IX. FORCED DESTRUCTION OF HOUSES

It is ironic that a policy presumed to be addressing a housing crisis resulted in pushing hundreds of thousands of people out of their homes and into inadequate shelters, where some have dwelled for months or even years with no immediate prospect of a permanent home. It is doubly ironic that homeowners in some areas were forced to destroy their own houses before moving to imidugudu where they had to cobble together blindés from the remnants of their former homes, sticks, grass, and pieces of plastic.114

One assistant burgomaster from Ruhengeri asserted that after a number of "persuasion" meetings, local people were "completely convinced and applauded" the idea of moving to imidugudu. He said this is why they hurried to dismantle their homes of their own free will.115 A woman who lived in the same prefecture challenged this idea, saying: "It's the policy. Of course, normally, people would not want to destroy their homes to go live in an umudugudu. This is a big problem, the destruction of houses. People have other work to do besides building new houses!"116

Another woman from Kibungo expressed similar sentiments, saying that people in her commune were still angry about having had to dismantle their homes two years ago before moving into imidugudu where many still live in blindés.117

People convinced that they would have to leave their homes sought to salvage what they could before departure. Most who had houses with metal roofing tried to salvage the sheets of metal, which represented a considerable investment. Those told to move in the rainy season were especially under pressure to save roofing materials. One man related, "Many houses were already destroyed[during combat]. . . but others-like mine-were still standing. We needed to dismantle them quickly to have some shelter-it was the rainy season."118

According to one woman in Umutara, "Many, many people had to destroy their homes. They knew that they were required to leave and they saw that the houses in the umudugudu were not finished. So they dismantled their old homes to have something to finish the new ones."119

In some cases, the effort to salvage roofing was futile because the nail holes could not be well enough repaired to make the roof rain-proof. One poor widow who survived the genocide tried to use pieces of her old roof to cover a new, smaller house in the umudugudu.She had to beg her sister to sell some of her land to get the cash needed to pay someone to build the house and install the roof. But the metal was so damaged that the house was uninhabitable. She and her children have gone to live temporarily with a neighbor. Someone from Ibuka, the association of genocide survivors, promised to help build her a more solid house; their workers began but have not finished the job. "I don't know why," she said. "Maybe they think I am too poor to have the right to a house."120

Another woman widowed in the genocide described the pressure put on people in her region of Kibungo to dismantle their houses in October 1999. She said:

At a meeting, the authorities said, "Anyone who refuses, we will come destroy
your house." Then they did destroy the house of one man. The cell leader asked
the neighbors to come destroy his house. At that time, it was just terrible. He had
already started building his house in the umudugudu and he just wanted to finish
it before moving. He hadn't finished the roof yet. They said, "No, the deadline
has arrived."121

In parts of the northwest, a substantial number of homes were destroyed or damaged during the insurgency in 1997 and 1998, many by Rwandan army soldiers, some by insurgents. But even in an area like Nkuli commune, next to the forest and the site of months of fighting, 410 of the 613 families in one sector still had homes when they were compelled to move to imidugudu in October 1999. In some regions, like the northern sectors of Cyeru, virtually all homes were intact in July 1999.122 Many of the owners of these houses destroyed them when they left for the imidugudu. One witness said, "Our house was not really damaged during the insurgency. But we had to destroy it when we left for the umudugudu. We managed to save the roof and doors, but the rest was looted. We had only two to three days. . . to destroy it and get out."123

As with the order to move, the order to dismantle houses was sometimes couched in terms of security needs. Said one lieutenant in the army, "Well, if there was force used, if houses were destroyed, we did it to save the lives of the people."124

In some areas officials argued, perhaps with some justification, that insurgents might be able to use vacated structures scattered across the hill. But officials in areas that had not been troubled by the insurgency and where there was no real threat used the same justification. A man who now lives with his family in a shelter of mud, sticks, and plasticsheeting in Bicumbi commune, Kigali-rural, saw no sense in the claim that security needs required the destruction of his home. Speaking of the "persuasion" meetings he remarked,

They said that we must to go to the umudugudu with the others and destroy ourhouses so that insurgents can't hide inside. If you destroy them, the authorities said, they will have nowhere to hide. . . .This was in June 1999. There were no more insurgents then. They compelled us to destroy our houses, saying that we would find a nice house in the umudugudu. You who drive along the road, doesn't it scare you to see such an awful place as this?125

In Umutara, in Murambi commune where there was neither insurgency nor incursions from the border, local officials reportedly ordered the destruction of the houses and crops of three homeowners who were reluctant to leave, claiming that they would be attacked by "infiltrators" if they remained in their homes. In the same commune, the assistant burgomaster and his subordinates were reported to have ordered residents to destroy the sorghum, manioc, and bananas of another homeowner who had refused to cede his land for use as an umudugudu. Some refused to participate in the destruction, saying they did not want to be like the Interahamwe. Local officials then sent the police to enforce their orders. The homeowner sought to protect his rights by appealing to communal authorities, to various ministers, to the prime minister, to the vice president and to the president. Two years of efforts brought him nothing but the enmity of local officials, apparently the cause of his being twice imprisoned in the local lock-up.126

One cultivator who also serves as a local official was indignant about the destruction of houses. He said:

I stayed in my house with my family during the insurgency, even though others
went to the camp at the commune office. My house was not destroyed then,
though many of our belongings were stolen. I destroyed the house when I
came here to the umudugudu. The idea of destroying homes is the will of
the state. It compelled people to move to imidugudu. As it was the word of
the government, we had to destroy our homes.127

Another man from Ruhengeri prefecture expressed similar anger. He recounted:

At the end of February 1999, we were told to come to the village, to live
together. . . . They [i.e., officials] used their authority. I say authority because
they destroyed homes. Those with houses in durable materials [baked or adobe
bricks], we had to destroy them by force. They had meetings called and run by
soldiers. The soldiers said that anyone still there after March, still in his
home, would be considered an accomplice of the Interahamwe.

So we were all compelled to destroy our homes. Some of us don't even have
plastic sheeting! Imagine destroying a home made of brick with a metal roof,
then looking for grass to build a new one! I can't even call my house a hut, not
even a blindé, because blindés have plastic sheeting for roofs. I had a nice
house made of stone, with glass windows. But I have destroyed that house.
That is the way it is. We have to obey government orders.128

Given the overwhelming poverty among rural-dwellers, many Rwandans living in blindés cannot foresee ever being able to build a new home.129 One woman moved with her husband and children into temporary quarters and was struggling to find money to build a house for her husband's parents, who had been in a plastic-covered grass-and-stick shelter for two years. She remarked in despair, "I just had to destroy my house. I wonder when I'll be able to build another. I have a family to feed, children to put through school. This is a real problem."130

Refusal to destroy a house, like failure to comply with orders to move to the imidugudu, could be interpreted as opposition to the government. One widow explained: "We were to destroy our homes when we left. Otherwise it would be a sign that we didn't accept government orders. In that case, the local authorities would ask others to come destroy it. . . . No one refused. It wasn't an option."131

Not surprisingly, some people postponed acting. One man remarked, "Some didn't destroy their houses until the last minute, hoping for some change."132 In some cases where people delayed too long, soldiers arrived to hurry the process. One witness from Ruhengeri commented: "When you heard shots, when shots were fired in the air, people hurried to destroy their houses. Sometimes soldiers came and destroyed one as an example. Then the rest of the people followed suit."133

In inquiring into the use of force to make people to move to imidugudu, the special representative for Rwanda of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights found that "There can be no dispute that often for security considerations, some coercion has occurred." He found also that twenty of 150 families in the commune of Gihinga, Umutara had been forced todestroy their homes and to move to the umudugudu. Gihinga was not an area known for security threats.134

Officials ordered the destruction of houses most often in Kibungo and Ruhengeri, somewhat less frequently in Umutara and Kigali-rural. Such abuses have happened still less often in other parts of Rwanda, but they are not unknown in Gisenyi, Cyangugu, and Butare. For example, one woman widowed during the genocide who lived in Ntyazo commune, Butare prefecture, was forced to destroy a house she was just finishing and to move to an umudugudu.135 Commenting on the extent of the practice in his region, one man in Rusumo commune, Kibungo said, "If a house hasn't been destroyed, it has got to be in an umudugudu."136