Summary of the briefing of the meeting held by UNHCR/CNR Goma on the issues of the repatriation of Rwandan Refugees who are then recruited into military activities to destabilize the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Introduction
UNHCR power in the Democratic Republic of Congo in general and in Goma in particular is the ability to influence security services in order to threaten human rights defenders who are advocating for refugee rights, and the ability to use threats in meetings as it was observed on Thursday December 26th, 2024 where UNHCR Representative Burry Abdoulaye threatened to arrest and prosecute all those who are critical to refugee rights abuses in which UNHCR is involve, a meeting which UNHCR used in order to gain support from Civil Society and security services, in what we observed as the strategy of isolation which is used against vocal human rights defenders.
Questions remain
How is the repatriation done, how are people mobilized and who mobilize them, and where are they mobilized and why?
Who are these people who are targeted in the whole repatriation process, which status they have exactly,
How the people in the transit center are managed, who manage them?
What motivates all those mobilized to people to accept to go back?
What happened to these people once in Rwanda and what is there fate up to now?
Why should only DRC send refugees to Rwanda, what may justify this and who are those who decide in this?
What if UNHCR may opt to answer questions rather than to attack those who ask questions?
On Thursday December 26th, 2024 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Congolese National Commissioner for Refugees known as CNR held an emergency meeting to share information about the Rwandan Refugees Transit Camp in Goma. This was in reaction to the alert we made about the forced recruitment of these refugees into military activities once in Rwanda and the forced repatriation of Hutus Rwandan Refugees in DRC based on false promises and wrong information about the situation in Rwanda.
In order to make this clearer to our audience, let us point out the following:
Currently we estimate at 4million the number of Rwandan refugees in DRC mainly Hutu, both UNHCR and CNR have failed to identify them over the years because they do not want refugees to enjoy the international protection. Refugees accuse UNHCR and CNR to be close to Rwanda and working on behalf of Rwandan Government in Rwanda’s foreign policy of criminalization of Hutu refugees in the world. Since 1996 Rwanda engaged on various massacres against these Hutus refugees and up to now Rwanda believes that all those who survived are FDLR and should be repatriated back to Rwanda. In order to implement this, UNHCR and CNR play now a front line.
While thousands Rwandan refugees are living in other provinces of DRC, the forced repatriation is focused only to those in North and South Kivu and in the process the CNR was put in place as government body to facilitate the repatriation alongside UNHCR. However questions have remained, how far is CNR really a Government body and how much does the DRC Government know what is happening?
However basing on various alerts and information collected from those who faced repatriation indicated that some among them were forcibly recruited into military activities in Rwanda and are now deployed in DRC on the side of M23 backed by Rwanda, and others left towards Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania and the rest came back to DRC where they are living without document and without support from UNHCR and CNR.
The meeting on Thursday December 26th, 2024
The meeting brought together actors of the Civil Society in North Kivu, and all security services and aimed at sharing information to participants about the center, to deny helping Rwanda and to threaten Kulihoshi Musikami Pecos who is engaged in this battle towards refugee protection. The aim of the meeting looked like the strategy of isolation which is used against human rights defenders, by buying the conscience of all those who could be concerned by the threats against activists working on the protection of refugees in which Pecos was negatively labeled, spending tax-payers money just to criminalize one person, instead of presenting activities that are being done in order to protect refugees.
The meeting noted that this center has been managed in total discretion and no one knows what happens to refugees once they are back to Rwanda, and yet that should have been the main attention. Unfortunately no one can fully tell us what happens to refugees once in Rwanda, however refugees themselves do speak but still no one is interested to listen to them.
Positive note
For the first time since 1998 up to now, actors of the Civil Society, various security services represented, local leaders who attended the meeting and other government officers visited this transit center for their first time, many did not know even that it does exist,
For the first time, participants asked questions about activities in this center and many left without clear answers which we believe will spark more debate,
For the first time, CNR/UNHCR committed to make the center accessible by various actors who wish to visit,
And for the first the questions from security services if this center existed and if there are people where answered, so no one will say that we shared a wrong information.
Our position
We strongly denounce all forms of threats and intimidations against those who are advocating for the effective protection of Rwandan Refugees in DRC and call upon UNHCR to distance itself from the violation of refugee rights,
We remain committed towards the effective protection of Rwandan and no amount of threats will divert us from that noble cause.
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