ABA section of International Law Spring Meeting panel highlights concerns over the cessation of status for Rwandan refugees
The following press release was written by Galya Ruffer, Director of the International Studies Program at Northwestern University.
Friday, April 26, 2013 - The ABA International Refugee Law Committee and the Africa Committee co-sponsored panel at the Section of International Law Spring Meeting in Washington, D.C., "Rwandan Refugees – Is it Safe to Come Home?" addressed the situation of Rwandan refugees in light of the UNHCR recommendation to invoke Cessation of their refugee status on 30 June 2013. The Cessation applies to those who escaped events that occurred between 1956 and 1998, and not to those who sought asylum since. This suggests an immediate contradiction. How can Rwanda be safe for some refugees and not for those who are still fleeing? Rwandan refugees worldwide have launched a campaign urging the legal community to question whether Rwanda is a 'safe' country under the 1951 Geneva Convention.
The panel, organized and moderated by Northwestern University Professor Galya Ruffer, provided a context of the situation in Rwanda today, considered the requirements for invocation of the Cessation of refugee status and presented a case study of Rwandan refugees today and their concerns in regards to Cessation of their status. The focus of the panel then shifted to lawyering and advocacy in such a situation in order to consider strategies, ethical concerns and responsibilities of lawyering in situations of severe oppression where lives are at risk.
Speaking to a packed room, panelists included Filip Reyntjens, Professor of African Law and Politics at the Institute of Development Policy and Management, University of Antwerp and author of The Great African War: Congo and Regional Geopolitics, 1996-2006 (Cambridge University Press 2009) and Political Governance in Post-Genocide Rwanda (Cambridge University Press 2013), Olivia Bueno, International Refugee Rights Initiative's (IRRI), Associate Director and Mutuyimana Manzi a Rwandan refugee in Uganda since 2007.
After providing an historical overview of the refugee crises in Rwanda, Professor Reyntjens analyzed the political and social situation in Rwanda today under Kagame, which he described as "living under a Volcano." Mr. Manzi detailed evidence of the oppression of Hutus living in Rwanda, which Professor Reyntjens called "structural violence," as the cause for ongoing flight. Mr. Manzi then talked about the problems refugees have faced in Uganda since invocation of Cessation in 2009 including forced repatriation, unlawful detention, withdrawal of land on which to grow food and shrinking food rations, abductions and killing. Shifting the focus to the concerns of lawyering within Cessation, Ms. Bueno discussed the difficult choices IRRI has had to make in regards to legal advocacy and the push for UNHCR to adopt a disaggregated approach.
As if playing into the theme of the panel, the Q&A was derailed by persons not registered for the ABA meeting: first by the Rwandan Ambassador spoke, followed by others, all seeking to discredit the label that Professor Reyntjens and Mr. Manzi's had given them, by calling them genocidaires. The panel ended with moderator Professor Ruffer noting that in this difficult and complicated environment, it is indeed important to consider how lawyers can give voice and representation without making refugees more vulnerable.
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