Rwanda: Update to end March 1995

1. THE INTERNAL SECURITY SITUATION

The internal security situation has been the main preoccupation both of the Rwandese and of the international community since the end of the war. In our last UPDATE we outlined the various forms of violations of human rights which had been occuring in Rwanda between July and November 1994 - illegal arrests, illegal seizures of property and murders. We also summarised the causes of these violations - weakening of the 'historical' RPF (Rwandese Patriotic Front), influx of Tutsi returnees, especially from Burundi, increasing role of the 'Tutsi supremacists' within the RPF and general lack of means at the government's disposal to fight common crime.

This situation led to a very heated exchange between Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu and Minister of Defence General Paul Kagame during December 1994 after the Prime Minister had denounced the absence of security[2] Since the Minister of Defence is a Tutsi and the former military leader of the RPF during the war years, while the Prime Minister is a Hutu coming from a civilian party (the Mouvement Démocratique Républicain - MDR - Republican Democratic Movement), the confrontation was ominous for the ruling coalition installed 19 July 1994. The debate was felt to touch the heart of the matter as far as both the security situation and the Hutu/Tutsi relationship within the government were concerned. As a local paper commented:

Are we now approaching a breakdown of the Government of National Unity or is it a simple political skirmish? One is allowed to be worried when one reads the recent document produced by the MDR, criticizing the present situation[3] ... But to deduce from its declarations that the MDR is now ready to switch from government to opposition is to go too fast. Because, by now, the love marriage has turned into a marriage of reason. And this quarelling is probably not enough for the two partners to divorce since it is in the interest of neither [4]

In fact, this polemical exchange had a positive effect since General Kagame, while feeling obliged publicly to 'defend the honour of the Army' - the Rwandese Patriotic Army (RPA), the military arm of the Rwandese Patriotic Front (RPF), which had become the new national army in September 1994 - later privately admitted to Prime Minister Twagiramungu that he basically agreed with him on the security situation [5].

This open crisis also led to an improvement in the security situation. Both General Kagame and the Prime Minister's Office started to work in closer cooperation with the Ministry of the Interior. But the situation was extremely difficult given the almost complete lack of practical means (telephone lines to the interior, vehicles, typewriters etc.). News of arrests had to be relayed by agents using public transportation to get to Kigali and orders had to be sent back through the same means. International agencies which could have been of great help were usually very poor at collaborating with the Rwandese authorities[6] Nevertheless, in spite of these difficulties, by late November 1994 security began to get tighter. The number of arbitrary arrests dropped sharply (from over sixty to about ten per day[7]) and illegal property seizures also diminished. The confiscation of several illegally acquired properties by the government also dampened the initiative of some of the more ambitious Tutsi returnees, and a degree of normality started to reestablish itself around Christmas 1994[8] Nevertheless the situation is still far from clear. And the tardiness of the international community in setting up an international tribunal to try the crimes of the genocide is at the same time an excuse (for the ambitious 'pirate' returnees) and an irritant (for the mostly honest Tutsi survivors of the massacre). Both these groups feel, wrongly in the first case, somewhat more rightly in the second, that they are entitled to grab what they can, by whatever means available, because the international community is being hypocritical in its attitude and has no serious intention of helping them get legal redress. The Tutsi survivors of the slaughter are still at the bottom of the social ladder, below the RPF and their relatives, below the Tutsi returnees from Uganda, Burundi, Tanzania and Zaire and even below the Hutu returnees from the Goma and Bukavu camps who, because of the need for 'national unity' are now fairly well protected even when they are known killers. This is a situation which creates a great deal of ambiguity, uncertainty and violence. Most of the survivors have had their houses destroyed (about 150,000 houses were burnt or torn down), and they have lived as squatters in the houses of the fleeing Hutu. Since the government is aware of the pressing demand of the international community for 'national reconciliation', the Hutu refugees returning from Zaire are given the best protection the RPA can muster in order to assist them in repossessing their properties. In some cases, this leads to glaring injustices which, in turn, tend to be corrected at gunpoint when they are corrected at all, since there is no legal channel for redress. We can therefore say that there are four types of security problem:

1.              Illegal property seizures, at times accompanied by violence, being carried out by returnees who simply take what they want.

2.              Legal repossession by Hutu ending in violence when Tutsi survivors, who are expelled, find a soldier, usually a relative, who takes justice into his own hands on behalf of his family.

3.              Attacks by former interahamwe who either return secretly from Zaire or who come out at night from the many displaced persons camps which still exist in the former French Operation Turquoise area in the South.

4.              Ordinary banditry.

The random acts of violence committed by unpaid soldiers have sharply decreased since December 1994 when the RPA was paid for the first time since the end of the war.

One must realise that the security problem is only partly controllable by the government. This is not only because the government still largely lacks the necessary material means of running an administration, but because the vast majority of the public is traumatised. There are scenes in Rwanda today which seem to be taken out of an Ingmar Bergman or a Luis Bunuel film: hundreds of people going for Sunday picnics at slaughter sites, to identify their relatives among the half rotten, half desiccated corpses still lying about in large numbers; organised groups digging up the mass graves (new ones are found almost every week) to disinter bodies and rebury their friends and relatives in consecrated ground after a religious ceremony; lunatics and orphaned children wandering about freely in the countryside; giant masses being sung in the still bloodstained churches to pray for the dead; and suicides or lethal abortions happening at a high rate when Tutsi women realise that they are going to give birth to children conceived by rape[9]. Although economic and political factors are indeed important, one should realise that mass psychological trauma is a major cause of instability in Rwanda today.

2. THE REFUGEE QUESTION

At the end of last year the camps in Zaire, and to a lesser degree in Tanzania, had become uncontrollable juggernauts where among hundreds of thousands of refugees, representatives of the militias had gained total control over food distribution[10] UN personnel were extremely concerned that this control over food distribution had enabled the former leaders of the genocide to perpetuate their political control over the 1.8 million refugee population. This could make it possible for them to use the refugee population either as a base for reconquest or, more likely, as an element in bargaining their way back into some kind of political role in Rwanda itself.

René Degni-Segui, UN Special Envoy for Human Rights, made public the fact that he had been asking the UN to send troops to the refugee camps for a long time. However, this measure had been ruled out for financial reasons[11] What was finally done was to negotiate directly with the Zairian government in order to 'professionalise' locally the Division Spéciale Présidentielle (DSP) of the army. The deal involved 1,500 men at a cost of US$ 13 million[12] Once paid and taken in hand, they quickly regained a measure of rough control over the situation. Some of the camps were also moved further away from the border, so as to make raids into Rwanda more difficult for the former Forces Armées Rwandaises (FAR - Rwandese Armed Forces) troops. After this refugees started to go back at a higher rate than before, both because of the new more moderate climate in the camps and because of the relative improvement in security inside Rwanda. By mid-January 200,000 had returned[13]; and by early March the number of returnees was thought to have reached the 400,000 mark[14]

The main problem linked with the refugee camps in the first three months of this year was the fear of an invasion. This was a determining factor in the currency change which took place between 1 and 3 January in Rwanda. The US dollar could be bought for 200 Rwandese Francs in Kigali, but cost 700 in Goma. Former government leaders who had taken several billions of Rwandese Francs in cash with them when they fled in July 1994, were therefore able to carry out a profitable smuggling operation between the two towns. Demonetising the 500, 1,000 and 5,000 Rwandese Francs notes abruptly stopped the traffic[15] The fear of invasion was immediately reduced as the morale of the former FAR soldiers plummeted[16] This did not stop cross-border raids from occurring at intervals. On 10 January a former militia commando attacked Nyamasheke, a small fishing village on the shore of Lake Kivu in Cyangugu Préfecture, killing a dozen civilians[17] This attack worried the RPA General Staff, who organised a house-to-house search for hidden weapons in Kigali, though the operation only netted a few pistols and some Molotov cocktails[18] On 23 February the Director of Medical Services for Gisenyi District, Anatole Bikendore, was murdered with his family by a commando group which had crossed over from Zaire[19] A few days later Pierre-Claver Rwangabo, préfet of Butare, was shot dead by Hutu extremists[20] But these terrorist operations should be regarded as a sign of the powerlessness of the former regime rather than as the prelude to an all-out attack.

The refugee camps inside Rwanda itself posed quite a different problem. Those were located in the southern part of the country and were a leftover from the French Operation Turquoise. They brought together an unknown number of people, at an estimate perhaps around 600,000. Although at a lower intensity level than the camps abroad, they remained fertile breeding ground for extremism. On 7 January 1995 a serious incident took place at Busanze Camp. After a grenade had been thrown at an unauthorised RPA night patrol from inside the camp, wounding one soldier, his comrades had gone on the rampage and killed eleven people who were probably innocent of the terrorist attack just perpetrated[21] The RPA arrested the local commanding officer, Major Filibert Rwigamba, although he had not authorised the patrol which caused the incident[22] The incident was mistakenly described as 'another instance of RPA violation of human rights'.

There had been coordinated efforts by UNAMIR (United Nations Mission in Rwanda) and RPA at emptying the camps by force, but since these had ended up in violence the whole idea was dropped in favour of a slower program aimed at persuading the displaced people to go home. Although slow, the movement started by the end of January and is still underway at the time of writing. About a third of the displaced are now thought to have gone home.

The main problem, largely overlooked by the international community, is that in this small, tightly populated, land-starved country people are elbowing each other when they move from one place to another. Both the displaced from the South and the Hutu returnees from Zaire arrive back in devastated areas, where the few available houses have ben occupied either by Tutsi returnees from Burundi or Uganda or by survivors. This author saw a Tutsi survivor, 82 years old, who had to take care of three little girls, aged four to seven, and of her sick son-in-law, aged 59 (the rest of the family had been massacred in the genocide). She was driven from the house where she had been living as a squatter (her own had been destroyed), to make way for the rightful owner coming back from Goma. The rightful owner was the very man who had killed the old lady's family. He was coming back with his own (intact) family and resumed possession of his house. He allowed the old lady and her various charges to sleep in the stable at the behest of the RPA soldiers who were escorting him. When called upon to see if he could do something, the local bourgmestre, a Hutu and an RPF nominee, said that there was nothing he could do and that anyway 'there were dozens of such cases every week'. It is the many occasions such as this which feed the monster of potential ethnic violence, because in such a case the Tutsi extremists who oppose the government's policy of national reconciliation (at any rate a difficult policy to carry out) will only be too happy to point at such injustices to support their case for ethnic supremacy over the Hutu.

3. INTERNAL POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND THE ECONOMY

In the devastated, traumatised and under-administered situation Rwanda finds itself in, the international presence is essential. It is therefore all the more deplorable that the international presence is largely inadequate, unimaginative and very often useless. The blame has to be shared by all, whether UN or NGOs. It starts with UNAMIR whose military presence is laughable. There are 5,000 to 6,000 men in Rwanda, mostly Ethiopians with a smattering of Australians, Tunisians, Haitians and Canadians. They serve no purpose whatsoever. The RPA is perfectly capable of handling the military situation, and when it is the RPA itself which commits human rights violations, UNAMIR does not do any more than it did in April-May 1994, when it looked at the genocide without intervening. Nor do the UNAMIR forces play any role in the process of repatriating the refugees, and their attempt at taking some of the responsibility for the displaced persons' camps in the South ended up in near disaster. The soldiers themselves are not to blame for this state of affairs, which is due to the nature of their mandate, but those who are sensitive suffer from feelings of guilt and uselessness[23]

The massive NGO presence is not much better. There are 154 NGOs in Rwanda at present, and in the opinion of Rehabilitation Minister Jacques Bihozagara, 'there are probably not twenty of them who perform any kind of useful service'[24] They do not coordinate with each other and therefore duplicate or triplicate efforts in certain fields while leaving other very necessary ones unattended. Their personnel is very often too young and unexperienced and can be arrogant to the point of racism, refusing to even register with the Ministry of Rehabilitation 'because we are an NGO and as such want to have nothing to do with a government'[25] Sometimes they seem more concerned with taking pictures for fund raising purposes back home than with actually doing something. They are held in very low esteem by the local Rwandese population and their display of wealth (four-wheel-drive vehicles, cellular telephones, villas) although limited by western standards is very much resented, because they tend to flaunt it carelessly in an environment which is still emotionally raw. Some of the NGOs (Médecins Sans Frontières, Médecins du Monde and especially Oxfam) work tirelessly and efficiently, earning the respect of the Rwandese who can perfectly well see the difference.

But the most serious shortcoming is undoubtedly that of the UN Human Rights Commission. Although it has deployed about 130 observers in various locations, it is doing almost nothing. In many of these locations, the observers deployed are inefficient to the point of stupefaction. They often do not speak any language anybody locally can understand[26] and they seem very scared of upsetting the Rwandese government[27] This state of affairs is very disheartening to some people who are giving their time as volunteers for the Commission because of humanitarian concern for the plight of Rwanda and who feel ill-used, or worse even, not used at all. Many have resigned. The situation in this particular domain of foreign intervention is of special concern since all the elements of the whole syndrome of social trauma, justice, return of refugees and political stability are closely interwoven.

Justice is the key word here, but it is unfortunately a very abstract concept in this incredibly difficult concrete situation. Justice of course means bringing those who were responsible for the genocide to trial. The result is that the jails, which were never built to house the massive numbers of ethnic killers created by the April-May 1994 massacres, are grossly overcrowded. In October 1994 there were 3,500 inmates in Kigali Central Prison (built to house 2,000); by January 1995 the number had grown to 6,000[28] and had reached 7,500 by March. There is now a total of 25,000 prisoners in Rwanda and the numbers are growing by about 150 to 200 every day[29] The problem is, however, that the people imprisoned in Rwanda are definitely not the ringleaders. In fact some are even completely innocent and even among those who are not, one mostly finds the executants, the ordinary machete-wielders, not the organisers. Those are abroad, in Zaire where they constitute a political force with its own army and shadow government, and in Kenya which shelters a disproportionate number of them. These include RTLMC (Radio Télévision Libre des Milles Collines) financer Félicien Kabuga who took refuge in Nairobi after narrowly escaping from Switzerland, former Head of Security Augustin Nduwayeza and Mrs Habyarimana with her brother Séraphin Rwabukumba, the killer-squad leader[30] They own large real estate investments in the country and often have businesses as well. Others are scattered all over the world[31] They are mostly unrepentant and are even stubbornly clinging to counterfactual interpretations of the recent crisis. In an interview given on French radio in January, former Foreign Minister and genocide organiser Casimir Bizimungu still insisted that there had been more Hutu than Tutsi killed. While denying any involvement in or responsibility for the events, he even quoted a figure of one million for the Hutu 'victims' alone[32] This attitude of stubborn denial, which is general among the perpetrators of the genocide, exasperates the Rwandese authorities and the survivors of the massacres, particularly when coupled with the low intensity of the search for the criminals, the few arrests and the extreme slowness with which the international tribunal is being set up. At the same time, as we shall see, the international community insists on setting political conditions for the aid-giving process.

In the present situation in Rwanda economic aid is of great importance, but there is a problem of diverging perceptions between the Rwandese and the foreigners of the order of priorities. These could be summarised as follows. For the international community, national reconciliation is the top priority, followed by broadening of the government base, return of the refugees and then economic aid. For the Rwandese Government, on the other hand, the first priority is the re-establishment of law and order, followed by economic aid, justice and the return of refugees - then and only then, a possible broadening of the government base.

The internationally sponsored political conditions for aid are incessantly stressed in a most abstract manner[33] But who concretely would be the men who could represent 'decent' MRND (Mouvement Révolutionnaire National pour le Développement - Revolutionary National Development Movement) opinion in a 'broadened' government? There are about three or four and none of them has shown any enthusiasm for joining the new cabinet[34] So the Western insistence on 'broadening the government's base' and on 'political reconciliation' is in fact (although the international community certainly does not see it that way) an invitation to re-integrate politically the criminals who organised the genocide, rather as if Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had been asked to include former Nazis in the first post-war Bundesrepublik cabinet, in order to broaden his political base. The lack of perception of this problem by the international community is a serious stumbling block to the process of political normalization within Rwanda, because the Tutsi extremists who constitute a segment of the RPF use this unreasonable demand to picture the Western powers as evil unfeeling wazungu (Europeans), who have worked hand in hand with the Habyarimana regime for years and who care less today about the genocide and its consequences than about their supposed (and undefined) 'economic interests'.

Similarly, it is difficult to accept the insistence on an almost unconditional return of the refugees and especially placing this return before the need to restart the economy, in the face of the problems we have summarily tried to describe above. The extreme slowness with which the international community considers (or does not consider) the problem of justice is another grave mistake, also playing into the hands of the Tutsi extremists. This problem is all the more serious because of the growing probability of a military coup in Burundi by Tutsi extremists who have close links with similarly-minded people in Rwanda. Reinforcing - even unwittingly - the extremist camp within the RPF might become deadly if Burundi falls. In that case, the coup in Bujumbura will reverberate and link up with Rwandese extremists who will be able to play on the frustrations of the Tutsi community (especially the 'survivors') to weaken the present government's option of ethnic cooperation and push their own agenda of ethnic dictatorship.

This whole scenario should be seen against a background of extreme economic hardship[35] The first attempt at relieving the terrible economic state Rwanda is in was the conference held in Geneva in January 1995. It has ben hailed as a major breakthrough (and indeed it was, even if only because the political pre-conditions were somewhat pushed into the background) and the aid promised was described as 'massive'[36] But pegged at US$ 587 million it was in fact much less than what the UN had deemed necessary[37] And the UN figure could be considered a bare minimum. On top of that the US$ 587 million are pledges only, which means that actual disbursement could take years, and in some cases never occur at all. Later the World Bank decided, through its 'soft loans' agency IDA, to grant a US$ 50 million loan to Rwanda which, at least, will be disbursed more quickly[38] On 10 March, the World Food Program had to launch an appeal (combined for Rwanda and Burundi) asking for US$ 155 million in order to avert a looming famine which would affect three million people[39] The only short term response was a US$ 25 million pledge from the US and general declarations from European Union Humanitarian Commissioner Emma Bonino, who suggested that Brussels might step in to take care of the food gap[40]

4. CONCLUSION

The situation in Rwanda has somewhat stabilised from the point of view of security but is still far from normal as regards issues of human rights. While the control by the former government extremists over the refugee camps has declined and while their capacity to launch an armed invasion of Rwanda has also diminished, both problems continue to exist. So far, the much-touted emergency international help for Rwanda has had dismally little positive effect, although some hope can be derived from the promises of economic aid that were made in Geneva. But the deep psychological trauma suffered by the population, the lack of understanding of the foreigners who keep insisting on unrealistic political pre-conditions and the lack of any significant restart to the economy all play into the hands of those extremist segments who are present within the RPF. Unable so far to seriously challenge the policy of ethnic cooperation implemented by President Pasteur Bizimungu, Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu and Minister of Defence Paul Kagame, they are keeping a close eye on the situation in Burundi, where an extremist Tutsi-led coup would enable them to exploit Rwanda's difficulties to push their own agenda of ethnic supremacy.

The views expressed in the papers are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of UNHCR.

[2]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 8 December 1994, quoting Radio Rwanda

[3]. Mouvement Démocratique Républicain, Positions du parti MDR sur les grands problèmes actuels du Rwanda, Kigali, November 1994

[4]. L'Arc-en-Ciel [Kigali], No 3, 9 January 1995

[5]. Author's interview with a member of the Prime Minister's Office. Kigali, 13 January 1995

[6]. Author's interview with Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga. Kigali, 19 January 1995. For more on the theme of international inadequacy, see below, 3. INTERNAL POLITICS, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY AND THE ECONOMY.

[7]. Estimate given to the author by a member of the Civilian Security. Kigali, 14 January 1995.

[8]. Most noticeable among these confiscations was that of the popular night club 'Kigali Night' once the property of President Habyarimana's son and arbitrarily occupied in July 1994 by the wife of an RPA colonel coming from Uganda. The closing down of the 'Kigali Night' acted as a warning to other illegal occupants since the lady who had been running it was supposed to have benefitted from 'high' political protection (Author's notes. Kigali, January 1995).

[9]. See for example the first page of the paper Libération [Kigali], No 3, December 1994-January 1995, with a drawing of an obviously pregnant woman standing in front of a background of destroyed houses and looking at a skeleton, with the caption 'I am pregnant by the murderers of my family'.

[10]. François Misser, 'Horror of the camps', The New African (January 1995)

[11]. René Degni-Segui, 'Serve una conferenza internazionale', Nigrizia (January 1995); Le Monde, 27 January 1995

[12]. United States Information Agency Dispatch, 30 January 1995

[13]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 15 January 1995, quoting Radio France Internationale

[14]. Private communication to the author by a Rwandese Ministry of Rehabilitation employee. Paris, 22 March 1995.

[15]. The 100 Rwandese Francs notes had been considered too small (and too bulky) by the fleeing former government men. Therefore they could be kept in circulation.

[16]. Jean Hélène, 'Les soldats de l'ex-armée rwandaise cherchent plus à déserter qu'à reconquérir le pouvoir', Le Monde, 9 February 1995

[17]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 11 January 1995, quoting La Chaine Info [Paris]

[18]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 12 January 1995, quoting Radio Rwanda, supplemented by author's observations in Kigali. The whole operation was carried out in a most disciplined manner by the Army while the civilian population retained its calm.

[19]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 25 February 1995, quoting Radio Rwanda

[20]. Le Monde, 8 March 1995

[21]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 8 January 1995, quoting Radio Rwanda

[22]. The incident was all the more disastrous because Major Rwigamba had a very good rapport with the camp population while his replacement did not. This, actually, in the familiar pattern of the two extremisms feeding on each other, might have been the reason why Hutu extremists had engineered the attack. (Author's interview with RPA officers. Kigali, 12 January 12 1995

[23]. Author's interview with UNAMIR Canadian officers. Kigali, 12 January 1995.

[24]. Author's interview with Rehabilitation Minister Jacques Bihozagara. Kigali, 11 January 1995.

[25]. Remark made in the presence of the author and of a member of the Rwandese administration. Kigali, 18 January 1995.

[26]. In Kibuye, for example, the author found a station manned by five observers. None of them knew French, let alone Kinyarwanda or Swahili. Since nobody within miles knew any English, they did absolutely nothing.

[27]. In a surprising role reversal, it was the Rwandese Minister of the Interior who complained to the author that the UN Commission for Human Rights was not doing its job of denouncing the violations occurring right under its nose. The Minister's reasoning was that the Commission could have been a precious help in tracking violations because it had the equipment (telephones, computers, vehicles) that he himself in his Ministry so badly lacked. (Interview with Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga. Kigali, 19 January 1995).

[28]. Corinne Lesnes, 'La renaissance chaotique de la justice rwandaise', Le Monde, 14 January 1995

[29]. The Economist, 'The black hole of Rwanda', 25 March 1995

[30]. See Gichinga Ndirangu, 'For Rwanda's sake, Kenya must kick out its fugitives', The East African (9-15 January 1995); 'De drôles de réfugiés rwandais', La Lettre de l'Océan Indien, (4 February 1995).

[31]. Alfred Musema has been arrested in Switzerland and Léon Mugesera briefly detained in Canada (see François Misser, 'Searching for the killers', The New African (April 1995). But generally speaking, the search for the Rwandese criminals is not characterised by great intensity.

[32]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 27 January 1995, quoting Radio France Internationale

[33]. See as a good example the text of the resolution published in the Official Gazette of the European Community, No L.283/2, Annex Paragraph 1 (29 October 1994).

[34]. Former Defence Minister James Gasana, former Prime Minister Sylvestre Nsanzimana, former Ambassador to Uganda Kanyarushoki and possibly a couple of other less well-known personalities.

[35]. It is estimated that in 1994 per capita income fell to 50 per cent of the 1993 figure which was itself 11 per cent lower than the 1992 level (Source: unpublished World Bank computations).

[36]. Le Monde, Isabelle Vichniac, 'La reconstruction du Rwanda éxaminée à Genève', 18 January 1995; Libération, Pierre Hazan, 'Une aide internationale massive pour le Rwanda', 20 January 1995.

[37]. Before the conference the UN had launched an appeal for a total of US$ 1,474 million (United States Information Agency Dispatch, 18 January 1995.

[38]. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, 31 January 1995, quoting Radio Rwanda

[39]. Le Monde, 12-13 March 1995. For a detailed assessment of the food situation, see Johan Pottier and John Wilding, Food security and agricultural rehabilitation in post-war Rwanda, (London: Save the Children Fund, October 1994).

[40]. Le Monde, 17 March 1995

[1] This issue paper update, and a previous one of November 1994, were prepared by Gérard Prunier, WRITENET (UK), on the basis of research including interviews and personal observation, for his forthcoming book The Rwandese Crisis 1990 - 1994: From Cultural Mythology to Genocide (London: Hirst, f.c.). The original issue paper, 'La crise rwandaise: structures et déroulement', was published in Refugee Studies Quarterly, vol 13, Nos. 2 and 3 (Summer/Autumn 1994). This paper is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed, or conclusive as to the merits of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.