Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/rwanda.txt

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TITLE:  RWANDA HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE:  FEBRUARY 1995

                             RWANDA


The coalition Government of Rwanda includes 22 ministers drawn
from 5 political parties.  Nine of the ministers are from the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a former exile movement that
took military control of Rwanda in July in the wake of ethnic
genocide and 4 months of renewed civil war.  Approximately half
a million people, most of them ethnic Tutsi, were murdered in
one of the swiftest, large-scale genocides in modern history.
President Pasteur Bizimungu of the majority Hutu ethnic group
and Vice President Paul Kagame of the minority Tutsi ethnic
group are both members of the RPF, a largely Tutsi movement.
Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, an ethnic Hutu named in
the August 1993 Arusha Accord to head a transition Government,
is a member of the Republican Democratic Movement (MDR) party.
Prime Minister Twagiramungu and the Council of Ministers run
the Government on a day-to-day basis.  Vice President Kagame,
who is Minister of Defense, is responsible for security and
military defense.

The Government faces the task of rebuilding a country shattered
by a cycle of assassination, civil war, genocide, and refugee
outflows of massive proportions.  The 1990 invasion by the RPF
inflamed the long-simmering ethnic rivalries between the Hutu
(85 percent) and Tutsi (14 percent) populations.  The Arusha
Accord, signed by both the RPF and the former government headed
by then President Juvenal Habyarimana, was intended to promote
powersharing, ensure integration of the rebel and government
armies, ease ethnic tensions, and lead to democratic elections.

This effort ended with the crash under suspicious circumstances
of President Habyarimana's aircraft on April 6, which also took
the life of Burundi's President, Cyprien Ntaryamira.  The death
of Habyarimana, who had ruled Rwanda since a 1973 military
coup, unleashed a torrent of political and ethnic killings
nationwide.  Hutu extremists formed a self-proclaimed interim
government, and they and their supporters massacred hundreds of
thousands of people, mostly Tutsi civilians and members of the
Hutu opposition.  Political militias affiliated with
Habyarimana's National Revolutionary Movement for Democracy and
Development (MRND) and the allied Coalition for the Defense of
the Republic (CDR) and elements of the (former) Rwandan
military (FAR) carried out the massacres.

The RPF responded with a military offensive that routed the
Hutu army in July, causing the wholesale flight of Hutu
civilians who feared Tutsi reprisals.  The violence uprooted
two-thirds of the population.  In addition to the more than
2 million persons who fled into neighboring Zaire, Tanzania,
and Burundi, as many as 2 million fled their homes to other
parts of the country.

The new Government called for national reconciliation and
sought to promote refugee repatriation as a necessary first
step.  The RPF leadership stressed its commitment to key
provisions of the Arusha Accord, including the sanctity of
property rights and the integration of the FAR and the Rwandan
Patriotic Army (RPA), the RPF's military arm.  The Government
promised to cooperate with the U.N. international tribunal that
was created on November 8 by Resolution 955 to investigate and
prosecute those responsible for genocide, war crimes, and other
serious violations of international humanitarian law committed
in Rwanda and neighboring states.

The Ministries of Territorial Administration and Defense of the
new Government have responsibility for security matters.  With
United Nations assistance, the Government has recruited and
trained civilian police (gendarmes) to provide internal
security.  The RPA nonetheless remains the chief guarantor of
internal security, including control over camps for the
internally displaced and centers for processing returning
refugees, but by year's end it had assumed a lower public
profile.

The economic situation is extremely difficult.  The
overwhelming majority of Rwandans are subsistence farmers.
Their massive dislocation caused disruption of the crop cycle
and led to widespread food shortages in this densely populated
country where prewar food production barely kept pace with
population growth.  Violent conflict damaged much of the
national infrastructure, including utilities, schools, and
hospitals, and killed or drove into exile many educated
Rwandans.  For the foreseeable future, the economy will depend
heavily on foreign humanitarian, economic, and technical
assistance.

The renewal of violence in April set into motion an
unprecedented wave of genocide and other human rights abuses
directed primarily at the ethnic Tutsi minority population and
Hutu opposition.  The self-proclaimed interim extremist Hutu
government and its extremist supporters massacred approximately
half a million civilians and committed innumerable related
human rights abuses, including torture, mutilation, and rape.
In the wake of the Tutsi-led military victory in July,
additional human rights abuses occurred, although on a far
smaller scale.  RPA soldiers and Tutsi civilians committed
random revenge killings and seized, occupied, or destroyed
property owned by (principally Hutu) refugees and displaced
persons.

Many Hutu refugees and displaced persons still fear
repatriation, in part based on intimidation of would be
returnees in refugee camps by Hutu extremists who disseminate
anti-Tutsi hate propaganda and, in part based on fear of
reprisal.  Members of the former self-proclaimed Hutu extremist
interim government and the ex-FAR threaten to rearm and renew
the civil war; a small number of crossborder incursions have
occurred.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killings

President Habyarimana's death on April 6 provoked killings of a
magnitude unprecedented in Rwandan history.  Within a half-hour
of the plane crash, and before any public announcement, Hutu
militiamen and soldiers had constructed roadblocks in Kigali
and commenced targeted killings.  Using preexisting lists of
persons to be executed, members of the 700-man Presidential
Guard and their extremist Hutu civilian supporters unleashed a
systematic campaign of murder and genocide, killing Hutu Prime
Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and other ministers, plus
hundreds of Tutsi and Hutu opposition leaders and their
families.  Over the next four months approximately half a
million people, most of them ethnic Tutsi, were murdered in one
of the swiftest, large-scale genocides in modern history.
Foreigners were also targeted and killed.  Troops from the
Presidential Guard executed 10 Belgian soldiers from the United
Nations Armed Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) peacekeeping force
responsible for security assistance and implementation of the
Arusha Accord.  The troops also killed two French gendarmes and
their wives.

Some RPF supporters also committed extrajudicial killings.  In
June, 3 RPA soldiers murdered 13 Hutu priests, including the
Archbishop of Kigali, in Kabgayi.  Hutu refugees in Tanzania
reported that RPA troops summarily executed Hutu civilians
following the April RPF conquest of southeastern Rwanda.  There
were also scattered reports that RPA soldiers summarily
executed FAR and Hutu supporters.  During the battle for
Kigali, the widespread killing abated.  Following the RPF
military triumph in July, RPF soldiers and Tutsi civilians
reportedly killed an unknown number of Hutus.  There is no
evidence that the new Government condoned or sanctioned these
acts.  During the civil war, General Paul Kagame--the commander
of the RPA and current Vice President and Minister of
Defense--enforced tight discipline over his troops.  After the
fighting, he visited units in the countryside, exhorting them
to respect applicable laws.  The RPF executed at least
3 soldiers found guilty of atrocities and detained about 100
others.

     b.  Disappearance

There were tens of thousands of disappearances, almost all of
them undocumented.  From April through June, soldiers of the
former army and militia seized civilians in churches, hotels,
and stadiums.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

Torture is contrary to the Constitution and Arusha Peace
Accord, which together constitute the fundamental law of the
land.  Perpetrators of the initial surge of violence reportedly
tortured many victims before killing them.  Hutu extremists
disposed of the corpses of thousands of victims in the Kagera
River; many were found mutilated, headless, or with their hands
bound behind their backs.  Some refugees who fled to Burundi,
Tanzania, and Zaire in the days following Habyarimana's death
suffered machete or bullet wounds.  FAR soldiers and militiamen
frequently raped women; there are reports of rape by RPF
soldiers as well.  In postwar operations, RPA soldiers tied the
elbows of prisoners behind their backs in a manner that caused
severe pain and in some instances permanent physical injury.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has regular
access to prisoners, and U.N. officials visited camps where the
Government seeks to integrate into the new national army former
FAR soldiers who surrendered in the war.  Living conditions in
these camps are good.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

The law provides legal safeguards for arrested persons, but in
practice they are rarely applied.  In general, the law requires
that authorities investigate, then obtain a judicial warrant
before arresting a suspect.  Although police may detain persons
for up to 48 hours without a warrant, formal charges must be
brought within 5 days of arrest.

The law permits preventive detention only if authorities
believe public safety is threatened, if the accused might flee,
or if the penalty carries a minimum sentence of 6 months.
Courts may prolong detention indefinitely, but judicial review
is mandatory every 30 days.  Detainees may appeal their
incarceration, and a competent judicial authority must hear
this appeal within 24 hours.  These procedures apply to all
persons, and failure to meet any of these requirements
constitutes grounds for release of the arrested person and
dismissal of the case.  There is no bail, but in the past
authorities released suspects on their own recognizance pending
trial.  Incommunicado detention is not practiced.

Security forces of the self-proclaimed interim government
ignored laws covering arrest, detention, and trial in the
explosion of political and ethnic violence in April which
decimated the judicial system (only 40 of 800 magistrates
remained in place following the upheaval).  The ensuing chaos
brought about the collapse of the justice system, making
enforcement of existing laws impossible.  The parallel collapse
of the criminal investigation system further hampered the
application of law, and the breakdown of the court system
created a large backlog of cases that courts cannot try
expeditiously.  In all likelihood, many prisoners will await
trial for very long periods of time.  Illegal detentions in
criminal cases continue to occur.

The new Government supported the work of a Special
Investigations Unit after the creation by the United Nations
Security Council of a special international tribunal to help
the Rwandan Government adjudicate the huge backlog of criminal
cases stemming from human rights atrocities that began in early
1994 and increased following Habyarimana's death.  At year's
end, the international tribunal had not yet commenced
full-scale investigations nor sought the detention of any
person involved in the massacres.

During the renewed military conflict, Hutu militants detained
several thousand Tutsi prisoners in stadiums in Kigali and
Cyangugu without adequate food, clean water, sanitary
facilities or shelter.  Between the July RPF declaration of a
cease-fire and the end of the year, the new Government jailed
more than 12,000 prisoners suspected of war crimes or genocide,
holding 7,400 of them in the Kigali Central Prison and the
remainder in other facilities.  Journalists who visited these
prisoners reported severe overcrowding and harsh, life-
threatening conditions.  Some detainees were reportedly held in
military camps rather than prison facilities.

Officially, exile is not practiced, but in actuality tens of
thousands of Tutsis lived in de facto exile for over 30 years
in neighboring countries during rule by a succession of
Hutu-dominated governments.  As many as 400,000 to 600,000
returned following the RPF victory.  The Arusha Accord
incorporates into law the right of return, and a 1991 law
granted blanket amnesty to refugees and exiles who wished to
repatriate.  Currently, there are more than 2 million Hutu
refugees in neighboring countries.  The Government has publicly
stated that they are free to return and has solicited their
repatriation.  In October the Government signed a tripartite
repatriation accord with the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Government of Zaire.  However,
anti-Tutsi propaganda and extremist Hutu intimidation in the
refugee camps, and reprisal attacks on Hutus by RPF soldiers
and Tutsi civilians inside Rwanda have thus far deterred
large-scale refugee returns, although an increasing number of
refugees had begun to return at year's end under the auspices
of UNHCR.  The Government has not offered amnesty nor pardon
for those suspected of genocide or atrocities.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

At year's end, the Ministry of Justice had drafted and was
working with foreign donors to fund and implement a plan to
rebuild the judiciary.  However, few trials had yet taken
place.  The pre-April judicial system had separate systems for
criminal/civil cases and military cases.  Decisions could be
appealed to the regional court of appeals.  At the request of
defendants or their counsel, the Cour de Cassation reviewed
civil and criminal cases for errors in procedure or in the
application of the law.  Errors resulted in retrial by another
panel of judges.  Although the Constitution provides defendants
with the right to counsel, many were denied counsel due to the
shortage of lawyers.

The pre-April judicial system was susceptible to government
manipulation in spite of constitutional provisions for an
independent judiciary.  The low educational level of most
judicial officials, budgetary constraints, and the absence of a
body of case law and precedent further eroded the functioning
of the judicial system.  The outbreak of genocide and renewed
civil war following Habyarimana's death led to the total
collapse of the judicial system.

The RPF maintained a system of military justice that operated
outside the structures of constitutional law; during the April
to July military offensive, RPF military tribunals ordered the
execution of at least three RPA soldiers for human rights
abuses against civilians.

There were no reports of political prisoners.  The Government
has stated that supporters of the MRND and CDR parties
currently in detention were arrested for criminal rather than
political offenses.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Constitution provides for the respect of privacy of
individuals, correspondence, and communications and declares
that the home is inviolable.  Police generally respected these
provisions before the events of April.  In the 3-month period
that followed, political and military officials of the interim
government abandoned any pretense of respecting privacy laws
and committed wholesale abuses.

There are no reports that the new Government interfered with
these rights, nor does it reportedly engage in surveillance of
political parties, associations, or individuals.  However, Hutu
civilians and displaced persons in the northwest and southwest
complained of abuses by RPA troops searching for weapons and
suspected war criminals.  After capturing Kigali, both RPA
soldiers and civilians committed widespread looting and
vandalism.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

In the 2 weeks following the crash of the airplane carrying
President Habyarimana, killing spread rapidly throughout the
country.  Within a week, the Presidential Guard and militia had
killed an estimated 20,000 people in Kigali and its immediate
environs.  Extremist Hutu radio broadcasts called for Hutus to
exterminate all Tutsis, and politically targeted killing gave
way to general massacre of both Tutsis and those Hutus who
supported the powersharing formulas of the Arusha Accord.
Militiamen from outlying provinces joined extremists from
Kigali in urging Hutu civilians to participate in the
massacres.  Hutus engaged in the mass killing of Tutsis from
Ruhengeri and Gisenyi in the north to Cyangugu in the south.
Among the most egregious events reported were:  instances in
which the Interahamwe Militia assembled and massacred 15,000
Tutsis in a stadium in Gatwaro, Kibuye; the killing of 2,800
persons in a church in Kibungo; of 6,000 Tutsis in a church in
Cyahinde where they had taken refuge; of 4,000 in a church in
Kibeho; of 2,000 in a parish in Mibirizi; of 4,000 in a parish
in Shangi; and 500 Tutsis killed by Interahamwe militia and
gendarmes in a parish in Rukara.

On April 19, a second wave of killing of Tutsis by Hutus began
in the southern city of Butare following the self-proclaimed
interim (post-Habyarimana) government's dismissal of the local
prefect who had until then maintained order in his district.

The massacres included house-to-house sweeps in which Hutu
militants killed entire families, summarily executed Tutsis at
military or militia roadblocks, murdered doctors and priests in
hospitals and churches, and slaughtered civilians who had
sought sanctuary in churches and religious missions.
Assailants used guns, grenades, machetes, hoes, and clubs.
Survivors eventually buried most victims in unmarked, mass
graves, but perpetrators cast thousands of corpses--many of
them severely mutilated--into the Kagera River.  The killers
often stole the property of their victims after killing them.
Although militiamen and soldiers did much of the killing, there
are credible reports that large numbers of civilians also
committed atrocities.

Some implicated in the killings charged that extremists
threatened to kill them and their families unless they joined
in attacks on Tutsi neighbors.  An unknown number of Hutus were
killed for attempting to protect or harbor Tutsis.  Some Hutu
civilians, including women and children, reportedly attacked
Tutsi civilians only after local government authorities ordered
them to do so.

Both former government and RPF supporters committed numerous
individual acts of human rights abuse in addition to the
organized cycle of genocide and revenge killings that swept the
country.  Nonsystematic killings committed by RPF soldiers
constituted a small fraction of the those committed by FAR and
Hutu militia.  Former FAR troops and their civilian auxiliaries
were guilty of widespread looting and rape in virtually all the
major towns.  Advancing RPF soldiers vandalized or dynamited
numerous buildings, including schools, ministries, and private
residences.  Retreating FAR forces booby-trapped buildings.
Both sides indiscriminately deployed thousands of landmines,
killing many civilians.

Both the former FAR and the RPA were guilty of the
indiscriminate mortar and artillery shelling of enemy-held
zones, killing and wounding dozens of noncombatants.  Former
FAR troops allegedly fired mortar shells and killed a number of
refugees sheltered in the Kigali Stadium; RPA rounds struck a
relief hospital in central Kigali, killing more than a dozen
patients.  Another RPA mortar attack near the Gisenyi border
crossing into Zaire caused a stampede of Hutu refugees that
killed dozens more, most of them children.  The use of
excessive force diminished following the July collapse of the
FAR.  Humanitarian relief workers and foreign diplomats
reported that human rights abuses in the east and southeast had
decreased by year's end, when the RPA was cooperating with the
United Nations to disband peacefully camps for the internally
displaced.  RPA troops had stopped destroying the houses of
Hutus alleged to have been involved in the massacres.

The sick and wounded were not spared from the massacres.  There
were numerous reports of murders of persons in ambulances and
hospitals.  In many instances, the protective symbol of the Red
Cross was ignored.  Three Red Cross volunteers were killed in
Butare on May 1 along with 21 orphans under their care.  On May
14 armed militiamen shot to death 6 wounded patients being
transported by Rwandan Red Cross volunteers in Kigali.  An ICRC
worker was wounded on May 18 when an ICRC convoy traveling from
Kigali to Kabgayi was attacked.

Reliable estimates put the number of people killed in the
massacres and fighting between April 6 and July 15 at
approximately half a million, most of them Tutsi victims of
genocide by Hutu extremists.  Most local and international
organizations operating in Rwanda do not believe that exact
figures will ever be available.  Numerous credible reports from
individual organizations such as the U.N. Human Rights
Commission's Special Rapporteur, the UNHCR, the U.N. Commission
of Experts, the ICRC, journalists, and human rights
groups--including Africa Watch and Amnesty International--
confirm the scope and the scale of the genocide.  By Resolution
955 of November 8, the U.N. Security Council decided to
establish an international tribunal for the prosecution of
persons responsible for genocide and other serious violations
of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of
Rwanda and neighboring States, between January 1 and December
31, 1994.  The Special Rapporteur named by the UNHCR did not
find the RPF guilty of systematic killings or genocide in the
public report on his findings.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and the press.
Prior to April the Government respected this right to a limited
extent.  It intimidated and menaced journalists but allowed the
country's four independent newspapers and its political parties
relative freedom to operate.  However, the written press had
only limited circulation, and only radio reached a broad public
audience.

The electronic media included the government-owned television
station and two radio stations, government-owned Radio Kigali
and the privately owned Mille Collines, the voice of Hutu
extremists.

Before April, Radio Kigali offered balanced but bland
programming, controlled by an opposition minister.  Radio Mille
Collines and Radio Muhubura, controlled by the RPF, carried on
a propaganda war, the former against the RPF and its allies and
the latter against President Habyarimana and supporters of his
regime.  After President Habyarimana's death, Radio Mille
Collines broadcast strident anti-Tutsi and anti-RPF propaganda,
which ultimately had a lethal effect, calling on the Hutu
majority to destroy the Tutsi minority.  Experts cited Mille
Collines as an important factor in the spread of genocide in
the hours and days following Habyarimana's death.

A November Reporter Without Borders communique claimed that 40
percent of Rwandan journalists perished in the fighting and
blamed by name a number of surviving Hutu journalists for
inciting the public to slaughter.  The journalists who died
were targeted principally for ethnic and political reasons.

Following the RPF victory, Radio Kigali became the voice of the
Government, broadcasting in French and Kinyarwanda.  Muhubura
Radio, which broadcast in English, Swahili, and Kinyarwanda,
was the official voice of the RPF.  A proposed U.N. radio
station reportedly had not received government permission to
broadcast by year's end.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

The Constitution provides for freedom of peaceful assembly, but
authorities required official advance notice for outdoor
rallies, demonstrations, and meetings.  Before the renewal of
civil strife, political parties routinely held rallies
throughout the country.  Unauthorized assemblies of the
Interahamwe Youth Militia associated with the MRND in January
and February spawned violence in Kigali and Butare.  Government
militiamen killed several dozen civilians, blocked streets,
searched cars, beat perceived opposition supporters, and
damaged property.  When the Habyarimana Government did not use
security forces to halt these attacks, the opposition took this
as tacit approval.

Although citizens were legally free to join political parties
under the 1990 Constitution, the political party law banned
parties based on ethnic origin or religious affiliation.  The
new Government further curtailed this freedom, prohibiting
membership in the MRND and CDR, the Hutu-dominated parties
implicated in the anti-Tutsi genocide, effectively banning
these parties.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

The constitutional provision for freedom of religion was
generally respected by both the former and new governments.
Although there was no overt discrimination against foreign
clergy, most left when violence erupted.  Many Catholic and
Protestant leaders perished in the violence, which also
destroyed or damaged many churches and religious schools.

     d.  Freedom of Movement Within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Emigration, and Repatriation

The former government enforced laws restricting freedom of
movement and residence, and the current regime has continued
some of these practices.  The former government required all
residents to hold identity cards, which were subject to
periodic police checks.  Hutu militiamen used these cards,
which designated ethnicity by patrilineal descent, to target
their victims.  Before the outbreak of genocide, the Government
systemically levied fines on property owners who did not
require tenants to show documentation, and evicted tenants who
could not supply the required documentation.  Nightly curfews
lifted following the signature of the 1993 Peace Accord were
reimposed with the outbreak of renewed civil war.  Military and
militia checkpoints proliferated throughout the country during
the fighting in both government and RPF-controlled territory.
The new Government lifted the nightly curfew by year's end, and
only a few RPF checkpoints--most in border regions--remained in
place at year's end.

Emigration is not restricted, and the Government normally
approves passports for citizens who seek them.

The Peace Accord Protocol on Refugees incorporated into law the
right of refugees to return, and the new Government has
announced its commitment to this principle.  Following the RPF
military victory, several hundred thousand refugees returned
from neighboring countries, especially Burundi and Uganda.
Almost all were ethnic Tutsis, who had fled prior periods of
anti-Tutsi violence in 1959, 1962 and 1973, and their
descendants.

The return of Tutsi refugees was more than matched by the
flight of approximately 2 million Hutus who sought safety in
U.N. refugee camps located along Rwanda's borders with Zaire,
Burundi, and Tanzania.  This includes many former army
personnel and civilian militiamen who had engaged in the April
to July anti-Tutsi genocide.  However, many Hutu civilians
remained in the camps from fear of Tutsi reprisals.

Living conditions in the refugee camps spawned epidemics,
violence, and friction with local populations.  The camps are
not viable for the long term.  However, anti-Tutsi propaganda
and physical intimidation by extremist Hutus have thwarted
efforts to convince the refugees to return to Rwanda.  Rumors
and reports of revenge killings of Hutus by RPF soldiers and
Tutsi civilians also contributed to the reluctance of many
refugees to return.  A further complicating factor was the
seizure by returning Tutsis of land, homes and property
belonging to Hutus, either those displaced or refugees abroad.
The new Government has not yet followed through on its pledge
to evict squatters and disallow property claims made by
returning refugees if the claims are more than 10 years old.  A
commission organized within the Ministry of the Interior began
compiling legal dossiers on all property claims, but squatters
remained in many houses at year's end, and the settlement of
property claims appears to be a long-term process.