STATEMENT BY THE FOLLOW-UP COMMITTEE OF RWANDAN REFUGEE ISSUES ON THE OCCASION OF THE CELEBRATION OF WORLD REFUGEE DAY, 20.06.2024

On the occasion of the celebration of this June 20, 2024, World Refugee Day, the Follow-up Committee of Rwandan Refugee Issues (CSPR) would like to remind all actors of the international community in general, and particularly the countries hosting refugees, of the obligation to protect refugees and offer them more means of relief. That is, finding solutions that resettle refugees and help them rebuild their lives with dignity. Resettlement to third countries or integration of refugees into communities where they have found safety after fleeing conflict and persecution have been tested and proven to be the most effective way to help them restart their lives and enable them to contribute actively and positively to the lives of the countries that host them. International protection bodies also recognize that this is the best way to prepare refugees to return home and rebuild their country, when conditions allow them to do so voluntarily and safely, or to prosper and live in dignity if they are resettled in another country. Unfortunately, very few refugees have access to resettlement in a third country or local integration solutions.

Regarding the nagging problem of the Rwandan refugees, the search for durable solutions, which had led to the premature invocation of the cessation clause applicable to refugees from 1959 to 31 December 1998, had only exacerbated the precariousness of the refugees. It is true that the situation has not unfolded as the Rwandan Government, which was at the root of this premature invocation would have liked - a big thank you to the host countries who have shown humanism - but the reality is that many refugees have lost protection and are currently plunged into a legal vacuum of undocumented or stateless persons. People who find themselves in such a situation cannot enjoy all human rights, let alone participate fully in society and achieve the self-sufficiency of basic needs so desired.

Why are Rwandan refugees afraid to return home? The answer is that the obstacles to voluntary repatriation are identical to the reasons why the flow of would-be exiles does not decrease. Had it not been for the fact that Rwanda under the control of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) has become a veritable open-air prison, the country would have already been emptied of most of its population. Reports from renowned impartial institutions such as the US State Department, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and many others, regularly paint a bleak picture of the situation in Rwanda in terms of lack of democratization of institutions and separation of powers, violation of human rights, violation of freedom of association and expression.

These reports refer to arbitrary or unlawful executions, including extrajudicial executions, harsh and life-threatening conditions of detention, arbitrary arrest or detention, of political prisoners or detainees, transnational repression against individuals in another country, kidnapping of opponents, arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, punishment of family members for alleged offences committed by a parent, enforced disappearances or abductions, severe restrictions on freedom of expression and media freedom, including threats of violence against journalists, arrests, killings or unjustified prosecutions of journalists, and censorship, severe restrictions on internet freedom, substantial interference with freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association, including highly restrictive laws on the organization, funding or operation of non-governmental organizations and civil society, severe and unreasonable restrictions on political participation, severe governmental restrictions or harassment of national and international human rights organizations.

Recently, journalists from the organization Forbidden Stories investigated the hidden face of Paul Kagame's regime and revealed in Rwanda Classified how the Rwandan government intends to silence critical voices, both within its borders and abroad.

Similarly, with regard to the saga of asylum seekers that the British government would like to send to Rwanda, lawyers representing UNHCR in court have stated that sending asylum seekers from Britain to Rwanda, as the government plans to do, "puts them at risk of being sent to another country where they risk death or torture, known as refoulement".

Rwandan refugees also have other specific reasons that prevent their voluntary return, such as:

1.The fear that their safety and human rights will not be protected if they return to Rwanda. The authorities responsible for their exile are waiting for them on the pretext that they would return to take away the power they manage with methods that are as cruel as they are authoritarian;

2.A justice system that is extremely instrumentalized and security organs won over to the violence of Paul Kagame's authoritarian regime;

3.failure of a true national reconciliation, because of the ethnic tensions slyly maintained by the government in place under the false pretext that ethnic groups no longer exist in Rwanda. The result is that the Tutsis control all the levers of knowledge, power and possessions, to the great displeasure of the Hutus;

4.The spoliation of the property of refugees as well as that of other peaceful citizens and economic operators;

5.The armed conflicts initiated and maintained by Rwanda that follow one another on the territory of the Democratic Republic of Congo and which have extremely serious consequences for the Congolese populations and Rwandan refugees;

6.Rwandan embassies, instead of carrying out their mission as defined in the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, have been transformed into bastions of death squads where schemes of all kinds are hatched with the aim of harassing, destabilizing, or even murdering Rwandan refugees. In this regard, the regime of President Paul Kagame does not hold back on the financial means intended for the accomplishment of such a disastrous mission.

All things considered, the CSPR recommends:

To the international community in general, UNHCR and host countries in particular to bear in mind that Rwandan refugees have well-founded reasons to fear for their lives and to:

a.reinstate the protection of those rejected by the Cessation Clause applicable to refugees from 1959 to 31 December 1998 who have become virtually stateless; and to grant protection to Rwandan nationals who are new asylum seekers.

b.protect Rwandan refugees from acts of extra-territorial persecution by the Rwandan government through its diplomatic representations;

c.exercise caution when signing bilateral agreements containing the extradition clause that the Rwandan government often offers to countries hosting Rwandan refugees to be able to harm them "legally".

To the Government of Rwanda to:

a.end its campaign of harassment and destabilization of refugees and political opponents;

b.create conditions conducive to the voluntary repatriation of refugees in complete safety and dignity, including but not limited to: the establishment of institutions independent of the executive power, respect for the values of democracy, human rights, freedom of expression and association, the dismantling of repressive laws, the organization of a highly inclusive inter-Rwandan dialogue, the opening of political space, the end of destabilization activities in the countries of the subregion and promote the policy of good neighborliness.

Done at Lyon, June 20, 2024

Theobald Rutihunza

Coordinator of The Follow-up Committee of Rwandan Refugee Issues (CSPR)