Rights group slams “uprooting of the rural poor”

The Rwandan government has violated the basic rights of tens of thousands of people by forcing them to abandon their homes in rural areas and move to makeshift dwellings in government-designated sites, the New York-based organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) charged in a report released on Monday. “The government’s massive plan to reorganise life in the rural areas, known as the National Habitat Policy, decreed an end to Rwandans’ customary way of living in dispersed homesteads,” the report said. “Many homeowners were forced to destroy their own homes and many families lived for more than a year in hovels made of sticks, mud, and banana leaves.” The 91-page report, “Uprooting the Rural Poor in Rwanda,” says that some people who resisted the plan were punished with fines or jail terms. From early 1997 through to the end of 2000 hundreds of thousands of Rwandans living in Kibungo, Mutara, Kigali-Rural, and Ruhengeri provinces left their homes for the sites. “The Rwandan government has caused terrible suffering for the poor people out in the hills,” said Alison Des Forges, Senior Advisor to the Africa Division of Human Rights Watch. “It has also made many people angry at a time when opposition political movements are growing among Rwandans inside and outside the country.” “Making agriculture more productive is imperative, but progress towards that laudable goal must not be made at the expense of human rights,” DesForges said. “Donors seeking to support beneficial change in Rwanda must consider how proposed reforms will affect the lives of all Rwandans.” [Full report available at http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/rwanda/]