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Hutu refugees fear forced return to Rwanda

Friday - 4/19/2013, 12:03pm  ET

In this photo taken Monday, April 15, 2013, Leodegard Kagaba, an ethnic Hutu whose father and siblings were killed in 1994, says in an interview with Associated Press at his home in the Nakivale refugee camp in Uganda, that in Rwanda he would be targeted for harassment or worse because he witnessed atrocities committed by the Tutsi soldiers who came to his village looking for genocide suspects. Nearly two decades after the Rwandan genocide, thousands of refugees living in the camp in Uganda say they fear being forced to return to their home country. (AP Photo/Rebecca Vassie)

Associated Press

NAKIVALE, Uganda (AP) -- Leodegard Kagaba lifted his shirt to reveal an ugly scar on his belly left by a bullet that nearly killed him. Tutsi neighbors in Rwanda, he said, attacked him after accusing him of participating in the 1994 genocide.

"I have many scars, even in my heart," he said. "The people who put those scars on me still live freely in Rwanda."


After the genocide, hundreds of thousands of Hutus -- some charged with participating in the genocide, others simply afraid of reprisal killings -- fled Rwanda and sought refuge across East and Central Africa.




Rwandan President Paul Kagame -- an ethnic Tutsi -- dismisses allegations that his country unfairly targets Hutus, saying those who played a role in the genocide should face the law. Kagame encourages a gospel of unity that disregards ethnicity.

But groups such as Human Rights Watch -- which the government openly spars with -- have long accused Rwanda's government of using a genocide ideology law to target the regime's critics. Independent journalists who have written critically about the history of the genocide have been threatened with jail terms. Many have fled.

Rwanda's government said in a statement Friday that "Rwandan refugees who hesitate to return home either lack enough information on the current situation in Rwanda or have developed significant ties with host countries."


In Nakivale, the Hutus who fled Rwanda at the end of the genocide spoke of a persistent witch-hunt, saying sons can be harassed for their father's crimes. Their grim opinion of life in Rwanda is reinforced by the accounts of refugees who returned to Rwanda and fled back to Uganda, saying they had been jailed on trumped-up charges and even tortured.


"It's still a country producing refugees," Beck said of Rwanda. "There is a large amount of fear (in Nakivale), and it's not helped that refugees have gone and come back again."

Belonging to a family seen in the community as having participated in the genocide carries a lifetime stigma, some refugees said, equating a Hutu's return to Rwanda to committing suicide. Some Tutsi families are still eager to exact revenge on neighbors they believe killed their relatives, said Rajab Simpamanuka, a Hutu refugee who has lived in Nakivale since 2001.


"The family you come from is still a problem to this day," he said. "If you return home, they will say the son of so-and-so is back. And the police will come for you. You can pay for your father's sins. I still like my country, but I will go back only if there's a change of government."

Hamida Kabagwira, a Hutu refugee, said she won't be forced to return to Rwanda.

"If they want it, they will have to come here and kill us. I will never find peace in Rwanda," said Kabagwira, who was recently reunited with her husband, Shaban Mutabazi.

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