Rwanda-Malawi : RPF government intelligence operatives should stop attacks targeting Rwandan refugees (03.10.07)

Press Release

Last Monday night, unknown armed men attacked Dr Jean Marie Vianney Rwabukwisi’s home in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. They fired several shots and rushed in Rwabukwisi’s house destroying several personal belongings. After their attack, fortunately nobody was neither killed nor injured. Some weeks ago, Rwabukwisi was harassed by RPF government intelligence operatives deployed under cover in that country.

That attack occurs four weeks after President Paul Kagame’s visit to the African land. The official pretext of Kagame’s visit was the inauguration of a three (3) kilometers road in Malawi’s capital, Lilongwe. But, his real objective was to confuse Malawian leaders on the real situation prevailing in Rwanda and pressurize them so that tens of thousands of Rwandan refugees living in that country since 1994 are expelled.

Before Kagame’s September 2007 visit, several Rwandan refugees were harassed and racketed by biased Malawian local officials. He tried without any tangible success to have immediately all Rwandan refugees repatriated against their desire, as RPF semi-official newspaper acknowledges it. The newspaper reported that “the two Presidents discussed the refugee issue agreeing that a tripartite commission comprising of both governments and the UNHCR be instituted and immediately devise means to having those Rwandans repatriated”.

It’s not the first time that Rwandan refugees are attacked. Last year, RPF government intelligence operatives crossing from Tanzanian territory infiltrated refugees’ camps in Malawi and threatened educated ones. Most of them had to flee Malawi toward neighboring Mozambique where they had to seek asylum.

The UDF-Inkingi condemns Rwabukwisi’s home attack and states categorically that such acts of intimidation are both criminal and completely counter-productive, as far as voluntary repatriation of refugees is concerned.

The UDF-Inkingi reaffirms that impunity assured to mass killings suspects within the RPF government both civil and military, assassinations, disappearances, ethnic discrimination, political and social exclusion, judicial harassments by so-called “Gacaca” jurisdictions traditional courts, serious and daily attempts to the right to private property including the right to run businesses freely, insecurity of land tenure and above all ethnocentric nature of military, police and intelligence bodies are the real reasons pushing Rwandans of all ethnic and social backgrounds to flee their country and preventing them from going back home.

The UDF-Inkingi urges Malawian authorities to investigate Rwabukwisi’s home attack and to make public their findings so that those involved are apprehended and punished according to national law and international standards.

The UDF-Inkingi asks Malawian authorities to protect the lives of Rwandan refugees as they did since 1994 and to resist RPF government pressure aimed at destroying their renowned hospitality Rwandans refugees have been enjoying so far.

Brussels, October 3, 2007

Dr Jean-Baptiste Mberabahizi
Secretary General
   (Signed)