Cessation Clauses to the Rwandan Refugee Crisis
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DUKE UNIVERSITY Durham, North Carolina Application of the UNHCR’s “Ceased Circumstances” Cessation Clauses to the Rwandan Refugee Crisis Jeline Rabideau April 2013 Under the supervision of Professor Frances Hasso, International Comparative Studies Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for Graduation with Distinction Program in International Comparative Studies Trinity College of Arts and Sciences Rabideau 2 Contents Abstract................................................................................................................................4 Acknowledgements..............................................................................................................5 Abbreviations.......................................................................................................................6 Introduction..........................................................................................................................7 The Problem of “Genocide”..........................................................................................10 Research Choices and Contexts....................................................................................15 Chapter 1: The Making and Unmaking of Rwandan Refugees.........................................19 The Refugee in International Conventions and State Practices....................................20 The Cessation of Refugee Status..................................................................................23 Origins of the Refugee Crisis in Rwanda.....................................................................28 Political Rule by the Rwandan Patriotic Front.............................................................32 Rwandan Refugees Today............................................................................................34 Chapter 2: “Rwanda, C’est Mon Pays”: Negotiating Home and Belonging.....................42 Complicating Home, Belonging, and Return................................................................44 Being and Feeling Homeless........................................................................................54 An Emotional and Legal Limbo of Waiting.................................................................59 Chapter 3: “Nous Avons Peur de la Vérité”: Truth, Lies, and Return...............................66 Infrastructures and Symbols of “Progress” in the “New Rwanda”...............................67 Re-Education, Propaganda, and Performance in the “New Rwanda”...........................73 Hidden Truths and Realities in Post-Genocide Rwanda...............................................79 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................93 Bibliography......................................................................................................................98 Appendix A: The Cessation Clauses—UNHCR and OAU.............................................108 Appendix B: Full UNHCR and OAU Definitions of “Refugee”.....................................110 Appendix C: Top Twenty Foreign Aid Donors to Rwanda.............................................114 Rabideau 3 Illustrations Table 1: Timeline of the Rwandan Refugee Crisis............................................................35 Figure 1: Billboard Commemorating the 18th Anniversary of Genocide..........................53 Figure 2: Kigali—Past, Present, Future.............................................................................69 Figure 3: Ingando Solidarity Camps..................................................................................75 Rabideau 4 Abstract Over one hundred thousand Rwandans are currently living abroad as refugees, mostly in the nearby countries of east and central Africa. The Rwandan government, under the authoritarian leadership of President Paul Kagame, is working to convince both its people and the powerful international donor community that Rwanda has recovered, that it has reconciled, and that it is now safe for refugees to return. In October of 2009 the United Nations’ refugee agency, the UNHCR, issued a recommendation that its “ceased circumstances” cessation clauses—Chapter I(C), clauses (5) and (6) of the organization’s Convention—be invoked with respect to these Rwandan refugees. These provisions allow the UN and refugee asylum countries to determine when the reasons for a particular refugee crisis have ended. In July of this year, all remaining Rwandan refugees will lose their group refugee status and the legal protection and benefits this status carries. Many of them will be forced to repatriate. Citing the crimes of Kagame’s military forces both during and after the 1994 Genocide, as well as the repressive political conditions the country continues to experience today, Rwandan refugees are concerned that a forced return will mean exposure to very real and continued fears and dangers. Confronted by both this possibility and by the entirety of their lives and experiences in exile, these refugees must continually renegotiate their notions of “home” and “belonging.” Rabideau 5 Acknowledgements I am greatly indebted to a number of individuals and organizations for their help and support in every stage of this project. To my advisor, Professor Frances Hasso, thank you for the tremendous patience, commitment, and care you have consistently shown through months of researching, developing ideas, crafting arguments, writing and editing. This would not have been possible without your help. To Professor Cheri Ross and Tamara Extian-Babiuk, thank you both for leading a classroom full of aspiring writers through a year’s worth of learning, drafting, and revising. Your support has been invaluable to me. To my peers— Alexis, Mihret, Samantha, Elysia, Gena, and Hannah—I have loved writing and learning with all of you. Thank you to Professor Nicholas Troester for helping with the early stages of this project. I am grateful to the ICS program, which provided me with research travel funding through the Scott Lee Stephenson Memorial Fund, and to the Angier B. Duke Memorial Scholarship, which also gave generously to support my research travels. This financial support made it possible for me to return to Rwanda and Uganda to conduct the research interviews that form a crucial part of this thesis. Thank you to the men and women who shared their stories with me. And finally, I am forever indebted to my amazing Rwandan host family, umuryango nyarwanda wanjye: Papa, Malik, Mujahida, Halilu, Shaffiyat, Trésor, Sulaima, Nouaima, Ivanu, Alifu, and Ardjah. Thank you all for opening your lives to me and for providing me not only with a house during my time abroad, but a real home and a family as well. Nta mwebwe, sinshobora gukora iyi mushinga. Murakoze cyane cyane. Rabideau 6 Abbreviations AI Amnesty International ARV Anti-Retroviral DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo EAC East African Community FAR Forces Armées Rwandaises (Rwandan Armed Forces) FDLR Forces Démocratique de Libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda) ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda MIDIMAR Ministry of Disaster Management and Refugee Affairs MININFRA Ministry of Infrastructure MINISANTE Ministry of Health MRND Mouvement Républicain National pour la Démocratie et le Développement (National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development) OAU Organization of African Unity ODA Overseas Development Assistance PARMEHUTU Parti du Mouvement de l’émancipation Hutu (Party for the Movement of Hutu Liberation) RPF Rwandan Patriotic Front RPA Rwandan Patriotic Army UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Programme UNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNSC United Nations Security Council WFP World Food Programme Rabideau 7 Introduction Everyone I knew is now dead. Why should I go back? What would I go back for? If I was there I would think of them, of all those people I love who I saw killed. I still hear them dying—now, as I’m talking to you, I hear them. I cannot go back to Rwanda. !Rosine, Rwandan Refugee, Nakivaale Refugee Settlement Rwanda’s 1994 Genocide left a country in ruins. A hundred days of terror forged deep physical scars and very tangible destruction: one million people murdered, a quarter of a million women widowed, as many raped, one hundred thousand children orphaned or lost. Roads and infrastructure were destroyed, the streets lined with rotting corpses, livestock and crops ruined, and the economy lay devastated.1 But the wounds were not only physical and the damage not always measurable or quantifiable. The horrors of the Genocide instilled a deep-seated fear in people on both sides of the disaster, victims and perpetrators, Tutsi and Hutu.2 Millions were uprooted by this fear and the violence it inspired. Even today, nineteen long years after the victory of the Rwandan Patriotic Front that ended the conflict, Rwandans continue to leave the country. Over one hundred thousand Rwandans are currently living abroad as refugees, mostly in nearby east and central African countries.3 Some fled decades ago, forced out by the persecution of Tutsi and moderate Hutu that was widespread even before the 1994 Genocide. Many left during and immediately after the violence of Genocide. And still others have escaped in the years that followed, as a reaction to Rwanda’s post-genocidal political conditions rather than the Genocide itself. 1 Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda's Genocide