VIII. THE USE OF FORCE

Authorities in the east and southeast sometimes talked of security needs to convince and coerce rural-dwellers into relocating, but after early 1997 there was virtually no armed opposition in most of Kibungo, Umutara, and Kigali-rural. In the northwest, however, the insurgents were strong and authorities imposed rural reorganization there largely for security reasons and only secondarily to achieve long-term development goals. During 1997 and 1998 Rwandan soldiers and, less frequently, insurgents targeted civilians, killing or injuring tens of thousands of them. Authorities moved 650,000 civilians to camps, often using force to do so. They claimed to be protecting local people from attack, but they aimed also at making it impossible for them to support the insurgents. Rwandan soldiers suppressed the insurgency by the end of 1998 through intensive occupation of the region and the use of overwhelming force. They generally treated persons caught outside the camps without authorisation as enemies, subject to be shot on sight.89

Life in the huge camps was miserable with residents crowded together in inhumane conditions, many of them suffering from malnutrition and exposed to disease. When authorities ordered the move to imidugudu sites in late 1998 and 1999, many residents went willingly because even those sites barren of housing and services at least offered more space than the camps and access to their fields. Soldiers, presumed by many civilians to be hostile to them, ordinarily attended meetings where the orders to move were given and stood ready to enforce them. According to one witness, "Some [of us] were hit and mistreated. We were scared to see the soldiers with their guns, saying that we had to go. So everyone left quickly and we went to the imidugudu."90

Most people wanted to go back to their own homes rather than to imidugudu, but they were told that this was not a choice. A resident of Nyamugali commune stated simply, "We were threatened with being shot if we went home."91 According to one local official in Ruhengeri, "People in my commune who do not want to move to imidugudu are generally considered insurgents."92 Knowing how quickly soldiers shot anyone thought to be an insurgent, most people moved without question.

Another Ruhengeri resident said, "No one wanted to go. . . . The soldiers threatened that anyone who took too long to move would be considered `accomplices' [of the enemy]. That scared us because we knew the punishment could be death."93

Kinigi Commune

The commune of Kinigi abuts the northern border of Rwanda and is subject to frequent incursions. There the authorities moved virtually the entire population into imidugudu between January and August 1999. Many families were obliged to relocate in the span of a few days or weeks. One local resident related, "We were told to come see the lots for the houses on February 22, 1999. By March 1, we had to be in imidugudu-the whole sector."94 National and prefectural officials praised the speed and thoroughness of the relocation in Kinigi; they delivered a "bravo" to the commune for its "massive response" to the program.95

A resident of Kinigi said the move to the umudugudu was accompanied by less violence than what he had witnessed in previous months. He said:

The soldiers ensured security and enforced the move here because it was the
authority of the state, the public authority. . . . Coming here to the umudugudu
was a duty. The army only controlled the move of people towards the site. . . .
In general there was no brutality. Just executing the government orders.96

Another Kinigi resident said that local authorities warned they would employ force if needed to implement the policy. "They didn't specify what kind of force," he said. "But we understood what they meant."97

In many respects, the situation in this commune exemplified the worst aspects of the forced relocation of rural-dwellers. Many people were grouped in one huge agglomeration, where thousands of miserable blindés were awash in mud and water whenever it rained. These make-shift shelters of wood, grass, leaves, and plastic sheeting offered little protection against the cold, damp weather frequent in this mountainous region. Some people lived in these blindés for more than a year.

In August 2000, during a highly-publicized visit to Kinigi, President Kagame promised to provide roofing materials so that people could build houses. The national television filmedthe visit to the site but authorities reportedly prevented it from broadcasting the worst scenes of squalor.98

Resisting Relocation

Most of the displaced moved from the camps to the imidugudu without protest, both because they feared the consequences of opposition and because they saw the new sites as potentially more habitable than the camps in which they had suffered for many months.99 But officials encountered more resistance when they began ordering people who had never been displaced to leave their homes for the imidugudu.

In July 1999, Human Rights Watch researchers witnessed a meeting where the councilor told people who had never left their homes during the entire period of war that they must move to the government-designated sites. The councilor was apologetic at having to deliver the bad news, which residents had anticipated for some time, but his distress did little to mitigate their anger.100

A month later, at a meeting in another commune in Ruhengeri, local people spoke out against the forced move to settlements. A witness who was present said:

Three men, one old and two young, criticized the policy publicly. Soon after they
were summoned to the commune where they were arrested and put in the
communal lock-up. One was held for a week, one for two weeks, and one for
a month.101

Some who refused to move to imidugudu were fined and arrested.102 One resident of Ruhengeri related the case of his neighbor:

One man stayed behind. He said he couldn't leave his potatoes. They weren't
ripe yet. The local authorities punished him with a fine of 21,000 Rwandan francs103
although he asked to be pardoned. He is very poor. He was fortunate though. He
could have been killed.104

A local official from Ruhengeri reported that he had imposed fines of 2,000 Rwandan francs on people in his sector who had refused to move. This sum, the equivalent of about $5, would be enough to pay school fees for two children for a year.105

A resident of Ruhengeri said that in his area authorities were prepared to go beyond imposing fines. He said:

In my sector, a deadline was set at a meeting in late November [1999]. People had a week in which to move. When that date came, nothing had happened and the deadlinewas extended to mid-December. People were told that if they hadn't moved by thenthey would be punished, not just with a fine-people had paid fines already butstill had not moved. The authorities spoke about "other forms of punishment."
There were more than forty families affected by this.106

The families decided to move just before the deadline to avoid the "other forms of punishment." In a similar situation in another commune, a witness commented, "No one stayed behind. They only wanted to."107

Two local officials from Ruhengeri identified people unwilling to move to imidugudu as opponents of the government and said they should be punished. One said,

People are not 100 percent for the imidugudu. Some of them don't want
to move. Some will be compelled, they will be moved by force. But this is a
minority. . . . There are lots of reasons for their reluctance. Some don't want to
support the government. There are insurgents. That's one reason, the main one.

Some people don't want to move but if they refuse they will be jailed.108

Dissent by Local Officials

The lowest level officials, councilors and heads of cells, are closest to the population with whom they live and work. Many are themselves cultivators, as much attached to their homes and land as others who live in their jurisdictions. Many of them, too, have suffered from the relocation policy.

A councilor in Nyakinama commune, Ruhengeri, was reportedly jailed for opposing the move to the imidugudu. As one person familiar with the case commented, "Anyone who questions this policy is accused of collaborating with the abacengezi."109

According to one resident of Ruhengeri, another councilor was singled out for punishment in August 1999. The witness said,

The councilor was publicly slapped by the assistant prefect because he did not enforce the villagization policy. When the assistant prefect and the burgomaster visited the sector, they saw that little progress had been made on villagization and thateven the councilor himself was still living in his old house. They accused him ofnot having made an effort to "persuade" people about imidugudu. So they called together people from the whole cell for a meeting near the cell office andthe assistant prefect slapped him in the face. The burgomaster and assistant prefectwere accompanied by a military officer, a captain, and at least five others. . . . 110

Rather than openly oppose the policy itself, local officials sometimes sought to lessen its impact on residents. Several councilors in Ruhengeri failed to enforce orders that residents work six days a week at building their houses in imidugudu and permitted them to use three days instead to cultivate their fields. Two of these local officials were jailed in the communal lockup for having shown such leniency.111

One official expressed his disappointment at how the policy had been implemented and recounted his efforts to ease the burdens of relocation in his sector:

If the policy had been well planned, we would at least have been able to reimbursepeople who lost their fields for a village site. If we provided taps, people wouldhave easier access to water. At first, we thought the imidugudu would be financedby the government, but now we see that we will not receive any assistance. We thought, for example, that we would get metal roofing so that people could do their part and build. We made noise at the prefecture and said that people at least need sheeting to keep rain from entering their shelter. So we wait and we keep complaining, hoping that someone will hear us. . . . At least, for now, there is sun. Starting in September, people will come again to ask us what they can do when rain falls into their shelters. . . .People here are very attached to their fields. Maybe if we had given them houses, they wouldn't long so much for their fields. But as it is, when they are still underplastic sheeting after many months, they don't see why they can't just transfer the sheeting and put it up in their fields, where their houses used to be.112

Another official who had to order people to move delayed the deadline to give them time to harvest their crops. He said, "People will not have enough to eat if they have toharvest and build at the same time." He also looked ahead with concern to the net growing season when people might still be engaged in building and not have enough time to work their fields.113

94 Human Rights Watch interview, Kinigi, Ruhengeri, December 3, 1999.

95 Radio Rwanda, News broadcast, January 21, 2000; "Inhabitants of Ruhengeri impatiently await regrouped habitat," Imvaho Nshya, No. 1288, June 11-20, 1999.

96 Human Rights Watch interview, Kinigi, Ruhengeri, December 3, 1999.

97 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, December 3, 1999.

98 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, August 10, 2000; Radio Rwanda, News broadcast, August 8, 2000.

99 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, December 7, 1999.

100 Human Rights Watch, field notes, Ruhengeri, July 1999.

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

102 Human Rights Watch interviews, Ruhengeri, Gisenyi, and Kigali, December 3 and 7, 1999; March 4 and 7, 2000.

103 This is approximately $60 or about one quarter of the average Rwandan yearly income.

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

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

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

107 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, December 3, 1999.

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

109 Human Rights Watch interview, Ruhengeri, December 7, 1999.

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

111 Human Rights Watch interview, Kigali, May, 2000.

112 Human Rights Watch interview, Gisenyi, June 6, 2000.

113 Human Rights Watch interview, Nyamugali, Ruhengeri, November 18, 1999.