Ethno-Net Database: Africa

Reports on Ethnic Relations / Rapports sur les relations éthniques

The following section is mainly consisted of part, full or summaries of articles taken from newspapers.
La section suivante est essentiellement constituée d'exraits, de la totalité ou de résumés d'articles issues de journaux .

IRIN

The Article: "Government calls for help on demobilisation, reintegration"

The Rwandan government is appealing to NGOs and public and private institutions to help thousands of former soldiers and militiamen needing advice on how to reintegrate themselves into their communities after demobilisation.

Under a government demobilisation scheme, former fighters are given money to start earning a living through a project of their choice. The project shave to be approved by Community Development Committees (CDCs), which check that they are financially viable, environmentally friendly and socially acceptable. But the government is concerned that the committee sare not up to the task.

"The CDCs are not competent enough to appraise the projects, and so we need NGOs and local associations to support them," Faustin Rwigema, the coordinator of the Rwanda Demobilisation and Reintegration Commission, told IRIN on Thursday. "We are trying to identify supporters from international and local NGOs to help build the capacity of CDCs. We also want to be able to tell ex-fighters that if they need help in their projects, they can go to an NGO or someone with expertise."

Rwigema told IRIN that, so far, the response from NGOs to the appeal had been limited, and that the government was advertising for their help.

The ex-fighters who can benefit from the demobilisation package fall intothree categories - soldiers from the Rwanda Defence Force (formerly theRwanda Patriotic Army), soldiers of the former Rwandan armed forces, and members of former armed groups, including militiamen who fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo after the 1994 genocide.

When they demobilise, they can qualify for a variety of financial packages, including a reintegration grant of 100,000 R francs (about US$360). Most of them come from rural areas and choose to start an agricultural project such as livestock rearing. About 20 per cent, Rwigema said, tended to choose a business such as carpentry or masonry.

The first stage of the government's demobilisation programme began in 1997 with thousands of former fighters. Rwigema said there were about 48,000 men still to be demobilised under stage two of the programme.

IRIN

The Article: "ICTR hopes to mobilise international support through Swiss exhibition"

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) is holding an exhibition in the United Nations offices in Geneva onthe theme of "challenging impunity".

The tribunal says the exhibition is to convey its efforts to "put an end, through international justice, to impunity of those responsible for genocide and contribute to national reconciliation in Rwanda".

The exhibition is intended to "inform the international community of the ICTR's mandate and achievements and to mobilise more concrete and active support from the international community to the work and endeavours of the ICTR".

The exhibition, which opened on 17 March and runs until 4 April, is partof the tribunal's Outreach Programme for the Rwandan population and the international community, and coincides with the 59th annual session of theUN Commission for Human Rights.

In his opening address, the director general of the United Nations Office in Geneva, Sergei Ordzhonkidze, welcomed the exhibition bringing the ICTR from its headquarters in Arusha, Tanzania, to the international community.

Rwandan Justice Minister Jean de Dieu Mucyo appealed to the tribunal to pursue its work without forgetting to make Rwandans partners in the endeavors and progress of the ICTR.

IRIN

The Article: "Batwa appeal to government for affirmative action"

Rwanda's third and smallest ethnic group, the Batwa, has renewed its appeal to the government for affirmative action to improve the livelihoods of the country's estimated 20,000 Batwa population.

Also known as pygmies, the Batwa are forest hunter-gatherers. They say they suffer from discrimination in the social, economic and political spheres and that the government has so far ignored their pleas for help.

"The Batwa families are very vulnerable and bound for extinction if nothing is urgently done," Zephyrin Kalimba, president of the Rwanda association for indigenous people, known as CAURWA, told the Rwanda News Agency on Wednesday.

Kalimba said that the Batwa suffered in particular from "continued unfairness" at the grass roots level. He said that local leaders gavefalse information about the Batwa to higher levels of government. He also said that the Batwa should have special representation in parliament and in the areas of housing and education.

In February the international NGO, Minority Rights Group, which campaigns for the rights of indigenous people worldwide, said that the Batwa had not benefited from existing land rights legislation and that greater action should be taken to ensure that the right to equality and non-discrimination for the Batwa was secured in law and in practice.

France became on Friday the first European country to sign an agreement with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to implement sentences imposed by the UN court, the tribunal reported.

The tribunal reported that the French ambassador in Tanzania, Jean Francois Lionnet, signed the agreement on behalf of his government, and ICTR Registrar Adama Dieng represented the tribunal. The agreement is expected to take effect after ratification by the French National Assembly.

The agreement brings the number of countries that have entered such agreements with the tribunal to four. The other countries are Benin, Maliand Swaziland. The tribunal said negotiations were in progress with other African and European countries.

Lionnet said that the agreement signified France's commitment to promote international justice.

Dieng said the support of all UN member states was necessary in order to enable the tribunal to achieve its mandate, that of trying the alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. Under the tribunal’s rules, a convict may serve the sentence imposed in Rwanda or in the prison of a state that has agreed to accept the tribunal's convicts. The sentence is served under the tribunal’s supervision.

Currently, six prisoners, including former Rwandan Prime Minister Jean Kambanda, are serving their sentences in Bamako, Mali.

Returning from an official visit to the United States, President Paul Kagame reacted to the fighting in Bunia, easternDemocratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) by saying that Rwanda would defendits security interests "without provoking anybody", Radio Rwanda reportedon Tuesday.

According to the radio, Interahamwe (Rwandan extremist Hutu militia) and the former Rwandan Armed Forces (ex-FAR) combatants in Bunia "are uniting with Kinshasa troops to destabilise the region". The radio quoted Kagame as saying that Rwanda was watching the activities in the DRC with great interest.

On Tuesday, the radio also quoted the Rwandan army spokesman, Jill Rutaremara, as claiming that the Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) were forming an alliance with "genocidal" forces in the DRC to destabilise Rwanda.

The UPDF ousted the Union des patriotes congolais rebel group from Bunia last week. The UPDF spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza, told IRIN on Monday that a "foreign force" had fought alongside the UPC rebels.

"As you know, we withdrew our forces from the DR Congo, and we had expected the Kinshasa government, the UN and others who were involved inthe Pretoria [South Africa] agreement or even in the wider agreement of Lusaka [Zambia] - we thought these people would take care of what remained of the problem, that is, after we withdrew, we were supposed to see action taken on ex-FAR and Interahamwe and their activities," Kagame said. "But if they continue and come close to Rwanda and threaten our security, naturally we shall take measures that are appropriate to deal with that situation."

Kagame said events in the DRC had not so far posed a threat to Rwanda's security, "even though it indeed has a connection with our security, but given the frameworks that are there to handle these issues, and given the distance where some of these activities are taking place, we wish to take the option of continuing to watch the situation as it evolves."

"At any moment if that developed into a threat against the country, you should have no doubt that we will deal with it," he warned.

In an interview on Radio Rwanda on Tuesday, Rutaremara denied that Rwanda was massing troops along its border with Uganda, and instead accused Uganda of spreading "rumours" about increased Rwandan army deployment "to divert public attention" from the fighting in Ituri.

Radio Rwanda quoted Kagame as saying on Wednesday that he hoped "the wholeworld is not ignorant about the situation so much that they would have to believe what is being said. The history of that part of the DR Congo is known. It is known how in the last three years there have emerged different factions in that area of Ituri, and those who created thosefactions are known, those who have supported them against each other areknown. The same people making any allegations against Rwanda are the very people who created that situation in Ituri, and they are the ones making an issue out of that situation up to this moment."

Rwanda has repeatedly asserted that it withdrew all its forces from the DRC by late 2002. "So, for us, we will not be dragged into any provocation. We will focus on our own immediate security interest andcontinue to support a peace agreement or other agreements that have been concluded to help the peace process generally in the DRC," Kagame said.

"As for our neighbours, whatever problems they have with us, we will just remain cool and calm about it and go about our usual businesses, but for sure our security will always be very dear and a priority to us. So we will do what it takes to defend our interests in so far as security is concerned, without provoking anybody or without being provoked by anybody," he added.

IRIN

The Article: "Kigali denies massing troops along border with Uganda"

Rwanda denied on Tuesday that it was massingtroops along its border with Uganda.

In an interview on Radio Rwanda, an army spokesman, Jill Rutaremara, instead accused Uganda of spreading "rumours" about increased Rwandan army deployment along the border. He said the rumours were "to divert public attention" from the fighting in the northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) district of Ituri.

The radio quoted Rutaremara as claiming that the Ugandan army was forming an alliance with "genocidal" forces in the DRC to destabilise Rwanda. "We have actually not amassed any troops at our border with Uganda. The troops that are there are a small sizeable force that we usually keep at our border with Uganda," he said

The Uganda People's Defence Forces (UPDF) spokesman, Maj Shaban Bantariza,told IRIN on Monday that a "foreign" force had fought alongside those theUnion des patriotes congolais (UPC) rebel group when the Ugandans ousted the UPC from Bunia in Ituri District last week. "It is true that there was a foreign force fighting against our troops in the [north-]eastern town of Bunia when they attacked our forces, but I cannot name the force," he said.

"This force, of course, has not been on good terms with us for some time now, but at least we managed to repulse them all, together with the rebels," Bantariza said.

Although it has been widely alleged that elements of the Rwandan military were present in the region, Ugandan government officials have refused toname Rwanda as the "foreign force".

However, Rutaremara dismissed reports that Rwandan troops had fought alongside the UPC against the Ugandans in Ituri. "I regard it as adiversionary tactic aimed at diverting us and diverting Ugandans -diverting the international community from what is taking place in Ituri, and from other plans that are being hatched by Ugandans against Rwanda," he told Radio Rwanda.

He said Rwanda was "greatly concerned" by what was happening in Ituri and Bunia in the DRC. "In particular, we are concerned by the alliance that is being formed between the UPDF forces, the [DR] Congolese forces, the Mayi-Mayi [pro-Kinshasa tribal warriors] forces and the genocidal forces, that is ex-FAR [former Rwandan armed forces] and Interahamwe [Rwandan Hutu extremist] militias, in Ituri region," he said.

Rutaremara said such an alliance posed a security threat to Rwanda. He said that the Interahamwe and ex-FAR had been having "problems getting supplies" from the DRC capital, Kinshasa. "But now that they have linked with the Kampala regime and the Kinshasa regime, then they pose even a bigger threat to us," the radio quoted Rutaremara as saying.

Rwanda has repeatedly asserted that it had withdrawn all of its forces from the DRC by late 2002.

The Rwandan diaspora will be allowed to vote in all elections scheduled for 2003, the Rwanda News Agency (RNA) reported on Monday.

However, only those who will be registered with Rwandan embassies willvote, according to Damien Habumuremyi, the executive secretary of the Rwandan electoral commission.

The news agency reported that Rwandans who had declared their status asrefugees would not vote in the referendum on the new constitutionscheduled for May, nor in presidential and parliamentary elections, scheduled for August and October, respectively.

RNA quoted Habumuremyi as saying that more than four million people wereeligible voters with 1,600 polling stations in the country and 10,000 polling centres. He said the electoral commission had invited 350observers from different countries.

"We hope they [the elections] will be a success," he said, noting that "in 1999, 2001 and in 2002, elections at district levels were a success, so wehope that these three will also be a success".

The Rwandan Patriotic Front took power in July 1994, after a three-month genocide that claimed more than 800,000 lives. This year's elections will mark the end of the transitional government in Rwanda.

IRIN

The Article: "Kagame briefs Bush on situation in Great Lakes region"

During a visit to the White House on Tuesday, Rwandan President Paul Kagame briefed US President George W. Bush and US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on the political and security situation in Africa's Great Lakes region.

According to a statement issued on Wednesday by his office, Kagame said the presence of ex-FAR [Rwandan former army] and Interahamwe [Hutu extremist militias] - largely responsible for the 1994 slaughter of about 800,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus - in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) "continued to pose a threat to Rwanda'ssecurity".

He urged the US government to bring pressure to bear on the DRC government "to fulfil its commitments under the Lusaka and Pretoria agreements", adding that the formation of a national unity government in Kinshasa "would stabilise the region and improve the prospects for peace".

For his part, Bush "congratulated Rwanda on the decision to withdraw allits troops from the DRC", and expressed Washington's support for efforts to achieve peace, security and democracy in the region.

Kagame, who has been in the United States since Saturday, thanked Bush forthe continuing economic support of the US government for variousdevelopment projects in Rwanda, particularly in HIV/AIDS prevention and development of the agricultural sector.

Kagame also briefed Bush on the constitution-making process, the forthcoming referendum and elections to be held later this year in Rwanda, calling for further US government support for these processes.

Kagame's office reported that both leaders had "expressed satisfactionabout the warm and strengthening relations" between their countries, and "committed their respective governments to working together to consolidatethese ties".

This is Kagame's first visit to the US at the invitation of Bush. He is accompanied by Foreign Minister Charles Muligande; Rwanda's ambassador to the US, Richard Sezibera; Director of Cabinet in the Presidency Theogene Rudasingwa; and Presidential National Security Adviser Emmanuel Ndahiro.

Also on Tuesday, Muligande and US Secretary of State Colin Powell signed an agreement on the reciprocal exemption of citizens of both countries from prosecution by the International Criminal Court without the consentof the government of the concerned country, Radio Rwanda reported. Rwanda thus became the 22nd country to sign the accord with the US.

Among other items on his agenda while in the US, Kagame is scheduled on Thursday to discuss "Current Prospects for Peace in the Great Lakes Region" from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. Chester Crocker, the institute's board chairman and former assistant secretary of state for African affairs, will chair thevisit. The address will be followed by questions from the floor and will be webcast live.

IRIN

The Article: "Rwanda-Tanzania: Fewer than 1,000 Rwandan refugees remain"

Fewer than 1,000 Rwandan refugees remain inTanzania - roughly 700 in Ngara and 300 in Kibondo - with returns continuing, according to Ivana Unluova, the spokeswoman for the Office ofthe United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

She told IRIN on Monday that of these remaining refugees, almost 40 hadbeen identified for possible resettlement in third countries and, underthe UNHCR's agreement with the government of Tanzania, they should beallowed to stay in the country until the resettlement procedure wasfinalised.

A 2 March deadline had been set for the repatriation of all remaining Rwandan refugees. However, UNHCR said that collaboration with Tanzanian authorities was good, and the additional time necessary was not presenting any problems.

The deadline was fixed during a tripartite meeting between UNHCR and the governments of Rwanda and Tanzania held on 13 February in Dar es Salaam,Tanzania's commercial capital. The meeting was followed by a twosensitisation campaign led by a Rwandan government delegation to briefRwandans living in refugee camps on voluntary repatriation.

UNHCR had previously reported that the voluntary repatriation of Rwandan refugees from camps in northwestern Tanzania had been completed on 27 December 2002, with the remaining caseload to be resolved by a futuretripartite meeting in 2003.

The FBI, with help of the Rwandan government,arrested three suspected rebels in Rwanda and transferred them to PuertoRico where they were charged with the 1999 killings of two Americantourists in Uganda, the Associated Press (AP) reported from Washington DCon Monday.

The Americans, together with four British and two New Zealand tourists,were hacked and bludgeoned to death during a trip to see rare mountaingorillas in the Bwindi National Park in Uganda. They were in a group ofabout 30 tourists.

AP quoted the US authorities as saying that Rob Haubner and his wife, Susan Miller, had been among the English-speaking tourists targeted byRwandan Hutu rebels "in a bid to weaken US and British support for the newRwandan government".

"This was a vicious, cold-blooded, brutal attack that was intended to makea political point," AP quoted US Attorney Roscoe Howard of the District ofColumbia, where a federal grand jury indicted the three on 25 February, assaying.

The news agency said those charged with murder, conspiracy and othercounts were identified as Rwandan nationals Leonidas Bimenyiamana, 34,Francois Karake, 38, and Gregoire Nyaminami, 32.

They had made their initial court appearances in Puerto Rico, but theirtrials would be held later in Washington DC, AP reported. The chargescarry a possible death penalty.

According to AP, the men were described as members of the Army for theLiberation of Rwanda, which is affiliated with the former Hutu regime inRwanda blamed for the genocide of more than 800,000 minority Tutsis andmoderate Hutus in 1994.

The head of the US Justice Department's criminal division, MichaelChertoff, told reporters that the arrests would send a message worldwidethat "those who commit acts of terror against Americans, whenever andwherever, will be hunted, captured and brought to justice".

AP quoted Gerard Gahima, Rwanda's attorney-general, as saying the threemen were among about 3,000 rebels who had been captured during a wave ofattacks on Rwanda from rebel bases in the Democratic Republic of the Congoin May and August 2001. Interrogations had revealed that they hadparticipated in the 1999 attack on the tourists, Gahima said.

"They basically admitted involvement in the attack, and indicated thatthey were foot soldiers, not masterminds," AP quoted Gahima as saying.

Chertoff said the investigation was continuing and further arrests werepossible.

During the 1 March 1999 incident, the rebels invaded the tourists'campsite and forced 17 tourists who spoke English to take off their shoesand begin marching, according to the US indictment. They also killed oneof the park's guards by pushing him under a truck and setting it on fire.

The eight tourists were killed along the march with machetes and axes.Miller was also allegedly raped by one of the suspects.

A survivor of the attack was given a note by the rebels warning the UnitedStates and Britain not to interfere in Rwanda. Similar notes were found onthe bodies of two of those killed.

A news release published by the New Zealand government website on Tuesdayhailed the forthcoming trial of the three Rwandans. Foreign Minister PhilGoff welcomed news that the three were to face charges in the US inrelation to the killing of the eight tourists, including the two NewZealanders - Rhonda Avis of Auckland and Michelle Strathern of Timaru.

"Inquiries are being made as to whether the US prosecution will, or can,lay charges in relation to all the victims. If the three men arrested areresponsible for other deaths in the group, it would be desirable to seethem held to account for those crimes as well. This is notwithstandingthat the men, if found guilty of murdering the American victims, will facesevere penalties anyway," Goff said.

"If there is no evidence that these are the men responsible for the deathsof Rhonda and Michelle, we would want American authorities to make furtherinquiries of the arrested men as to who was responsible. This may assistus to pursue the matter further with relevant agencies in the country where they were killed," Goff said.

Former Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu has announced his presidential candidature in a contest thatwill pit him against the incumbent, Paul Kagame, a Brussels newspaper, Le Soir, reported on Monday.

He told Le Soir that before deciding to enter the race, he had visited theUnited States, where he met senior members of the Department of State andthe National Security Council. He also met members of the Rwandan exilecommunity in the US, including former Senate President Joseph Kebrenzi and Alexandre Kimenyi, a "dissident" of the Front patriotique rwandais (FPR -Rwandan Patriotic Front). All of them, he said, had encouraged him to seek the path to peace and also to run for office.

Le Soir reported that although most of his supporters were members of thepolitical opposition in exile, Twagiramungu said he had failed to convincethe Forces pour la démocratie et la libération du Rwanda, considered byKigali as "genocide perpetrators", to desist from fighting against theKigali government.

Twagiramungu, 57, has been exiled in Belgium since 1995, after falling outwith the victorious FPR, which seized power in July 1994; he has sinceremained a stern critic of the government in Kigali.

Meanwhile, Kagame, who is in the United States, is due to hold talks onTuesday with President George W. Bush. They were expected to discussbilateral ties and the prevailing insecurity in the Great Lakes region,Rwandan Radio reported on Tuesday. The radio quoted Kagame as saying theywould also discuss issues of education, trade, development, and theeffects of HIV/AIDS in Rwanda.

Kagame was also expected to hold talks with US Secretary of State CollinPowell, Secretary and Defence Donald Rumsfeld, White House SecurityAdviser Condoleezza Rice, as well as the USAID administrator, Andrew Natsios, and members of the US Congress, the radio reported.

The US State Department said on Monday thatRwanda and the United States have agreed to exempt each other's citizensfrom prosecution in the International Criminal Court (ICC) without theconsent of the other government, according to Reuters news service.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Rwandan Foreign Minister CharlesMurigande were due to sign the accord, known as an Article 98 agreementafter the relevant section of the treaty setting up the court, at theState Department on Tuesday.

Reuters reported that Washington objects to the ICC on the grounds that itcould attract politically motivated prosecutions of US civilian andmilitary leaders. The US signed the treaty creating the ICC under formerPresident Bill Clinton, but it has never been submitted to the Senate forratification, and the Bush administration last May decided to renounce anyobligation to cooperate.

According to Reuters, the US is seeking Article 98 agreements with as manycountries as possible. Rwanda will be the 22nd country to sign such anagreement with the US. The others are Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, theDominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador, The Gambia, Georgia,Honduras, India, Israel, the Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia,Nepal, Palau, Romania, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tuvalu and Uzbekistan.

Meanwhile, Rwandan President Paul Kagame is scheduled to hold talks withUS President George W. Bush at the White House in Washington DC onTuesday. Kagame arrived in the US on Sunday for an official visit. Kagameand Bush are expected to discuss ties between the two countries and theprevailing insecurity situation in the Great Lakes region.

IRIN

The Article: "Former army lieutenant pleads not guilty to genocide"

Former Rwandan army Lieutenant Ildephonse Hategekimana, who was arrested in the Republic of Congo capital, pleaded not guilty to five counts of genocide, incitement to commit genocide, and crimes against humanity (rape and other inhuman acts) when he appeared on Friday before a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.

In a statement issued on Friday the tribunal said that Hategekimana, whowas commander of the Ngoma camp in Butare Province, southern Rwanda,denied the charges before Judge Pavel Dolenc of Slovenia.

The tribunal said that in his position as camp commander, Hategekimanaallegedly ordered, transported, and led soldiers and militiamen to attackTutsi civilians, "including street-by-street killings in the Muslimquarters of Ngoma, and attacks at a convent and at the Groupe Scolairewhere orphans were gathered".

Hategekimana also watched an attack at a dispensary while preventing hissoldiers from intervening to stop it, the tribunal reported.

"In addition, Hategekimana is accused of conducting sensitisation meetingsto incite massacres, and deploying soldiers to roadblocks to stop Tutsicivilians and bring them to Ngoma Camp to be killed. The accused is alsoalleged to have failed to take measures to prevent, or to put an end towidespread rape of girls and women in Butare Prefecture," the tribunalreported.

Hategekimana was arrested on 16 February in Brazzaville, and transferredthree days later to the UN Detention Facility in Arusha, Tanzania.

The UN Security Council established the tribunal in 1995 to bring to trialthe alleged perpetrators of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, in which some 800,000 people died. Since its inception, the tribunal has handed down 11 judgments - 10 convictions and one acquittal.

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