima Fall. In addition, there appear to have been
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difficulties of communication between the rapporteur, the Human Rights Center and
the Commission of Experts. In the midst of this bureaucratic tangle, important
documents may have been lost. Certainly much time was lost and, in the Rwandan
context, time lost meant lives lost because monitors were not present to deter
abuses.
The new government of Rwanda inherited little but debts from its
predecessor. Clearly unable to mount an effective administration with so few
resources, it called upon donor nations for aid in funds and personnel. Although the
international community has responded generously to the needs of Rwandans in
refugee camps outside the country, with the United States alone contributing
approximately half a billion dollars, it has not yet delivered any substantial aid to the
new government. According to well-placed sources within the European Union
France initially made clear an intention to block any significant assistance from
that body. Other donors hesitated as well, many of them concerned about how
representative the new government was and about reports of human rights
violations by the RPF.
By the end of November, several donors, including the United States, the
Netherlands and Denmark, had decided to assist the new government. The United
States spearheaded efforts to raise the $9 million in arrears that had to be repaid
to the World Bank-money owed by the former government-in order to obtain
release of more than two hundred million dollars previously earmarked for
Rwanda. In addition, the United States decided upon $4 million in direct
assistance, a substantial part of it for support of the Rwandan judicial system. Part
of that money is to pay the expenses of foreign judges to work temporarily in
Rwanda. Other countries, including Belgium, are reportedly considering some
form of direct assistance to the judicial system as well. Even France has modified
its position, permitting the European Union to act unanimously in approving 67
million Ecus of aid for Rwanda. A portion of that money was earmarked for
supporting the human rights monitors. The aid should be delivered promptly and
the government of Rwanda should use it effectively to establish a state of law,
bringing to an end the abuses of the last four months.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Government of Rwanda should
? Act immediately and forcefully to end arbitrary killings and other human rights
abuses by RPA soldiers and by civilians.
? Arrest and prosecute soldiers accused of summary executions and other
arbitrary killings.
? Devote the highest priority to establishing an effective civilian administration
and civilian police. Withdraw soldiers to their barracks, limiting them to military
duties.
? Begin trials of those accused of genocide as quickly as possible. Work out
practical arrangements for making use of expatriate jurists and investigators to
facilitate prosecution of the accused.
? Expedite a process of judicial review of the cases of those held without charge,
so that those who have been the object of patently false accusations can be
promptly released and those against whom substantial evidence exists can be
formally charged and brought to trial.
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December 1994. Vol. 6, No. 12
Release unconditionally all prisoners of conscience, including Judge Gratien
Ruhorahoza, former burgomaster Antoine Sibomana and former ambassador
Sylvestre Kamali.
? Ensure that arrests are carried out according to due process and that families
of detainees are promptly notified of their arrest and place of detention.
Maintain and make public an up-to-date register of all persons arrested and
publicize the availability of this information for anyone who seeks to locate
persons who have disappeared.
? Open additional prison facilities under the Ministry of Justice and move all
civilian detainees out of military camps and other irregular and inappropriate
places of detention. Ensure that detainees and prisoners are kept in humane
conditions.
? Provide appropriate facilities to care for children now in prison and charged
with no crime. Remove to facilities separate from adult prisoners children
accused of taking part in the killings.
? Prevent the use of unnecessary and excessive force in closing displaced
persons' camps.
? Increase the number and effectiveness of commissions settling disputes over
property and provide an effective appeals process through the courts for those
dissatisfied with their decisions.
? Continue and implement throughout the country the policy of openness to
human rights monitoring.
The International Community should
? Provide the resources, whether financial or human, to support the above
measures vital to securing the basic human rights of the Rwandan population.
The United Nations should
? Act to restore security in the refugee camps so that the rights of refugees are
protected, including their right to life and their right to return home. The Security
Council must act immediately to provide the appropriate mandate and the
necessary means to separate the government-in-exile's military and militia from
the refugee population.
? Protect the rights of displaced persons in Rwanda, ensuring that camps are
closed without injury or loss of life. The local United Nations agencies, including
UNAMIR; UNHCR and the UN Human Rights Center must coordinate their
activities to ensure the secure return of the displaced to their home
communities.
? Improve the effectiveness of the human rights operation in Rwanda by Providing adequate funds promptly
-Training monitors
-Rapidly deploying monitors into the communes
-Increasing collaboration with Rwandan authorities and human rights
activists
-Publicizing the presence and purpose of the monitors, including by radio
and newspaper, and facilitating access to them for ordinary Rwandans
-Ensuring that representatives of other U.N. agencies, including officers of
UNAMIR, report violations immediately to monitors
? Provide the necessary resources for the International Tribunal to investigate and
prosecute promptly those accused of directing the genocide.
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December 1994. Vol. 6, No. 12
Human Rights Watch/Africa (formerly Africa Watch)
Human Rights Watch is a nongovernmental organisation established in 1978 to
monitor and promote the observance of internationally recognised human rights in
Africa, the Americas, Asia, the Middle East and among the signatories of the
Helsinki accords. It is supported by contributions from private individuals and
foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly.
Kenneth Roth is the executive director; Cynthia Brown is the program director;
Holly J. Burkhalter is the advocacy director; Gara LaMarche is the associate
director: Juan E. Méndez is general counsel; Susan Osnos is the communications
director; and Derrick Wong is the finance and administration director. Robert L.
Bernstein is the chair of the board and Adrian W. DeWind is vice chair. Its Africa
division was established in 1988 to monitor and promote the observance of
internationally recognised human rights in sub-Saharan Africa. Abdullahi An-Na'im
is the executive director; Janet Fleischman is the Washington representative;
Karen Sorensen, Alex Vines and Berhane Woldegabriel are research associates;
Kimberly Mazyck and Urmi Shah are-associates; Bronwen Manby and Alison
DesForges are consultants. William Carmichael is the chair of the advisory
committee and Alice Brown is the vice chair.
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH/AFRICA PUBLICATIONS Volume 6 (1994) newsletters
(A601) Arming Rwanda: The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan
War, 1/94, $7.00 (A602) South Africa: Impunity for Human Rights Abuses in
Two Homelands, 3/94, $3.00
(A603) Liberia: Human Rights Abuses by the Liberian Peace Council and the Need for
International Oversight, 5/94, $3.00
(A604) Genocide in Rwanda: April-May 1994, 5/94, $3.00
(A605) Multipartyism Betrayed in Kenya: Continuing Rural Violence and Restrictions
on Freedom of Speech and Assembly, 7/94, $5.00
(A606) Human Rights in Africa and U.S. Policy: A Special Report by Human Rights
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1994, 7/94, $5.00
(A607) Second Class Citizens: Discrimination Against Women Under Botswana's
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"The Dawn of a New Dark Age": Human Rights Abuses Rampant as
Nigeria's Military Declares Absolute Power, 10/94, $3.00
(A609)
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"In the Name of God": Repression Continues in Northern Sudan, 11/94,
The Lost Boys: Child Soldiers and Unaccompanied Boys in Southern
Sudan, 11/94, $3.00 (A611) Ethiopia: Reckoning Under the Law, 12/94,
$5.00
(A612) Rwanda: A New Catastrophe?, 12/94, $3.00
Human Rights Watch/Africa
21
December 1994. Vol. 6, No. 12
