X. LAND

The Link to Imidugudu

When the Cabinet established the habitat policy, it envisioned the redistribution of land as well as the relocation of population.137 A month after its adoption, Minister of Rehabilitation and Social Integration Patrick Mazimhaka stated that the government intended to create "modern, larger scale agricultural production methods" and that people "pushed off the land" by imidugudu and land reform would find other unspecified kinds of employment.138 Other officials who talked about imidugudu also linked relocating people to redistributing the land. They acknowledged that some people would be deprived of land and said that they would "take on new, useful professions."139 Three years after the beginning of the policy, Rwandan authorities again reiterated the importance of imidugudu to overall plans for proposed changes in land tenure: "The grouped settlement type (imidugudu), as a fundamental factor for optimal land use in the Rwanda context, is part and parcel of the proposed land law."140

The government declared that the imidugudu policy was meant to group all rural-dwellers into "villages," but it sometimes opposed the fastest, cheapest, and simplest path to that end: adding new houses to and in the midst of existing clusters of dwellings. Such a plan would also have taken advantage of infrastructure already established in the vicinity of these clusters. In most cases, the government insisted instead that rural-dwellers had to be displaced from their habitual places of residence and hence from the land which was their heritage.141

Seeming to echo the January 1997 ministerial instructions that farmers "should live apart from the fields," one expert on land use, currently a deputy in the assembly, suggested in May 2000 that distancing cultivators from their fields would cut their emotional attachment to the land as part of a family heritage. This, he speculated, would make cultivators more likely to treat land as an economic good valued only in terms of its productive capacity.142 Such a change would presumably make it easier to implement the reorganization of landholding envisioned by the authorities.

These plans had been sufficiently defined by December 1999 for the minister in charge of land to tell Human Rights Watch researchers that the government planned to replace small-scale landholders-the millions for whom the average land holding is now less than one hectare-by a far smaller number of "capable professional farmers" who would exploit holdings of twenty-five, thirty, or even fifty hectares for cattle-raising and cultivating, particularly cultivating cash crops. He explained that those displaced by the large farms would become agricultural laborers on the land they once owned or find other sources of employment. He said that displaced landholders working on such farms near Kigali were "happy" with their new role as agricultural laborers on land which they once owned.143 The same policy and expectations about large landholdings to be granted to "professional" farmers were reflected in the draft land document circulated by Rwandan government officials in November 2000.144

Landholding Laws and Practices

Problems of land in Rwanda are complicated not just because of the high ratio of people to land but also because of the complex patchwork of laws and customs that govern landholding.145

In early times, Rwandans saw land as a natural resource, not as the private property of an individual. Persons had the right to use land that they had cleared or that they had obtained from another; they could pass the right of use to their descendants or grant it to others, either freely or in return for services or goods.146

With the expansion of state power after the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the umwami, or ruler, progressively imposed another set of practices based upon the doctrine

that he owned everything within his domain, including land which he granted to his subjects for their use. He and his agents tried to require payments of goods or services in return for the use of the land and they sought to exercise the right to dispose of any vacant land. Both Tutsi and Hutu, pastoralists and cultivators, resisted these measures in a number ofregions.147 After Europeans established their administration around 1900, they backed royal efforts to assert authority over land but even with this support, the umwami never established complete control over landholding in the northwest. Kin groups retained extensive rights over the land they had cleared under a system known as ubukonde, which is still recognized by the state for the prefectures of Gisenyi and Ruhengeri.148

In 1960 the umwami passed ultimate ownership of the land to the state. After the revolution establishing the republic and independence from colonial rule, the burgomaster, as agent of the state, controlled the distribution of vacant lands within his commune while national authorities decided grants of larger expanses of land, particularly those that extended beyond the limits of a single commune.

Europeans had introduced yet another system, a set of written rules to govern land ceded to or bought by proprietors, most of them foreigners.149 Subsequently Rwandans began increasingly selling land among themselves, a practice that was supposedly regulated by a decree-law issued in 1976.150 In an effort to slow the growing fragmentation of land holdings, the law set limits to the minimum size of lots that could be sold and it required registry of sales with government officials, but this law remained largely unenforced.

The first article of the 1976 decree-law stipulated that all land not appropriated according to written law belonged to the state, whether encumbered or not by customary rights and whether occupied or not. In 1979, the Rwandan government adopted a law on the expropriation of property in the public interest.151 In detailing the steps to be followed for a legitimate expropriation, it specified that compensation must be paid for any land registered under the system of written law and that another plot of land (terrain de réinstallation) must be provided in exchange for any appropriated land which was held under customary law. It specified also that regardless of whether the land was registered orheld under customary law, compensation must be paid to the occupant for crops, structures, or other improvements to the land before taking possession of it.152

The text of the National Habitat Policy in 1996, as described below, also recognized that occupants must be compensated for land taken by the state.

When establishing imidugudu, authorities confiscated land on which to build the settlements. In addition, they required landholders to "share" land with returnees and, in some cases, to hand over all their land to returnees who claimed to have owned it some decades before. Authorities also took land from cultivators and redistributed it as large-scale holdings to others. In many cases authorities have confiscated land without following the appropriate legal procedures for expropriation and they have not delivered compensation or other plots of land in exchange for the property taken.

Taking the Land

Government officials said repeatedly that grouping dwellings together would make available more land for cultivation. But according to one study, 66 percent of residents in imidugudu say they now have no land while only 47 percent of them were landless before moving to imidugudu. In addition, some 21 percent of the others now have smaller land holdings than they had when living in their old homes.153 In results only somewhat less negative, a study by government and U.N. agencies reported that only 53 percent of imidugudu residents said they farmed their own land.154 A study by an independent organization specializing in problems of development looked at the availability of land for residents of imidugudu and concluded: "Very many people do not have any land to grow food or graze animals and those who have it have to walk long distances to work on their land. . . .This situation. . . has exacerbated the poverty that affected most of the imidugudu settlers already. . . ."155 Dutch researchers also remarked that residents in the imidugudu they studied in Kibungo lacked land even though the region had more land per person than most parts of Rwanda.156

Land for the Imidugudu

A substantial number of the newly landless and those with reduced holdings have been deprived of their fields in order to create imidugudu. The Arusha Accords specified that imidugudu were to be located on lands not occupied by individuals.157 Following thatprovision, the Ministry for Rehabilitation and Social Integration ordered in December 1994 that only public or state lands could be used for establishing the new settlements. Most early imidugudu were in fact established on public lands, including in a hunting preserve and a national wildlife park, the Akagera Park.158

But once the government decreed in December 1996 that all Rwandans would move into imidugudu, it was clear that there was not enough public land available in the country to accommodate all the settlements. At the direction of national authorities, local officials began installing imidugudu on the lands of citizens.

The December 13 text of the National Habitat Policy recognized that landowners whose property was taken for imidugudu must be compensated. It explained in some detail the procedure for expropriating property under Decree-law no. 21/79 of July 23, 1979, including the necessity for compensation to be paid before rights over the land were transferred. It commented that rural as well as urban housing reforms could be slowed if the state had to provide funds to compensate property owners and recommended finding alternative ways to finance the compensation. In the concluding paragraph, the text recommended using public lands for settlement sites because otherwise "It will be necessary to compensate present owners of lands which will be selected as residential sites," which could slow relocation.159

When it came to implementing the policy, the government decided that residents of the imidugudu, not the state, would compensate property owners whose land was taken for building sites. An official of the Ministry of Lands, Human Resettlement and Environmental Protection explained: "The state is not able to compensate everyone who is displaced for the villages. The villagers themselves who come [to live on the land] will give compensation. It is up to the people themselves to decide how to do this."160

But rarely did the "villagers" deliver any compensation to the person whose land they occupied.161 One man described what happened in Umutara this way: "Everyone got a piece of land 15 by 30 meters for each family here [in the umudugudu]. We were supposed to give 15 by 30 meters of land in exchange to the other person, but the one who lost the land got nothing and just dropped the matter."162

Another cultivator from the same region recounted that 70 meters of the 300 meters of his field had been taken for the site of an umudugudu. "They promised to give me somecompensation," he recalled. "But they have not and now I see that the commune has forgotten. It has been two years."163 Residents of imidugudu in Rutonde and Muhazi communes in Kibungo and of several communes in Ruhengeri told the same story.164

In a sample of some 500 imidugudu residents in late 1999, only 8 percent of those who had ceded land for imidugudu received something in exchange. Those fortunate enough to receive plots from others did not necessarily receive land equivalent in value to that lost. And they almost certainly had to travel further to cultivate their fields. The new holdings were necessarily more distant than the fields which had been converted to housing sites and, if they had been given by several people, they might be in widely scattered locations.

Imidugudu residents who moved onto the land of others often sympathized with their plight but themselves had no land or too little land to be able to give compensation. One cultivator from the northwest said: "We are forced to occupy a 20 x 25 meter plot in the umudugudu on land belonging to someone else. We should give him a piece of land of the same size. . . . It is a big problem for those who do not have land to give in exchange."165

In some cases, residents of an umudugudu had land but they refused to compensate the deprived landowner, perhaps because of some past enmity. In one instance, a Tutsi woman whose husband was killed during the genocide refused to give land to compensate a man who had been accused but never convicted of genocide. He had subsequently been released from prison without trial. Indicating the land where her house was located, she said:

This land belonged to [a man] who lives nearby. Another neighbor is also on his
land. He was in prison when we had to move here and he came back to find our
houses [on his land]. He couldn't ask for any compensation because he was
imprisoned for genocide. I don't know why he was let out of jail. I am not happy
to be living next to someone who committed genocide. After his release, he was
nice because he was afraid of us, afraid that we would remember what happened.166

In most cases, citizens lost crops or structures on the land as well as the land itself. One man from Cyimbogo commune, Cyangugu, lost all the trees which he had planted for harvest and sale. On August 23, 1999, the burgomaster of Mukingo commune in Ruhengeri reportedly ordered land cleared for building a settlement even though crops were in the fields and could have been gathered. Among the six cultivators who lost crops that day was an eighty-year-old man who needed the food for himself and the two orphaned grandchildren who lived with him.167

"General Sharing Scheme"

The Arusha Accords bound the government to provide land as well as housing for returnees, most of whom were cultivators and pastoralists. In addition to civilians who lived from their herds of cattle, important military officers and RPF leaders owned herds which could number hundreds of cattle. In this they carried on a pattern established during the centuries of Tutsi rule when cattle formed the most important basis for wealth, political power, and social prestige in Rwanda. Following the 1959 revolution and in the face of land scarcity due to population growth, pasture land was largely transformed to crop land. In 1990 few Rwandans inside the country kept more than a few cows and most had none at all. When refugees returned with more than half a million head of cattle, finding pasturage for them added a new dimension to the already difficult issue of land scarcity.

Officials at first allocated public land to the returnees, some of it located in the communes and much of it taken from the Akagera game park and an adjacent hunting preserve. Beginning in 1997 the prefect of Kibungo required landholders in his prefecture to "share" their lands with returnees. This practice, never publicly debated and never sanctioned by law, was soon after implemented elsewhere, including in Umutara and Kigali-rural. Although there was no proclamation of this policy by national authorities, local officials declared that it was imposed from above and that they had no choice but to implement it. They attempted to persuade local residents to divide their land willingly by arguing that returnees had nowhere else to go and that they too had a right to share in the national patrimony.168

In many communes, particularly where cultivators owned parcels of two hectares, they divided the land in half and gave one hectare to returnees.169 Speaking of the situation in Umutara, one man said:

Each family had a piece of land 300 by 65 meters to start with, but we had to
share it with others who needed it. So we had to divide the fields for two
families and we were left with 150 by 32.5 meters each. . . . We didn't
understand how we could be made to share land. . . . But because we
had no choice, we kept quiet and shared the land, even though we still
don't understand.170

In some places, returnees who have received land from one person have later asked more fields from others, sometimes on the prextext of providing for relatives yet to come from abroad. They then rent the fields or have them worked by sharecroppers or paid labor. In other cases, Tutsi returnees have obtained houses and land in imidugudu and then rented the property or even sold it to another. Such efforts to multiply holdings are tolerated bysome authorities who fear the returnees and are encouraged by others who are their friends or kin.171

In areas where returnees with large herds live near cultivators, such as in Kibungo, the pastoralists sometimes permit their cattle to graze on the crops of the cultivators. Armed with spears and often accompanied by their dogs, they are ready to threaten or even harm cultivators who attempt to protect their fields.172 According to one genocide survivor these practices and official toleration of them account in part for the flight of some Kibungo residents across the border to Tanzania beginning in April 2000:

Just imagine how the returnees of 1959 [those who fled Rwanda starting in that year]
lead their cattle into fields where there are bananas, sweet potatoes, manioc, corn, and
so on, in fields that do not belong to them. When you dare to say anything to them,
then you can have a problem. What is unfortunate is that the cattleherders are armed
with spears and bring along their dogs to intimidate the owners of the fields. The
people complain about this, but the authorities do nothing. So when people see
that neither the communal council nor the burgomaster react to this, they decide
to leave the country. To hide the real cause, the authorities say they are fleeing
gacaca when it is not just Hutu who flee but even genocide survivors. . . . My mother
is completely overwhelmed. They have burned her stand of banana plants, they
have brought their cows to eat her sweet potatoes. In fact the people who were in the
country before [i.e., before the arrival of the RPF], we have nothing to say. If I were not here, my mother would already have left for Tanzania.173

Such practices as demanding multiple holdings, taking a house and plot of land and then not occupying them, and permitting cattle to destroy the food crops upon which others depend for their subsistence all belie the spirit of sharing so often touted by local officials in trying to spur landholders to divide their fields with the returnees.

"Returning" Property

In both the Arusha Accords and a September 1996 ministerial order, the government asserted the inviolability of property but it in effect guaranteed the same land to two different parties, those-mostly Tutsi-who occupied it before leaving in the first wave of refugees in 1959 and after and those-mostly Hutu-who occupied it before fleeing in the second wave of refugees in 1994. Because the Arusha Accords, which guarantee the property of theTutsi, were accepted as part of the fundamental law of the land, they presumably carry greater weight than a ministerial order.

Parties to the Accords recommended that returnees not reclaim any property left more than ten years before and now occupied by others, but they obviously could not prohibit them from doing so after having guaranteed the inviolability of property. At first, nonetheless, government officials interpreted this provision as if it were a prohibition, leaving most Rwandans-and many foreigners-convinced that repatriates from the first wave of refugees could not reclaim their property.174 In 1995, a study by the Ministry of Agriculture together with UNDP found that returnees from the first wave of refugees had not moved onto lands they used to own, particularly when the property was already occupied: "The returnees respect the provisions of the Arusha Accord and are aware that they should not [ne doivent pas] reclaim their former properties if they are occupied by other people. They are willing therefore to settle on land other than that of their ancestors."175 Only exceptionally, such as when the more recent owners had fled or were deceased, did returnees from the first wave of refugees reclaim property abandoned more than ten years before.

The September 1996 ministerial order seemed to confirm the hitherto general practice of favoring more recent occupants over earlier holders of the same property. The order stated that "personal or collective private property cannot be violated," for which position it cited the Rwandan Constitution of June 10, 1991, the June 9, 1993 Arusha protocol on resettlement of refugees, and previous Rwandan decrees and laws on land of 1960 and 1976.176 After specifying how authorities could grant temporary use of property that had been left by those in flight, it set out the procedure by which a "rightful owner" could reclaim property through local officials. The order stated in article 18, "The legitimate owner of the land is reinstated in his property rights upon his return" and directed local authorities to assist him if the property was not given back within fifteen days of his return.177

At the time, the Rwandan government was trying to convince Hutu refugees to come home and it recognized that guaranteeing their rights to the land provided an importantincentive to return. The order was widely publicized in refugee camps and, according to UNHCR officials, convinced at least some refugees to return to Rwanda.178

Unlike cases where Tutsi returnees asserted no claim on the land and ordinarily received part of the property of a landholder at government direction, authorities followed no such simple rule in disputes where returnees claimed that the land had previously belonged to them or their families. As one man who lost land to a Tutsi returnee commented, "What is obscure is the policy. They just leave people to settle it themselves. If only the state said, divide the land this way or that way."179

A burgomaster from Gitarama declared that in his commune, where there have been few Tutsi returnees, there had been only one serious conflict over land. Otherwise, he said, "most. . . just decide to divide it between them."180 One Hutu in Rusumo who had fled in the second wave of refugees returned to find that Tutsi repatriates from 1959 had simply appropriated his property. "We just shared with the family who had moved in," he said. "They built a house next door to ours. No problem."181

But others found no such satisfactory solution. People in several communes of Umutara and Kibungo stated that when they came back from exile in 1996 or after, they found their property occupied by repatriated Tutsi of the first wave of refugees and could not recover it.182

The residents of one sector in Nyarubuye commune stated that when they returned from Tanzania in 1997, they found that a large hill which they had cultivated had been converted to pasturage for the cattle of returnees who had moved into the area a year or so before. Those who still had fields divided them with those who had been rendered landless by the appropriation of the returnees.183

One Kigali resident with family in Umutara described how Tutsi returnees had reclaimed all their land:

The people from my family have to work their old fields for the new masters just to be able to eat. . . .                                    To produce enough food, you have to work all day and then ask the
landowner to lend you a little plot on which you can grow your own crops. Most of
what you cultivate must go to the others, but at least you can keep the crops you
harvest from that little plot.184

One man who arrived back in that same area from exile in 1997 was recognized by the returnees who had taken over his property. Because they remembered him fondly from decades before, they lent him a house and allowed him to buy back part of the property in an informal and unregistered transaction.185

Land conflicts involving Tutsi returnees have been rare in Ruhengeri because relatively few Tutsi returned there. But two women and a man who were grandchildren of a chief in that area under the colonial administration reportedly displaced twenty-five cultivators from their fields in Kidaho commune in early 2000.186

In Cyimbogo, Gisuma, and Gafunza communes, Cyangugu, Tutsi returnees from 1959 have taken some or all of the land occupied by others.187 Some of the returnees had originally settled in imidugudu in southeastern Rwanda but found conditions there unsatisfactory and returned to Cyangugu to repossess land held by their families decades before.

Tutsi returnees have called on local authorities to back their claims. One local official in Cyangugu explained that people moved to imidugudu in early 2000 after giving over their fields to returnees from 1959. When asked why people had given up their land, he replied, "Because I told them to."188 An elderly widow who cares for six children and who was one of those coerced into giving up her fields said, "I saw others moving to the umudugudu and, after they took my field away, I thought I had to come here at least to have a plot of land to live on."189 Others in Cyangugu who felt obliged to turn over all their land to an official whose grandfather had once owned the land also moved to an umudugudu.190 Another elderly man in Cyimbogo commune decided to hand over virtually all his property to returnees because he feared that otherwise authorities would take reprisals on his son, who had publicly opposed ceding land to repatriates.191

In other cases returnees have called on relatives who are soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army to support their demands for return of their land. One man from Cyangugu said that returnees who were grandchildren of a man who had once owned the land intimidated his brother into ceding all his fields, including some which had been planted with tea, a valuable cash crop: "They came to the house with soldiers who are part of their family. The soldiers have their guns and they say, `Give us our land back. You know that it is ours.'"192

In similar cases in Ruhengeri soldiers of the Rwandan Patriotic Army and government employees have forced cultivators to hand over fields to themselves or members of their families, all of them Tutsi returnees who left the country decades ago.193

One man from Cyangugu reported that in his region returnees have aggressively demanded all the holdings they say once belonged to them, a stance that he believed was encouraged by the local political atmosphere. He assessed it this way: "It is the victor and the vanquished. That dominates relations. You spoke yesterday, we speak today. That's how they take the land and say they won't respect Arusha. Habyarimana wrote that and he is now dead. When you dare to challenge this, they consider you a subversive."194

Land Taken for Large-Scale Farms

The reorganization of land tenure to favor "modern" farming by "capable professional farmers" has not yet received legislative approval, but such farms have nonetheless been established, depriving hundreds of small-scale cultivators of the land which has been their basis for subsistence. Authorities saw regrouping rural-dwellers in imidugudu as part of the whole process of reorganizing for large-scale farming, although some large holdings have been granted without any direct link to imidugudu.

Holdings of fifty hectares or more in the east and northeast, where the flat, dry grasslands are used to raise cattle, are known as amarancha from the English word ranch. Other holdings, also primarily for cattle raising, have been carved out of the Gishwati forest in Gisenyi (see below) while farms have been set up in river valleys and marsh lands across the country and are being used for the cultivation of cash crops as well as for stockraising. One expert on land tenure remarked that in some regions the confiscation of land had begun to resemble the enclosure movement in seventeenth and eighteenth century Great Britain.195

According to officials of the Ministry of Land, Human Settlement and Environmental Protection, there are established criteria and a procedure for granting these holdings. They say that grantees may receive land only from public or reserve holdings, not from lands heldby individuals, and that they must pay rent to the state for them. One official at the ministry admitted, however, that powerful persons have dealt directly with local officials and have intimidated them into making grants from the lands of individuals, thus forcibly displacing cultivators.196 Another highly placed official at the ministry commented in response to an inquiry about land grabbing by military officers, "Individuals do these things. You cannot prevent them from being human beings. But this is not the policy of the government."197

One case from Kibungo showed a clear link between the creation of imidugudu and the granting of large holdings of land. One hundred and sixty-six families from the commune of Nyarubuye were forced to leave their homes and fields and move to an umudugudu in an adjacent commune. Their land was then granted to a military officer who used it to pasture his cattle.198

In another case in southeastern Kibungo, local residents were forced to leave their homes in a fertile flood plain which was declared a military zone at a time when there were incursions across the border. Military officers later took over the land to grow cash crops and employed the former landholders as wage laborers on the land which used to be theirs. In some cases the military officers, who were absentee landlords, leased the land back to its original occupants. Although there is no longer any immediate threat to security in the region, the original occupants have not been permitted to return to their lands.199

In Rusumo commune, local residents report that several extensive grants of land, about twenty hectares each, have been given either to military officers or to wealthy traders or businessmen.200

Many extensive amarancha were established in the prefecture of Umutara in the first years after the new government was formed. A cultivator from Umutara related:

There is a big ranch for cattle near here. The owner is a major in the army. He
has been there since sometime after the war of 1994. The fields belonged to the
people here before the war but when we came back in 1996, we found the
ranch there. We haven't received anything in exchange for our land.201

In one commune in Byumba prefecture, a large farm was established reportedly for the benefit of then President Pasteur Bizimungu and a local official. One man who had previously raised cattle on part of the land said he had received no official notification that the land had been re-assigned by communal authorities. He had heard the news first from other residents of the commune and then had seen it confirmed by the installation of a barbed wire fence around the fields. A woman who had grown crops on a field now enclosed in this farm was no longer allowed to cultivate there and had to borrow a small plot elsewhere to try to grow enough food to feed herself and her family. In March 2000 another powerful person began setting up a farm in the same area, this time on land occupied by homesteads and adjacent fields. The owners of the homes lost all but a minimal plot of land.202

In early 2000, a military officer took over a large stretch of land in the Nyabugogo valley, in Butamwa, Kigali-rural, one of the poorest communes in Rwanda. He displaced a number of cultivators who relied on produce from fields in that area for their livelihood. Because of its moisture, the valley was especially valued for cultivating crops in the dry season. The military officer reportedly brought prisoners from Kigali central prison to plant grass on the land and soon after installed his cattle there. Some local officials tried to protect the interests of the cultivators, but the burgomaster supposedly acceded to the demands of the military officer. Most of the people displaced were afraid to protest. But when one threatened to take the matter to the press, the cultivators were given a token payment.203

The press reported a case where a group of military officers and businessmen were granted 152 hectares of land being cultivated by some 2,000 people in two communes of Byumba. In a similar case, a sugar-raising enterprise was permitted to displace farmers growing food on 163 hectares in Runda and Shyrongi communes in Gitarama and Kigali-rural prefectures. When the cultivators protested, the government replied that the land belonged to it, not to them and that they should either farm other land or go to work for the company.204

In a study of imidugudu done by UNDP and the Rwandan government, respondents from Umutara cited the need for land, "especially the freeing up of marshes monopolized by the owners of farms."205

Remedies for the Dispossessed

In the past Rwandans settled property disputes by appealing to the local administrative authority, by resorting to a customary way of resolving conflicts known as gacaca or by taking the case to court. When the government imposed rural reorganization, it did notspecify any form of recourse for those dissatisfied with the loss of property and relatively few landholders have sought or obtained assistance from the existing mechanisms.

Given that administrative authorities ordinarily were the very persons to impose or support taking the land for imidugudu sites or for redistribution to Tutsi returnees, most of those deprived made no effort to obtain redress from them. A cultivator in Ruhengeri was one of several in his area who had to give up land for an umudugudu and who had received no compensation six months later. He said: "Of course I know the two families who are living on my land. I haven't asked them outright to give me anything. I am waiting for the state to do that. They know about my problem and they haven't offered me anything."206 When several dissatisfied persons were asked if they had sought a remedy to their complaints from local authorities, they just laughed at the idea. One elderly woman who believed she was unjustly disposessed of her fields commented, "We know this is not the law, but we have nothing to say. We must accept it."207 One person who worked to defend the interests of cultivators tried unsuccessfully to get authorities to find lands for those whose fields had been taken. "We ask the commune to step in, to give land to the person [deprived]," he said. "But the response is always negative. So the person who lived on the site where the umudugudu has been put is the one who loses."208

In a few cases, authorities have created commissions of local residents to try to resolve claims, particularly if they involve a significant number of persons or an important amount of land. This effort to involve the community continues the idea of communal conflict resolution which is the basis of gacaca, but the participation of local authorities in the discussions frequently deprives the group of real autonomy.

Relatively few landholders have tried to reclaim land which they have lost through the courts. The government has dedicated virtually all resources available for the judicial system to prosecuting cases of genocide, more than 100,000 of which await trial, and they have little left for cases involving property disputes. The inexperience of the judges, many of whom are young and minimally trained, and the corruption or susceptibility to political influence which is sometimes charged against them discourages the dissatisfied from filing complaints. In addition, many judges are Tutsi and Hutu often suppose that they would not receive a fair hearing before them.

In some cases those who have sought redress through administrative or judicial channels have obtained relief, but they have been too few and the grounds on which they won too unclear to encourage others to follow suit.209

In mid-2000, Rwandan government authorities stepped up efforts to have Tutsi returnees vacate property that belonged to Hutu before 1994, but these efforts mostlyaddressed the illegal occupation of houses and land by those who had no claim on them prior to 1994. In cases where Tutsi returnees claimed land which they said had belonged to them or their families before they fled Rwanda decades ago, the government has not adopted a consistent public position. In a public statement in May 2000, the government stressed that Tutsi returnees had the right to make claims on property they once owned and that the government must enforce such claims if asked to do so.210 At about the same time, a magistrate said that he and his colleagues had received instructions to begin enforcing such property claims.211 Yet a document issued in July 2000 by the Ministry of Lands, Human Resettlement and Environmental Protection still took the opposite position, stating that "persons who have been out of the country for ten years or more may not reclaim any previously possessed property."212

In the absence of legislative guidance on these complex issues, decisions by officials or the courts are often seen as arbitrary and leave the losing party feeling wronged by authorities as well as by his adversary.213 A draft document on land policy circulated by officials in November 2000 called on the "government and National Assembly to settle and arrive at an unambiguous interpretation" of the Arusha Accord article 4 concerning the return of property to repatriates who had left the country more than ten years before.214

Effect of Land Loss on Cultivators

Those with no land or with insufficient land to sustain themselves and their families survive by cultivating small plots that are borrowed or rented or by working on the land of others, either for pay or in exchange for the right to cultivate a small piece of land for themselves.

A recent mission by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, found that imidugudu residents in the region of Bugesera suffered more from food scarcity than others, largely because they had less easy access to land. They found that imidugudu residents, living in conditions like those of a refugee camp, depended on food aid to survive and foresaw that they might remain in such a situation for ten years or more to come.215 An agricultural expert concluded in a similar though somewhat less drastic vein that foodproduction had declined "because the peasants are not accustomed to this way of organizing the land."216

In mid-September 2000, the Food and Agriculture Organisation appealed for increased international food assistance to Rwanda. Remarking that food shortages were in part caused by drought, the announcement stated also that residents of the imidugudu are "especially vulnerable to food shortages."217

Some of the cultivators whose land was taken by authorities or with the permission of authorities say that their fields are not now being cultivated. Rather the land is being used for pasturage or is being held for investment purposes. Such a reduction in the amount of land being cultivated would help explain the diminished production noted above.

Opposition to Loss of Land

Those who lost land in the process of creating the imidugudu, in "sharing" with returnees, or in the establishment of large farms suffered enormous hardship but rarely protested openly. One observer remarked, "People are keeping quiet, but they are burning up inside." One cultivator in Ruhengeri said, "Losing my land is really serious but I had no choice but to accept it."218

In a small number of reported cases, landholders resisted giving up their fields. In several cases, local officials called in support from the burgomaster or prefect who ordered the resister to comply. In other cases, the recalcitrant were punished, such as in Gisenyi prefecture where two men were jailed in early 2000.219 In Kibungo prefecture, one woman spent at least a month in jail for refusing to accept the division of her land and a man spent more than fourteen months in jail for having cut down banana trees on a piece of land that he was obliged to give to another.220 An elderly woman in Kigali-rural was also jailed for three days because she protested having the best part of her land taken by returnees, and others from the same prefecture were reportedly imprisoned for having cultivated on land that was supposedly no longer theirs.221

Following the flight of thousands of refugees from Kibungo to Tanzania from April through August 2000, President Kagame went to the region to hear the complaints of local people. Encouraged to speak frankly, they complained of loss of land and encroachment on their fields by pastoralists whose cattle ate their crops. Kagame promptly reproached local officials for permitting such abuses, and in the weeks after, a number of burgomasters andthe prefect were replaced. It is not yet clear if the changes in personnel will result in any reduction of abuses, but Kagame's visit and the subsequent changes appear to have at least spurred more discussion of land and housing issues and a greater readiness to seek redress for measures which are seen as unfair.222

137 République Rwandaise, Ministère des Travaux Publics, Politique Nationale de l'Habitat, December 1996, p. 20.

138 Anonymous, "Imidugudu," p. 4. See also pp. 9-11.

139 Minutes, Meeting of diplomats regarding housing policies, February 12, 1997, pp. 2, 4.

140 Republic of Rwanda, Ministry of Land and Human Resettlement, and Environmental Protection, Position on the Discussion Note, January 11, 2000, p. 2.

141 Anonymous, "Imidugudu," p. 9.

142 Republic of Rwanda, Instruction . . . Relative à l'Entraide Mutuelle, article 4 (a), p. 3; Nkusi, "Problématique du Régime foncier," p. 31.

143 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, December 18, 1999.

144 Government of Rwanda, Draft document on land policy, distributed at Landnet meeting, November 2, 2000.

145 For general descriptions, see Ephrem Gasasira, "Regime Foncier et Droit de la Proprieté, (République Rwandaise, Ministère de la Justice, 1996); William Schabas and Martin Imbleau, Introduction to Rwandan Law (Quebec: Les Editions Yvon Blais, 1997); and Christopher Harland, "Introduction to Land Law in Rwanda," (Butare: National University of Rwanda, 1998).

146 In some cases, those who cleared the forest paid something to hunterers and gatherers whom they found on the land.

147 The uprising led by Ndungutse in1912 resisted attempts by agents of the court to assert control over land. See Alison L. Des Forges, "`The Drum is Greater than the Shout:' the 1912 rebellion in northern Rwanda," in Donald Crummey, ed., Banditry, Rebellion and Social Protest in Africa (Portsmouth: Heinemann, 1986).

148 Decree Law 530/l of May 26, 1961.

149 In 1927, the Belgians introduced provisions of property law based on those of the Belgian Congo in Book II of the Civil Code. Schabas and Imbleau, Introduction to Rwandan Law, p. 95.

150 Decree Law 09/76 of March 4, 1976.

151 The National Habitat Policy, adopted December 13, 1996, specifies in Section III, p. 6, that there are two kinds of expropriation, that for the public interest and that "for the benefit of individuals," pour utilité des particuliers. In fact, Rwandan law does not recognize this second kind of expropriation for private benefit.

152 Decree-law no. 21/79, July 23, 1979, article 19.

153 ADL, Etude, p. 36

154 United Nations, Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, "Report . . . by the Special Representative, Mr. Michel Moussalli," p. 32.

155 RISD, "Land Use," paragraph 3.4.1.

156 Hilhorst and van Leeuwen, "Villagisation in Rwanda," p. 46.

157 Protocole d'Accord, article 3.

158 République Rwandaise, Ministère de Rehabilitation et de Réinsertion Sociale, Problèmes du Repatriement et de la Réinstallation des Réfugiés Rwandais-Proposition de Solutions, December 1994, quoted in Anonymous, "Imidugudu," working document, pp. 7-8.

159 République Rwandaise, Ministère des Travaux Publics, Politique Nationale de l'Habitat, December 1996, pp. 6-8, 10-11, 22.

160 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali, March 15 and October 23, 2000.

161 Human Rights Watch interviews, Rutonde and Muhazi, Kibungo, April 15, 1999.

162 Human Rights Watch interview, Umutara, March 16, 2000.

163 Human Rights Watch interview, Umutara, March 16, 2000.

164 Human Rights Watch interviews, Rutonde and Muhazi, Kibungo, April 15, 1999.

165 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, December 10, 1999.

166 Human Rights Watch interview, Muhazi, November 30, 1999.

167 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May 19, 2000. See also RISD, "Land Use," paragraph 4.

168 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, October 27, 2000.

169 Human Rights Watch interviews, New York, February 4, 2000; Nyarubuye and Rusumo, Kibungo, June 23, 2000; Nkusi, "Problématique du Régime foncier," p. 18.

170 Human Rights Watch interview, Umutara, March 16, 2000.

171 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali, June 9, 2000; Rusumo, Kibungo, October 29, 2000 and Nyarubuye, Kibungo, October 30, 2000; Hilhorst and van Leeuwen, "Villagisation in Rwanda," pp. 32-33.

172 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, November 1, 2000.

173 Human Rights Watch, Kigali, October 7, 2000. Gacaca, a term formerly applied to the practice of resolving conflicts by the community, now means the system of popular justice being created by the Rwandan government to prosecute cases of genocide.

174 Recognition of the property rights of returnees in the Arusha Accord contrasted sharply with the position taken by an earlier government, which in presidential decree no. 25/01 of February 26, 1966 prohibited returnees from claiming land which they inhabited or used previously, if occupied by another. As implemented in its first years, however, the position of the current authorities did not differ substantially from that of the government of the 1960s.

175 Ephrem Gasasira, "Rwanda, La Question Foncière après la Guerre," République Rwandaise, MINAGRI/PNUD [April 1995], p.16. Nkusi argues that the Arusha Accords amount to expropriation for all who follow the "recommendation," "Problématique du Régime foncier," p. 16.

176 Republic of Rwanda, Ministerial Order No. 01/96 of September 23, 1996 Regarding the Temporary Management of Land Property.

177 Ibid.

178 Ibid. An addendum, "Reasons for this Order," suggested that the order was to be made known in refugee camps outside the country, p. 5; Anonymous, "Imidugudu," draft working document, p. 11.

179 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May 27, 2000.

180 Human Rights Watch interview, Musambira, Gitarama, August 1, 2000.

181 Human Rights Watch interview, Rusumo, Kibungo, June 23, 2000.

182 Human Rights Watch interviews, Rutonde and Muhazi, Kibungo, April 15, 1999.

183 Human Rights Watch interviews, Nyarubuye, Kibungo, October 30, 2000.

184 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May 27, 2000.

185 Ibid.

186 Human Rights Watch, "Rwanda: The Search for Security and Human Rights Abuses," A Human Rights Watch Short Report, April 2000, vol. 12, no. 1 (A), p. 22.

187 Human Rights Watch interviews, Cyimbogo, Cyangugu, May 16 and Cyangugu, May 17, 2000.

188 Human Rights Watch interview, Cyangugu, May 16, 2000.

189 Human Rights Watch interview, Cyimbogo, Cyangugu, May 16, 2000.

190 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, November 6, 2000.

191 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May 19, 2000.

192 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, November 6, 2000

193 Human Rights Watch, "Rwanda: The Search for Security and Human Rights Abuses," p. 21.

194 Human Rights Watch, Kigali, May 19, 2000. Habyarimana refers to then President Juvenal Habyarimana, who signed the accords for the Rwandan government.

195 Nkusi, "Problématique du Régime foncier,"p. 26.

196 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali, March 15, 2000.

197 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, October 23, 2000.

198 Laurent and Bugnion, "External Evaluation of the UNHCR Shelter Program," pp. 44, 96.

199 Hilhorst and van Leeuwen, "Villagisation in Rwanda," pp. 40-41.

200 Human Rights Watch interviews, Rusumo, Kibungo, October 30, 2000.

201 Human Rights Watch interview, Umutara, March 16, 2000.

202 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali and Byumba.

203 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali, June 21 and 27, 2000.

204 Shyaka Kanuma, "Land Wrangle Displaces 2000 in Byumba," Rwanda Newsline, February 14-27, 2000; Victor Visathan, "Squatters on Kabuye Sugar Works land told to quit," The New Times, June 7-13, 1999; Radio Rwanda Newsreel, December 12, 2000.

205 PNUD, Rapport, p. 24.

206 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, November 18, 1999.

207 Human Rights Watch interview, Cyimbogo, Cyangugu, May 16, 2000.

208 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, December 10, 1999.

209 Human Rights Watch interview, Gisuma, Cyangugu, May 16, 2000; cases documented in correspondence from the prefect of Kigali-rural to several burgomasters, 1997-2000; Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, October 23, 2000.

210 Government of Rwanda, Reply to Human Rights Watch Report, "Rwanda: The Search for Security and Human Rights Abuses," May 2000, posted on the Rwandan government website.

211 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May 19, 2000.

212 Government of Rwanda, "Thematic Consultation," p. 12.

213 Hilhorst and van Leeuwen, "Villagisation in Rwanda," p. 44.

214 Government of Rwanda, Draft document on land policy, p. 17.

215 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, August 9, 2000; CCAWorking Paper, p. 13.

216 Nkusi, "Problématique du Régime foncier,"p. 32.

217 United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network, IRIN-CEA Update 1,1018, September 25, 2000.

218 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, November 18, 1999.

219 Human Rights Watch interview, Gisenyi, March 4, 2000.

220 Human Rights Watch interviews, November 2 and November 6, 2000.

221 Human Rights Watch interviews, Kigali, October 27 and November 2, 2000.

222 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, October 26, 2000.