PRESS RELEASE NO. 1/2001

THE RDR CALLS FOR AN INTERNATIONAL ARMS AND GEMS EMBARGO ON RWANDA

On behalf of the oppressed people of Rwanda struggling for democracy, freedom and justice, the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) asks the United Nations, the European Union, the Organisation of African Unity, all democratic countries and freedom-loving people and organisations to use all their influence and power to halt all military training and shipments of arms to the Rwandan government's army which represents an increasing menace and a permanent threat to peace in the African Great Lakes region.

Whereas the government should be a sacred trust of the people, the authority of which is derived from the will of the people, the powers of which are exercised by duly democratically elected representatives of the people and the benefits of which are enjoyed by the people, Rwanda is a country ruled by the gun. While Rwanda is among the 20 poorest countries in the world, the overwhelming majority of the Rwandan people live under harsh conditions of abject poverty with less than 1$ a day, 12% of the population is infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), 40,000 Rwandans die of AIDS every year, overcrowded hospitals lack essential medicines and competent personnel, jails are overcrowded with prisoners arbitrarily arrested and illegally detained for years, more than 20% of the population is being fed by the World Food Programme, 40 percent of the population have no access to safe water, 90% of Rwandan children have no access to secondary schools, the Rwandan government's army, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), is engaged in a senseless war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and 40% of the Rwandan government's budget, equivalent to more than 120 millions of dollars every year, is spent on the military and the purchases of all kinds of weapons. The Rwandan people has no quarrel with the people nor the government of the DRC and condemns, once again, the violations of the DRC's sovereignty and territorial integrity by the RPA.

The Rwandan people has no say in the actions of the RPF-led dictatorial government nor in the choosing of those who make them. The RPF maintains its dictatorial rule by terror and massacres; it is totally impervious to the democratic processes of persuasion, consultation, discussion and negotiation. With its banning of the activities of other political parties, the RPF-led dictatorial regime has muzzled all forms of political expression and rendered impossible all opposition by legal or peaceful means inside Rwanda. All people's non-violent policies have been taken as a green light for government's violence. Instead of meeting the aspirations of the Rwandan people to freedom, justice and advancement of their welfare, General Paul Kagame has always resorted to naked force to maintain his tyranny. More than 2,000,000 Rwandan civilian Hutus and Twas have been massacred by his army since its invasion of Rwanda from Uganda on October 1, 1990. The extent of the RPF's human rights abuses is reflected not only in the staggering numbers of civilians killed by its army but also in the deposition and banning of persons suspected of not supporting its schemes, the imprisonment of political leaders, the wholesale removals of people ruthlessly torn up from their homes and places of business, the pass system which restrict people's movement and the attacks on the press and freedom of speech. The continuing existence of a brutal dictatorship in Rwanda is the single most important cause of war and instability in the entire African Great Lakes region. Continuous war and military build-up against people whose sole crime is their demands for the most elementary forms of human rights (political freedom, freedom of expression, free and fair elections, decent living conditions, etc.) cannot and will never solve Rwanda's problems. Only a comprehensive political solution will.

Despite numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by his army, the Rwandan ruler, General Paul Kagame, continue to be the darling of Western donors. More than 60% of the Rwandan government's budget is financed by foreign aid. By some feelings of guilt for having failed to prevent and stop the 1994's Rwandan genocide, some members of the international community provide, as compensation, unconditional financial aids to the Kigali government and continue to turn a blind eye to its political repression, oppression of the people, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed and still being committed by its army in Rwanda since October 1990 and in the DRC since August 1996. We ask the international community to take all necessary measures to bring to justice suspected war criminals controlling the Kigali government and isolate this political pariah. We urge all those providing financial aid to the Rwandan government to suspend all non-humanitarian aid and those supplying the RPA with all the panoply of war to stop their supplies or caste aside their hypocrisy and declare themselves on the side of the oppression if that is their secret design.

The Rwandan government falsely justifies the presence of the RPA deep in the DRC by the security reasons: a «hot pursuit» against Hutu criminals bent on finishing the genocide of Tutsis. Yet, for its operations in DRC, the RPA enrols en masse thousands of prisoners released in its overcrowded jails and battle-hardened ex-soldiers of the defeated Rwandan army who allegedly participated in 1994's Rwandan genocide and whose loyalty to RPA is assured by obliging them to commit atrocious crimes which make them pariahs outside their military units. If security reasons were true, the RPA should have been deployed on the Rwandan border with the DRC and not deep in the Congolese territory, hundreds of miles away from the border for years. The presence of the RPA in DRC is mainly for economic reasons. By plundering Congolese natural resources (diamonds, gold, ivory, coffee beans, timber, tantalum, niobium, etc. ) and selling drugs and stolen goods, high-ranking members of the Kigali government and its security establishment get rich quickly than they would be with their meagre salaries in Rwanda. As peace and the rule of law threaten their lucrative rackets, they have interests in continuing war and destabilization. Motivated by profits from their sales of arms to Rwanda and purchases of Congolese minerals at cheap prices, some members of the international community actively support the RPA in its aggression of the DRC and assure the ruling Rwandan leaders of impunity for their war crimes and crimes against humanity. Even though it is futile to appeal to those who put profits before human lives, we appeal to them to rethink their sense of moral values who puts material things before human lives. For peace's sake, the RDR asks the United Nations Security Council, the European Union and the Organisation of African Unity to impose a total gem ban and arms embargo on Rwanda.

Done in Montreal on 8 January 2001

For the RDR

Emmanuel Nyemera, Ph.D.

Vice-President