To Mr. Okot Obbo

UNHCR Representative-Kenya

P.O. Box 43801, Nairobi, Kenya

Telefax: 873-382-280631
Telephone: 873-382-230630

e-mail: kenna@unhcr.ch

I am writing on behalf of the Organization for Peace, Justice and Development in Rwanda (OPJDR) to thank the UNHCR-Kenya Branch for their unrelenting efforts to protecting refugees from the Great Lakes Region of Africa, especially Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to finding them adequate settlement or resettlement opportunities. This is also to plead that you continue to extend hospitality, protection, and help to them.

In fact, international media reports suggest that the UNHCR may no longer consider most of the refugees from the troubled region as bona fide refugees. Independent sources in Kenya have informed our organization that refugees from the region have been denied refugees status by your organization. There are also numerous reports from refugees living in the camps in Kenya that the UNHCR allows Rwandan officials and intelligence agents to freely enter the camps and conduct intelligence and coercive activities there.

Obviously, the OPJDR is worried about such UNHCR decisions and intelligence activities. However, the OPJDR would like to believe these reports are baseless rumors aimed at tarnishing the image of the UNHCR Kenya and demoralizing Rwandan, Congolese, and Burundian refugees.

To foreign observers Rwanda looks peaceful, but to Rwandans, the country is a jungle run by a brutal dictatorial regime that oppresses and kills people. Current Rwandan leaders use the genocide of Tutsis as its justification of the violation of human rights and international law.

For example, one of the new refugees who recently arrive in Kenya and who is seeking your protection may give you the account of the situation that led to his exile. His name is Simon Nsereko. Since his exile he has been in contact with the following UNHCR-Kenya staff :

Sergio, Assistant Representative Protection
Olivier, Protection Officer.
Lipsit Bill, UNHCR Regional Office. Nairobi.

Simon Nsereko, once a Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) official fled the country after multiple assassination attempts by the Rwandan Patriotic Army intelligence agents. As a civil servant, he was accused of leaking bribery cases within the Ministry of Justice and forced to resign. He became a journalist with Newsline. As a Newsline journalist, he wrote about multiple corruption cases and the excessive number of young Rwandan Patriotic Army troops killed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while the parents are never told of the fate of their children. Those articles led to the assassination attempts and consequently, to the exile.

The case of Simon Nsereko is well known. Hence, the OPJDR urges the UNHCR to grant him protection and refugees status. Moreover, the OPJDR hopes that thousands of other cases of Rwandan, Burundian and Congolese refugees will be favorably examined.

The OPJDR would like to urge the UNHCR to ignore RPF propaganda saying security and peace have returned to Rwanda and maintain its policy of protecting and helping Refugees from the Great Lakes Region of Africa.