"Refugees have been caught up between different fires: home countries, UNHCR with other organizations and the host countries. Each of the parties wants to gain profits and uses the issue of refugees as it pleases. When is that mercantile saga taking an end within the current globalization context?"


Refugees, the saga in the Great Lakes
Written by Gilbert NDAHAYO
E-mail: sheggy01@hotmail.com
Greetings from Kigali and blessings to you all.
There are multiple motives behind the wave of refugees and displaced people: armed conflicts, civil wars and internal ethnic clashes. All along that saga, Rwanda has not been an exception.
The issue of refugees has brought about a tense and complex atmosphere between all the parties involved.
"Refugees have been caught up between different fires: home countries, UNHCR with other organizations and the host countries. Each of the parties wants to gain profits and uses the issue of refugees as it pleases. When is that mercantile saga taking an end within the current globalization context?"
Over recent years, the Great Lakes’ region has experienced the flight of refugees from one country to its neighboring. There are multiple motives behind that wave of refugees and displaced people: armed conflicts, civil wars, internal ethnic clashes to name a few.

All along that saga, Rwanda has not been an exception. The issue of refugees has brought about a tense and complex atmosphere between all the parties involved.

In fact, besides 1959 revolution that threw out of the country thousands and thousands of Tutsi with subsequent events, the 1994 genocide speaks itself. Millions of people fled into neighboring countries especially Congo, the then Zaire, and Tanzania. During that massive influx of refugees, thousands died of epidemics. At the same time, the 1959 refugees were returning home -armed- from the neighboring countries.

Despite the massive return of refugees at the end of 1996, there are still thousands of Rwandese refugees roaming in Congolese forests while others based in Tanzania, Uganda, Congo Brazzaville, Central African Republic, Belgium, France, USA and elsewhere.

The Rwandese government has increasingly been at the loggerheads with UNHCR, NGOs, Human Rights organizations and western powers over the issue of refugees. The Rwandese government accuses them of preventing refugees from voluntarily returning home pretending that the situation in the country is unsafe (people arbitrarily arrested, others are kidnapped and arrested, properties are illegally occupied, there is no freedom of speech, etc.).

On the other hand, the Rwandese government is accused of restricting and jeopardizing the voluntary return of refugees in their motherland. According to some NGOs as well as the Human Rights organizations, the government bring fake accusations against refugees purposely -some are accused or suspected of having taken part in the genocide in Rwanda while others are believed to be ex-FAR and Interahamwe militia (negative forces that perpetrated genocide in Rwanda in 1994). Thus, those targeted people do not want to return home for fear of being subjected to reprisals. But, what is the real underlying motive of those accusations and counteraccusations? Broadly speaking, refugees are used as income-generating for the benefits of all the stakeholders in the so-called humanitarian missions.

THE RWANDESE GOVERNMENT'S ATTEMPTS

The government of Rwanda, far from any political or economic gains, is willing to find an everlasting solution to the issue of refugees. It is in this line that various government officials have undertaken a series of visits in the refugee camps in the countries that harbor Rwandese refugees. All those missions aim at talking to them and sensitizing them to return home.

Through and thanks to those face-to-face exchanges, refugees get the current clear picture of their country. Further, such visits have yielded success. Indeed, many refugees have voluntarily returned home. But, there are still diehards who hold refugees as their human shield.



POLITICAL REFUGEES, ASYLUM SEEKERS?

In the past, some government officials, army officers and other citizens have fled the country for alleged politically motivated persecution. This wave of 'political' refugees or rather asylum seekers has fueled tension between Rwanda-their host governments- and international human rights organizations. The latter on hold that the new development as clear proof of insecurity, instability in the country.

Apart from this, the government is accused of intransigence towards political opponents. The government has angrily reacted to these allegations describing them as baseless and biased. In fact, the motive behind those unfounded allegations is nothing else than 'stomachism'.

Some officials are driven by ambition, lust for power and money. When their pressing needs are not met, they leave the country hoping to get interests in their soiling the image of their home country. They then consider refugee status as their asylum and alibi.

On the other hand, some officials are accused or suspected of having masterminded or participated in 1994 genocide. They therefore flee the country to run away from the court trials.

CONGOLESE REFUGEES IN RWANDA: A BURNING CASE

The Congolese refugees based in Rwanda constitute the subject of discord between the Rwandese government and UNHCR.

Over recent days, UNHCR has accused the government of Rwanda within its allied-RDC Goma of forcibly repatriating Congolese refugees based in two camps (Gihembe in Byumba province and Kiziba in Kibuye province).

According to the refugees, they fear for their security once returned home. The youths fear to be involuntarily enrolled in the Democratic Republic of Congo army.

The Rwandese government has angrily dismissed the allegations stating that it is a handful of refugees employed by UNHCR and other NGOs catering for refugees who are willing to go back home for fear of losing their jobs.


The issue of refugees has been politicized so that international conventions have been looked down upon. Refugees have therefore been caught up between different fires: home countries, UNHCR with other organizations and the host countries. Each of the parties wants to gain profits and uses the issue of refugees as it pleases. When is that mercantile saga taking an end within the current globalization context? If you have an answer of a half of the answer, please post it here below.

Due to the development and turns of the ongoing war in Democratic Republic of Congo, the issue of Refugees is pending. I am just trying to see the game, whatever the good and bad intentions in it, Refugees in the Greak Lakes Regions look very sterile like a land you know, do they count? Do they matter? This is a people where things happen too. They are not actors to their own destiny, nor in making their own destiny. This is a people who has no history as it is said in the foreign media. They do not make a history, it only happens to them. The government only does things to them, they don’t do anything, they are just there and being used. That is a very bad way to do whatever analysis while in some refugees they are the so-called intellectuals, academicians or alike.

Are Refugees all over the world able to express their dilemma with regard to their plight and reality? Not probably by questioning their governments the attitude about the position to adopt with regard to issues and historical interpretation as it has inherited an already mined terrain of wars and mass killings.