The examples of human rights abuses contained in this report represent only a small fraction of those gathered during this period. In February 1998, Amnesty International delegates visited different regions of Rwanda, including the northwestern region of Gisenyi. Despite the inaccessibility of certain areas due to widespread insecurity, they were able to gather detailed testimonies on killings, "disappearances" and other human rights abuses, from victims, relatives of victims, witnesses and other sources. This report is based in part on those testimonies, and in part on subsequent confirmation, as well as fresh evidence, gathered since March 1998 from sources inside and outside Rwanda. While in Rwanda, Amnesty International delegates also held talks with senior representatives of the Rwandese Government and security forces. The authorities’ response to the human rights concerns raised is summarized in this report. This report includes a set of recommendations to the Rwandese authorities and armed opposition groups operating in Rwanda, aimed at preventing further "disappearances", extrajudicial executions and deliberate and arbitrary killings of civilians. It also includes recommendations to foreign governments and intergovernmental organizations who have a critical role to play in impressing upon the Rwandese authorities and leaders of armed opposition groups that the deliberate targeting of the civilian population will never succeed in bringing peace and reconciliation to the country.

"disappearances" and killings continue

Extract from a testimony from Gisenyi, northwestern Rwanda, March 1998

Part V    ... Recommendations

Between December 1997 and May 1998, hundreds and possibly thousands of people "disappeared" across Rwanda. Thousands of others were killed by members of the Rwandese security forces and by armed opposition groups.
The most vulnerable sectors of the population are continuing to suffer, unnoticed by most of the international community, as the armed conflict in the northwest of Rwanda rages on. Soldiers of the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA) as well as members of armed opposition groups - the latter believed to include members of the former Rwandese army and interahamwe militia responsible for many massacres during the 1994 genocide - are deliberately targeting unarmed civilians - men, women and children, often without discrimination. By early 1998, reports of killings and "disappearances" had become so routine that many Rwandese seemed resigned to this violence as an inevitable part of their lives.
 

Still taken from "Forsaken Cries"

Amnesty International is appealing once again to the Rwandese authorities to fulfill their often-repeated promises to respect human rights and to put an end to the ongoing grave human rights violations, in particular to investigate and prevent "disappearances" and killings of unarmed civilians by members of the security forces. A government has the right to defend its country against armed aggression and a responsibility to protect the civilian population against attacks by armed groups. However, this does not provide the security forces with a licence to deliberately kill unarmed civilians. Armed opposition groups should also immediately stop targeting unarmed civilians and prevent any further such killings by elements under their control.

In addition to the issues covered in this report, Amnesty International remains concerned about other patterns of human rights violations in Rwanda, including arbitrary arrests, prolonged detention without charge or trial in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, beatings and other forms of ill-treatment in detention, unfair trials and the use of the death penalty. Details of these concerns are contained in earlier Amnesty International publications and continue to be the object of ongoing research and action by the organization.

There appears to be a policy of singling out people from the northwest simply because of their region of origin. As the area of residence is indicated on a person’s identity card and other documents, those from the northwest are easily identifiable. People are required to carry an identity card and also need to obtain a document from the authorities in their home region entitling them to travel to another region. In practice, such documents are often difficult to obtain and there are strict controls and restrictions on freedom of movement. Even those who carry the required documents are not protected from harassment.

For example, Emmanuel Tuyishime, a former local government official in his thirties, came from Gisenyi to Kigali to look for work on 10 December 1997. He was last seen in Kigali on 16 December. His relatives have been searching for him ever since, have inquired in detention centres in different areas and told that he was not there. After being informed by the authorities in Kigali that people from Gisenyi were transferred back to their home areas, his family travelled up to the northwest several times - at great personal risk -, all in vain. They were told by the authorities in Gisenyi that there had been no transfers from Kigali.

On 9 January 1998, Juvénal Bagarirakose was led away from his home to an unknown destination by RPA soldiers, in his home commune of Kibilira, in Gisenyi - a commune which has experienced intense violence and insecurity in recent months. The soldiers reportedly burned the nearby houses of two of his sisters before leaving the area. Neither Juvénal Bagarirakose’s arrest nor his "disappearance" are known to have been officially acknowledged. He is feared dead. A teacher by training who had also worked in the commercial sector, Juvénal Bagarirakose is married with three children. He had been a refugee in the former Zaire between 1994 and November 1996, when he returned to Rwanda. As a refugee he was involved in initiatives to promote dialogue and non-violent solutions to the conflict in Rwanda. He continued with these activities following his return to Rwanda, taking an active role in discussion and prayer groups with Hutu and Tutsi communities, with the full knowledge and the cooperation of local civilian authorities.

Evariste Twagirumukiza, a trader, was arrested on the morning of 13 May 1998 in Kigali by armed men in military uniform. He was reportedly taken away in a vehicle belonging to the gendarmerie of the Nyamirambo district of Kigali. By early June, his whereabouts were still not known. The authorities have reportedly denied any involvement in his abduction.

The "disappearances" began on 24 December, on Christmas eve, in various locations including Kabarore and Kiziguro. During an identity check by military officials, a number of people were reportedly led away on trucks to an unknown destination. Some were rounded up from their homes, others from public places. Those who "disappeared" included several members of a choir, such as Jean-Baptiste Ntabara, who were preparing to celebrate Christmas. Others included Viateur Nzabarinda and his sister Mukabutare, and Joseph Karake, a religious student in his twenties, who was reportedly taken from his home, put on a military vehicle along with others, and never returned.

In the days that followed, scores of people were reportedly seen being rounded up by soldiers from various locations in the area, often at night, and led away to an unknown destination. Among the victims were Mugenzi, his wife and seven children; Abraham Ndumviriye, aged around 80, his two sons, Joseph Tegeri and Seth Rwamirera, as well as their wives and children, his student grandson Igirimbabazi, another grandson Festus Nkurunziza, Festus Nkurunziza’s wife and two children; Niyoyita and his wife; Nkende and his sister Kumuzana; Innocent Sebahire, a teacher; an elderly man Samuel Bizirumwera, his wife and children.

Around the same period - in late December 1997 and January 1998 -, more than 30 unidentified bodies were discovered in at least three separate locations in Umutara préfecture.

The "disappearances" and other events in Umutara in December 1997 and January 1998 have received little public attention. Neither local nor national authorities are known to have taken any action to investigate them.

Still From "Forsaken Cries"

Killings where the perpetrators remain unidentified are often automatically attributed to the armed opposition, without independent verification. Restrictions on information are compounded by difficulties of access to many of the areas where killings take place. Most of the foreign journalists who have visited the northwest in recent months have done so with RPA military escort, thus severely limiting the likelihood or possibility of receiving information about human rights violations by the RPA. Many international media based outside Rwanda tend to rely on information provided by Rwandese government-controlled media or on briefings by government officials. This control of information has succeeded in distorting the overall picture of the human rights situation conveyed to the outside world, with the result that few people outside Rwanda are aware of the extent of the human rights violations taking place or of the fact that since 1997, a greater number of unarmed civilians have been killed by members of the Rwandese security forces than by armed opposition groups.

Houses with their roofs destroyed after military helicopter attacks in late 1997, Kayove Gisenyi.
© VRT Television Belgium

Young children have been among the innocent victims of this violence. Many have been killed; others have survived but have been deeply traumatized after witnessing scenes of brutal carnage. One 10-year-old boy in Rwerere commune, in Gisenyi, ran away from his home in January 1998, taking with him his two younger brothers, one aged 5, the other still a baby.

The population is also suffering from increasing shortages of food as a direct result of the armed conflict - a cruel irony, given that the northwest is among the most fertile regions of Rwanda. RPA soldiers have forced the population to cut down banana plantations, claiming that the insurgents use them as a hiding place. They have ordered the population in certain areas not to pick their crops. Peasants who have attempted to do so in defiance of these orders have been directly threatened; some have been killed by government forces. In January 1998, a young man who refused to destroy his plantation was reportedly beaten by soldiers in Gisenyi. In early February, a peasant woman, Esther, and her teenage daughter were reportedly killed by soldiers after trying to harvest sweet potatoes in their field in Rugerero secteur, in Rubavu commune, Gisenyi.

Amnesty International delegates who visited Gisenyi in February 1998 described a countryside which was virtually unrecognizable in some areas. The hills which are normally green and lush bore all the visible marks of the devastation. Fields had been burned, crops destroyed.

Both RPA soldiers and armed opposition groups have carried out widespread looting of property, livestock, crops and other belongings, and have sometimes forced the local population to take part in looting. Many health centres and schools have had to close.

Soldiers of the Rwandese Patriotic Army, Gisenyi, northwestern Rwanda.

Some arms dealers have supplied military equipment to both the former and present security forces in Rwanda with no apparent regard for human rights, perpetuating a conflict in which the majority of victims are unarmed civilians. Companies in Israel - using Eastern European links -, China and South Africa supplied weapons or military equipment to the former Rwandese armed forces before and during the genocide of 1994. Companies from these same countries have continued to supply arms and equipment to the RPA, sometimes arranged through companies in third countries.

The Rwandese Government has reportedly obtained Russian-made MI-24 helicopters through a company based in South Africa. The RPA has continued to use military helicopters during its operations in areas inhabited by unarmed civilians. In the first few months of 1998, helicopters were flying daily from Kigali towards the regions of armed conflict in the northwest. Several sources in Gisenyi, Ruhengeri and Gitarama have reported that helicopters were being used not only for surveillance but also occasionally to attack areas where insurgents were believed to be hiding. An unknown number of unarmed civilians have reportedly been killed during some of these helicopter attacks.

Recent arms supplies to armed opposition groups operating in Rwanda remain clandestine. Given the continuing arms embargo against members of the former Rwandese armed forces imposed by the UN on 17 May 1994 - more than one month after the genocide began - these forces can only receive new supplies of weapons through illicit means. Nevertheless, they appear to have been able to obtain weapons with relative ease, due to the proliferation of small arms in and around the Great Lakes region, the existence of networks of trafficking, and the close alliances between Rwandese armed opposition groups and armed groups operating in neighbouring countries, such as Uganda, DRC, Burundi and Angola. For example, in early 1998, there was a reported attempt by Sudanese government forces to bring together members of Rwandese armed opposition groups in exile, a Ugandan armed opposition group, the West Nile Bank Front, and DRC armed opposition groups, in the Garamba national park in northeastern DRC, near the borders with Uganda and Sudan.

Amnesty International has supported the work of the Commission of Inquiry since its creation in 1995. It welcomes the resumption of its work and is continuing to cooperate with the Commission. However, Amnesty International urges the UN Security Council to broaden the Commission’s mandate, in recognition of the fact that significant political, military and human rights developments have taken place in the region since the Commission last broke off its investigations.

The UN Security Council should ensure that the Commission of Inquiry is given adequate political and financial resources to include these components in its mandate and should request the full cooperation of the governments concerned. Amnesty International urges UN member states to fulfill their responsibility to make the necessary financial contributions to ensure that the Commission can carry out its work effectively.