Child Soldiers Global Report 2004 - Rwanda

Republic of Rwanda

Covers the period from April 2001 to March 2004.

Population: 8.3 million (4.3 million under 18)
Government armed forces: 51,000 (estimate)
Compulsory recruitment age: no conscription
Voluntary recruitment age: 18
Voting age: 18
Optional Protocol: acceded 23 April 2002
Other treaties ratified (see glossary): CRC, GC AP I and II, ILO 138, ILO 182; ACRWC

The Rwandese government denied reports that it used child soldiers inside Rwanda. However, children as young as 14 were recruited into the paramilitary government militia, the Local Defence Forces (LDF), as late as 2003. The use of LDF in military operations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) reportedly led to increased recruitment in Rwanda of child soldiers, including street children. Child soldiers were used by the Rwandese Defence Forces and the Rwandese-backed Congolese armed political group, the Rassemblement congolais pour la démocratie-Goma (RCD-Goma), Congolese Rally for Democracy-Goma, in the DRC. Rwandese armed political groups operating in the DRC recruited, abducted and used child soldiers. Some child soldiers returned to Rwanda from DRC.

Context

In August 2003 incumbent President Paul Kagame won, with 95 per cent of the vote, Rwanda's first presidential elections since the 1994 genocide. The elections were marred by the violent intimidation, arrest, and "disappearance" of opposition politicians and supporters.¹ In parliamentary elections in October 2003 the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front won a large majority.

Reports of Rwandese involvement in the DRC conflict continued despite denials by the Rwandese authorities. Rwanda officially pulled its forces out in October 2002, but as of April 2004 its troops were still present in eastern DRC.² The Rwandese government directly supported and largely controlled armed political groups in the DRC, including the RCD-Goma.³ RCD-Goma joined the DRC government of national unity in July 2003.

Government

National recruitment legislation

A new constitution of June 2003 reaffirms commitment to international treaties, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every child is entitled to special measures of protection by their family, society and the state that are required under national and international law (Article 28). All citizens have the duty to participate in the defence of the country (Article 47).

In its 2003 report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Rwanda stated that "The minimum age for conscription is not specified in Rwandan legislation, especially since service in the armed forces has always been voluntary". The minimum age for voluntary recruitment had been raised in law to 18: "Although voluntary enlistment in the armed forces is subject by law to a minimum age of 16, the law that was recently passed on the rights of the child and protection of children against violence states in article 19 that military service is prohibited for children under 18".⁴

Child recruitment and deployment

Rwanda also told the Committee on the Rights of the Child that "Some children under the age of 18 were enrolled in the armed forces during the war and genocide of 1994. Immediately after the war, all these children were demobilized and a programme of rehabilitation and school reintegration was implemented.... Other children serving with the armed bands of infiltrators from the DRC are often captured by the Rwandan army and sent to solidarity camps for re-education and reintegration into society".⁵

However, according to unofficial sources, recruitment of child soldiers in Rwanda might have stopped but child soldiers were still serving in the armed forces. The authorities said such children worked only as servants, but they were reported to have military numbers.⁶ Since the armed forces' partial withdrawal from the DRC, forced conscription has reportedly ended. Citizens who served in the military could nevertheless be recalled to compulsory duty at any time.⁷

Government militia

Children as young as 14 were recruited into the LDF. Most recruits were volunteers, although conscription by local authorities was also reported. LDF members were given limited training and were frequently unpaid. They were, however, armed and drafted into military operations in the DRC. LDF deployment in the DRC reportedly led to an increase in recruitment of child soldiers, including street children, in Rwanda.⁸ The LDF were responsible for killing civilians and other human rights abuses in Rwanda and the DRC. In early 2004, no LDF recruitment of children was reported, and the government took steps to regularize the status of the LDF.⁹

Child recruitment in the DRC

There were numerous reports of the use of child soldiers in the DRC by the Rwandese armed forces and the RCD-Goma. RCD-Goma deployed them on the front line and, following Rwanda's partial withdrawal in 2002, launched extensive recruitment drives, forcing children as young as eight into their forces. RCD-Goma also maintained its own paramilitary militia, also called the Local Defence Forces, whose members included children as young as 12.¹⁰

The Rwandese armed forces reportedly recruited both children in the DRC and street children in Rwanda, trained them in Rwanda and sent them to fight in the DRC. Rwandese troops sometimes detained and ill-treated Congolese child soldiers, apparently in an attempt to prevent them from joining rival armed political groups.¹¹

Armed political groups

Rwandese armed political groups operating in the DRC recruited, abducted and used child soldiers. These groups included former members of the pre-genocide armed forces in Rwanda and Interahamwe militia that had carried out the genocide in Rwanda and fled to the DRC in 1994. The number of child soldiers in their ranks was not known. However, some sources in South Kivu in 2003 estimated that up to 20 per cent of Interahamwe forces in the area were children, including girls, who were often used as porters in the frequent looting raids.¹²

In October 2003 the UN estimated that some 14,000 Rwandese combatants remained in the DRC.¹³ The DRC government announced in the same month that the presence of these armed groups would no longer be tolerated. In January 2004 the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUC) accused a Rwandese armed group in eastern DRC, the Forces démocratiques pour la libération du Rwanda (Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda), of preventing 3,000 combatants and civilians from returning to Rwanda, an allegation the group denied.¹⁴

Disarmament, demobilization and reintegration (DDR)

Several hundred children captured in skirmishes with the armed forces were demobilized and reintegrated through the regional Multi-Country Demobilization and Reintegration Program. In June 2003 the withdrawal of Rwandese troops from the DRC reportedly allowed more than 2,000 child soldiers to return to Rwanda, although many remained in DRC.¹⁵ In March 2004 the UN reported that over 3,000 Rwandese combatants had been repatriated to Rwanda. Up to 8,000 were estimated to remain in DRC.¹⁶

The government detained former combatants who returned to Rwanda. They had to take part in a reintegration program that lasted from 8 to 12 weeks. Children who had been used as combatants or porters were held separately from adult combatants. Detainees at the demobilization camp at Mutobo frequently received visitors and sometimes were allowed to go home for visits.¹⁷ In January 2004, 68 child soldiers were in a temporary camp for returning fighters in Ruhengeri. They included children who had been recruited at 12 years old to fight with the Mai-Mai, indigenous militia groups in eastern DRC. Of the 450 child soldiers handled by the Rwanda Demobilization and Reintegration Commission between 2001 and 2003, only two were girls.¹⁸ Little information was available on the demobilization and reintegration of girl soldiers, but their true number was believed to be much higher.

Some children said they would not claim the benefits for returnees, fearing that their identification as former child soldiers would provoke retribution in their communities. The precarious socio-economic situation in Rwanda increased the risks of children being re-recruited by armed political groups in other countries as a means of supporting their families, particularly where they headed the household.¹⁹

Detention and trial of child soldiers

Children were among those charged with involvement in the 1994 genocide and tried before the courts. By the end of 2003 more than 6,500 people had been convicted and up to 700 people sentenced to death.²⁰ The gacaca tribunals (based on traditional courts) were established in June 2002 to try more than 100,000 genocide suspects overfilling the country's prisons, but in March 2004 less than ten per cent of the approximately 10,000 tribunals had been inaugurated. Their ability to guarantee fair trial standards was questioned. Conditions of detention were appalling because of extreme overcrowding, an inadequate diet and lack of medical care.²¹ Trials were suspended before the presidential elections in August 2003, and in March 2004 were yet to resume.²² In March 2004 some 70,000 prisoners were still held on suspicion of participating in the genocide.²³

According to the Rwandese government, under the criminal code, children below the age of 14 at the time of the crime may not be held legally responsible for their actions or detained; and children aged over 14 and under 18 receive reduced penalties.²⁴

At the end of 2002, 3,082 people who had been detained as children, including 87 girls, were reportedly held in prisons and a further 55 in local detention centres (cachots), the majority on suspicion of participating in the genocide.²⁵ Over 1,100 such detainees, aged between 14 and 18 at the time of the alleged crime, were said to have been provisionally released in January 2003, and a further 200 later in the year.²⁶

In December 2003 a court in Byumba suspended legal proceedings against Jean Paul Musengamana, a minor at the time of the alleged crime, on health grounds. He was provisionally released. Barely able to move, he had been tortured after his arrest in 1997 and suffered severe damage to his back. Emmanuel Habimana, detained since his arrest in 1996 aged 17, was acquitted and released by a court in Butare in December 2003.²⁷

In the gacaca process, minors aged between 14 and 18 at the time of the offence were to receive half the sentence imposed on adults. Many had already spent more than eight years in detention awaiting trial, a period longer than the maximum prison term that may be imposed by a gacaca court on a child. The long awaited start of gacaca trials had not yet begun as of March 2004.²⁸

Other developments

In May 2001 Rwanda ratified the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.²⁹ In November 2003 the UN Secretary-General condemned use of child soldiers in the DRC war, including by former members of the Rwandese armed forces and the Interahamwe, and by the RCD-Goma and its Local Defence Forces.³⁰

* see glossary for information about internet sources

1 Amnesty International (AI), Rwanda: Run-up to presidential elections marred by threats and harassment, 22 August 2003, http://web. amnesty.org/library/engindex.

2 Witnessed by Child Soldiers Coalition, Bukavu, Eastern DRC, April 2004.

3 Information from AI.

4 Second periodic report of Rwanda to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, UN Doc. CRC/C/70/Add.22, 8 October 2003, http://www.ohchr.org.

5 Second periodic report of Rwanda to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, op. cit.

6 Information from AI, July 2003.

7 US Department of State, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2003, February 2004, http://www.state.gov/g/drl/hr/c1470.htm.

8 Information from AI, July 2003.

9 Information from AI, March 2004.

10 AI, DRC: Children at war, September 2003.

11 AI, DRC: Children at war, op. cit.

12 AI, DRC: Children at war, op. cit.

13 IRIN, "Kabila orders ex-FAR and Interahamwe out of country", 17 October 2003, http://www.irinnews.org.

14 IRIN, "DRC-Rwanda: Rebel group denies preventing returnees from leaving Congo", 2 February 2004.

15 Information from a Coalition member in Rwanda, June 2003.

16 IRIN, "RCD: 9.775 rwandais, ougandais et burundais rapatriés dans le cadre du DDRRR", 25 March 2004; AFP, "8,000 Rwandan militia still in DR Congo: UN", 31 March 2004.

17 US Department of State, op. cit.

18 Information from a Coalition member in Rwanda, March 2004.

19 Information from a Coalition member in Rwanda, June 2003.

20 AFP, "Le génocide au Rwanda et les condamnations dans le monde", 7 March 2004.

21 Information from AI, March 2004; AI, Rwanda: Gacaca – A question of justice, 17 December 2002.

22 Information from AI, March 2004.

23 Information from a Coalition member in Rwanda, March 2004.

24 Second periodic report of Rwanda to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, op. cit.

25 Ligue des Droits de la Personne dans la région des Grands Lacs (LDGL), Dynamiques de paix et logiques de guerre: Rapport annuel sur la situation des droits de l'homme dans la région des grands lacs: Burundi, RD Congo, Rwanda, Année 2002, May 2003, http://www.ldgl.org.

26 Information from AI, March 2004.

27 Ligue Rwandaise pour la Promotion et la Défense des Droits de l'Homme, "Umutara/Murambi: Disjonction suite à une infirmité" and "Butare: Un mineur acquitté après 7 ans de détention", Le Verdict, No. 55-56, 9 February 2004, http://www.liprodhor.org.

28 Information from a Coalition member in Rwanda, March 2004.

29 African Union, http://www.africa-union.org.

30 Report of the UN Secretary-General on children and armed conflict, UN Doc. A/58/546S/2003/1053, 10 November 2003, http://www.un.org/documents.