World

Rwanda:
forgotten refugees

Africa’s

Tiny Rwonda in Central Africa, with a
population of 5.3-million, is one of the
world’s least-known countries. Flung into
the headlines by the stories of refugees
fleeing to safety there from terror in
neighbouring Burundi, what did not reach
the wires was Rwanda’s own tragedy:
years of internal terror and repression by
an imperialist-imposed regime, and the
fact that 2 million Rwandese are living in
exile throughout Africa, with little hope of
returning.

Two members of the Intore Scciety
(uniting Rwandese in exile), whom we shall
call for security reasons Kabute and
Butera, visited the Tribune to tell the sad
story of their long-suffering people.

“Rwanda, after World War I, became
a colony of Belgium,” ;said Kabute.”
“The first thing the Belgians did was
divide and segregate our population
based on their traditional occupation:
crop farming, or cattle raising — even
though we are of the same origin.

“The Hutu (crop farming majority)
and Tutsi (cattle raising minority) — the
two so-called tribes on which ethnic strife
is supposed to be based, and is supposed
to be the reason for our problem, is in
fact a false division. We speak the same
language, have the same culture, share
the same territory ... we even look alike,
there are no ethnic differences, other
than those externally imposed” said
Kabute.

“The Belgians imposed the rule of the
Hutu majority over the Tutsi minority,
even though, traditionally, cattle raising
was the yardstick of wealth and prosper-
ity. The Belgians even spread the false
notion that the Tutsi minority had come
to the area centuries ago to make slaves
of the Hutu.”

Internal repression against the Tutsi
minority, while very real, is in fact a
cover-up for 30 years of brutal dictator-
ship. During the first flush of independ-
ence sentiment in the 1950s, the people
were on the whole united. But to main-
tain neo-colonial power after independ-
ence, the Belgians set up a Hutu
(mostly-Catholic church-trained) ruling
clique to take power and act in their
interests.

“That’s when the massacres started,”
said Butera, “just after independence,
after a civilian coup in 1959. The Belgian-
backed ruling elite started ‘cleaning from
any power’ those who were Tutsi, and
any Hutu who maintained nationalist
sentiment. The massacres came in waves:
in 1961, 1962, 1969 and in 1970.”

Rwanda’s present government is a
military government, which came to
power in another coup in 1973. Western
oriented, it uses the same old style of
ruling, by dividing people on tribal
grounds. “Instead of trying to unite us on
nationalist sentiment, so our whole peo-
ple can prosper,” says Butera, “‘it still
divides us into Hutu and Tutsi. We carry
identity cards showing this.”

It makes a big difference in people’s
daily lives. Barely 10 per cent of jobs
officially go to a far larger (relative to
Rwanda’s population) Tutsi minority.
Then there are regional rivalries which
make that 10 per cent even less. “Even
Hutu are, on a regional basis, discrimi-
nated against. So no one accepts this

Tutsi-Hutu scare tactic. Our people no
longer believe in it,” says Butera.

The military government’s ties are bas-
ically with the West, especially with Bel-
gium, France, West Germany, and even
with Canada and the U.S. Belgium still
dominates via the infrastructure of the
army. Belgium supplies advisors, instruc-
tors, and even has a military base. France
provides most of the army materiel,
while West Germany provides civilian
aid. Even Canada plays a neo-colonialist
role: the university is administered and
staffed by Quebecers.

“The younger generation, many born
outside the country because their parents
fled in the waves of massacres, and even
young people inside the country, are now
asking why 2 million people cannot
return,” said Kabute. “It’s parallel to the
Palestine situation.

“There is a very small, clandestine
nationalist movement inside the country,
tremendously persecuted; the movement
is primarily based outside, among the
refugees. But the government is also try-
ing to physically eliminate us as well.
This year a brother of one of the Rwan-
dan refugees living in Canada was kid-

Ginstead of trying to
unite us so the whole
people can prosper, the
government divides us
into Hutu and Tutsi. We
carry identity cards
showing this. 9

napped from Zaire, where there is a large
exile population, taken to Rwanda,
where he is now in prison and sentenced
to death. This can happen to any one of
us — kidnapped or murdered there, by
our own government’s intelligence, or by
the ‘host’ government at its bidding; we
never know. But it is a risk we take.

“Other governments have been com-
plicit: there was-a massacre of Rwandan
refugees in Uganda by that government
in 1982, and a similar one in Zaire in
1964. We suffered alike under Amin and
Obote. They all say we refugees are
‘threats’ to them.”

The Intore society representatives are
in Canada to organize Rwandese here,
and to tell the whole world that there are
2 million people who have been suffering
for 30 years, and have been ignored.
“Imperialism has made sure that our
cause has gone unknown,” said Butera.

“The Rwandan government has tried °
to present the problem to the world as a
Hutu-Tutsi problem. We are trying to
correct that. Most of the Hutu majority
are anti-government and suffer under the
pro-Western military dictatorship, just
as the minority Tutsi. The young genera-
tion is now saying ‘We are all Rwandese,
and nothing else matters. The problem is
not Hutu-Tutsi, but a repressive military
government trying to cling to power by
dividing us.”

8 © Pacific Tribune, January 23, 1989

Violence by Israel
mounts. as intifada |
support continues -

By CHRIS FRAZER

The day after the
events in Balata, the
youth of Ramallah
demonstrated to
mark the anniver-
sary of the founding
of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of
Palestine (PFLP),
one of the organiza-
tions of the Pales- fags
tine Liberation Org-
anization (PLO).

Shortly after 10 a.m., young people
began gathering behind a church near the
centre of Ramallah (an Arab city of more
than 40,000 inhabitants).

At half-past the hour, a sharp whistle
pierced the morning silence, and instantly
the demonstrators donned the Palestinian
scarves they had carried concealed beneath
their jackets, unfurled the banned Palesti-
nian flag, and poured into the street, chant-

FRAZER

‘ing slogans and hurling stones at Israeli

soldiers gathered far at the other end.

Out of nowhere, stone barricades came
up and tires were set ablaze to obstruct the
chase that was sure to follow.

Suddenly shots rang out, and the ranks of
the demonstrators broke and fled in several
directions, carrying us along to nearby
buildings where we hid while soldiers
scoured the area in search of stragglers.

Ismail afterwards explained two signifi-
cant facts about the demonstration. First, it
represented the unity of the Palestinian
people. Fatah supporters were demonstrat-
ing today for the PFLP, and tomorrow
PFLP supporters would demonstrate for
Fatah.

Second, it reflected a shift in the tactics of
the intifada from massive demonstrations
to smaller, but simultaneous, protests. It is a
change forced by the IDF (Israel’s army of
occupation) use of live ammunition. This
not only helps reduce casualties, but it for-
ces the IDF to divide its forces, and compli-
cates the chase to capture protesters.

Still, the occupation and_ repression
against the uprising are exacting a terrible
toll on the Palestinian people, a fact con-
firmed by visits to the Al-Makassed Palesti-
nian Hospital in Jerusalem.

Al-Makassed Hospital is a horrifying
experience, a damning indictment of the
Israeli occupation, making it quite clear that
the so-called “non-lethal” ammunition and
techniques used to put down the intifada are
quite capable of killing and maiming.

Plastic bullets are metal balls the size of
marbles, wrapped in plastic. One victim of
plastic bullets, a 19-year-old lad named
Elias, luckily didn’t die, even though he was
chased down by soldiers who then shot him
six times at point blank range — imbed-
ding the bullets in the side of his face.

Rubber bullets look like regular ammuni-
tion, and are simply coated with a thin layer
of rubber over a hard metal core. Ali was 12
years old, and died just days after we saw
him in the hospital. He’d been gunned
down in cold blood while walking home
with his brother to his farm near Nablus.
The bullet entered his forehead, ploughed
through his brain, and lodged in the back of
hishead.

More than 500 Palestinians have died
since the uprising began, 87 per cent of them
males, and more than 20 per cent children
under the age of 16.

ISRAELI PLASTIC BULLETS ... where —
they do not kill, they main.

When live ammunition doesn’t kill, it
maims for life. Nineteen-year-old Anwar
was still hospitalized one-and-half-months
after being shot in the head with high-
velocity live ammunition. It left shrapnel
and caused paralysis in his legs as well as
loss of control over his sphincter and
bladder. He can no longer speak.

CS gas carries with it two dangers. It can
kill when it strikes the head or chest. And its
poison has been connected to several
hundred fetal deaths and miscarriages in the
last year.

But gas and bullets are far from the only
dangers. Of 46,000 reported injuries in the
last year, 50 per cent are related to the use of
ammunition and tear-gas. The remainder
were caused by beatings inflicted by hand,
with clubs, rocks and firearms, or by burns,
vehicular assault, torture, and live burial.

Sixteen-year-old Ismail, from Nablus,
was forced by Israeli soldiers to jump froma
tall building. He suffered a complete spinal
trans-section, causing paralysis in both legs.
Foreign medical associations have offered
aid, but Israeli authorities have denied
Ismail permission to leave.

Ahmad is 43 years old, the father of 14
children. He was arrested, beaten, then
thrown from a moving jeep and left to die.
Ahmad suffered multiple traumas, includ-
ing fractures to all four limbs and a severe
brain concussion which has left him in a
deep coma.

“At the beginning of the intifada, the
violence was mainly directed at the youth,”
said Dr. Ghanem, one of the Al-Makassed
Hospital staff. “Now the violence is aimed
against all ages, young and old, male and
female. The Norwegian ambassador to
Israel said recently that the situation here is
worse than what happened in his country
under the Hitler occupation.

“The army comes here often and we have
had many cases where new patients were
arrested while still in critical condition,”
Ghanem continued. “On other occasions,
the military governor has tried to close
down our hospital.”

(Conclusion next week.)