Rights workers urge Kigali "to look to the future"

Officials of a Rwandan human rights organisation who recently fled to neighbouring Uganda, fearing for their lives following charges by a parliamentary commission that their organisation had a genocidal ideology, on Tuesday called on their government to "look to the future and stop being a hostage of Rwanda's tragic past". "I know that it is difficult to manage a post-genocide society, but we [Rwandans] should not be prisoners of our tragic past," one of the officials told IRIN in the Ugandan capital, Kampala. The official, who requested anonymity, added: "We need to face our history in order to map out a positive future. The government of Rwanda should try to draw lessons from the country's history, and try to develop a more responsible leadership, but this will not be possible if they continue to suppress the civil society and the independent press." Seven members of the Rwandan League for Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (Liprodor) fled to Uganda almost two weeks ago, fearing arrest after a report by a Rwandan parliamentary commission of inquiry recommended Liprodor's dissolution, along with four other civil society organisations, for allegedly promoting ethnic division. Liprodor is a human rights monitoring body which, in the past, had been critical of the government's record on promoting and protecting human rights. The Rwandan government is due to make a decision on Thursday on the parliamentary commission's recommendation, but the fugitive officials, who deny the accusations levelled against their organisation, told IRIN that Liprodor's bank accounts had been frozen by the government "even before a judicial process" and that many of its officials still in Rwanda lobbying the government not to dissolve the organisation had received threatening telephone calls from unidentified people. Under Rwandan law, promoting ethnic differences is punishable by death, according to the human rights workers. Ethnicity was the main reason for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, during which 937,000 Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were killed, according to Rwandan government figures. The Liprodor officials, all of whom declined to be named, saying their families in Rwanda would be in danger, described the parliamentary commission's recommendation as a political move instigated by the executive to purge such civil society organisations as were perceived to be unsupportive of the government. "I must say that we were very surprised by the accusations, because we were never given time even to be heard, and the recommendations were not a result of an investigation, but a list of accusations by the commission," one of the officials said. "They were questioning our methodology of work and the fact that we have a network of activists in the countryside. We have 380 of them, but the commission said we have 3,800 of them." "We have a very weak civil society that is operating in an atmosphere of total fear with excessive legislative restrictions. Today it is Liprodor, tomorrow it will be somebody else," he added. The official said most of the Liprodor workers whose names had been mentioned in the parliamentary report had fled to Kampala, while two others had fled to the Burundian capital, Bujumbura. He said they were afraid because cases of this nature were being used in Rwanda as a means of bringing charges against perceived "enemies" of the state. The officials said they doubted that the Kigali government would reject the parliamentary commission's recommendations to dissolve Liprodor as international human rights organisations had urged, saying the government harboured "earlier ill feeling" against their group. "Genocide is [nowadays] a myth that the government is using to silence any divergent views and opinion. Any independent organisation involved with human rights issues is perceived by the government as an opponent," one of the officials said. "It is regrettable that the government is suppressing civil societies because they inculcate population with the culture of observing human rights. In order to control them [the NGOs], the government has either infiltrated them, and when this fails, they have tried to decapitate them either by propping up perceived mistakes of individual members of these organisations or saying you are promoting a genocidal ideology. Liprodor's fate could have been this, because our mode of recruitment has remained strict and therefore hard to infiltrate," he added. Meanwhile, in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, the Rwandan News Agency, RNA, reported on Tuesday that Prime Minister Bernard Makuza had warned people responsible for spreading genocidal ideologies that steps would be taken against them in accordance with Rwandan laws. Makuza, who was addressing a group of genocide survivors at a memorial site ending 100 days of mourning, said the country had put in place all possible strategies to uproot the ideology of genocide and hatred. He said the government would not "sit and watch genocide plans being implemented".