Rwanda signed the Mine
Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, but has not yet ratified. Rwanda attended, as an
observer, the international strategy meeting in October 1996 which launched the
Ottawa Process. It also participated in the Bonn preparatory meeting and
endorsed the Brussels Declaration, but it did not attend the Oslo treaty
negotiations. Rwanda supported the pro-ban 1996 and 1997 UN General Assembly
resolutions on landmines.
Rwanda military forces have been supporting opposition forces fighting
against the government of Laurent Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC). (See country report on DRC). The Namibian Defense Ministry, among
others, has accused Rwanda of laying mines in the conflict. When two Namibian
soldiers (fighting in support of Kabila) were killed by a landmine in November
1998, the Defense Ministry said that it and its allies “hold Rwanda and
Uganda responsible for using antipersonnel landmines, weapons which the
international community has
banned.”[1] However, there
is no conclusive evidence that Rwandan forces have used AP mines.
Production, Transfer and Stockpiling
Rwanda is not believed to have ever produced or
exported antipersonnel mines. In the early 1990s, thousands of Ugandan National
Resistance Army (NRA) allegedly defected en masse to the Rwandan Patriotic
Front, bringing weapons with them, including antipersonnel
mines.[2] Rwanda has also
imported mines in the past through the former government of the late President
Habyarimana, via the FAR.[3]
Rwanda received two thousand MAT-79 antipersonnel mines from
Egypt.[4] These plastic blast
mines are copies of the Italian VS-50. Belgian antipersonnel mines are also
believed to have been supplied to
Rwanda.[5] The United Nations
records thirty-nine types of mines being found in Rwanda from Belgium, China,
former Czechoslovakia, Egypt, Italy, Pakistan, former Soviet Union, and the U.S.
Italian and Russian mines are the most
common.[6] Details on the size
and composition of Rwanda’s current stockpile of AP mines are not
available.
Use
The most populous ethnic groups in Rwanda are the
majority Hutu and the minority Tutsi. In 1990 exiled Tutsi rebels, the Rwandan
Patriotic Front (RPF), launched an insurgency war against the Hutu-dominated
Rwandan government. The RPF closed in on the capital Kigali in 1993 but a
cease-fire for arranged through international mediation efforts. The presidents
of Rwanda and Burundi were set to sign a peace settlement when their aircraft
was shot down on 6 April 1994, allegedly by Hutu hard liners. The assassinations
marked the start of a genocide in Rwanda in which at least half a million
minority Tutsi were killed and thousands of Hutu moderates were slaughtered by
Hutu extremists. The RPF meanwhile moved into Kigali on 4 July 1994 ousting the
new Hutu leadership and an estimated 1 million Hutu fled the Tutsi take-over to
neighboring states.
At the onset of the RPF incursion from Uganda, in September 1990, landmines
were placed by the former government forces of Armed Forces of Rwanda (FAR)
especially within the RPF entry areas from Uganda, around Ruhengeri and Byumba.
Minefields were laid in the north of the country along the border with Uganda.
The heaviest concentration of known landmines is in north and northeastern
portion of the country in the rural farmlands where government soldiers mined
roads, footpaths and fields to impeded the advance of the RPF forces. Tea
plantations north of Kigali and parts of the Kagera National Park were also
mined.[7]
Because of the fierce battle for the control of Kigali in 1994 which lasted
about three months, "areas near infrastructures like schools, hospitals,
factories, military barracks were heavily mined" reported the Head of the
National Demining Office, Maj. Joshua
Mbaraga.[8] For example, four
children were killed and nine other people injured in a mine blast in Gikondo
suburb of Kigali in October 1995. The explosion occurred when a group of
children were playing.[9] The FAR
forces laid mines in several towns during their retreat in 1994. All the main
military barracks were also heavily mined in 1994 by the FAR to prevent rebel
(RPF) attack.
In 1995 and 1996, the Rwandan government fought a growing threat from
soldiers (ex-FAR) and militia of the former government, who had been leading
incursions from refugee camps in Zaire. The infiltrators, part of the force that
carried out a genocide, remained committed to returning Rwanda by force and to
completing the extermination of the
Tutsi.[10] At first the
infiltrators used bombs and mines to target electricity pylons, vehicles, and
buildings and increasingly witnesses to the genocide and local
officials.[11] In April 1996,
U.N. human rights observers were unable to secure first hand accounts of
killings during a gun battle which took place in Rutsiro village of the lakeside
town of Kibuye because the village was off-limits due to
landmines.[12] A patrolling
Rwandan army officer complained in May that "the infiltrators are around us. Its
dangerous here. They lay mines, they fire at us. We don't see
them."[13] Due to the rebel and
government military operations in these areas there is a high level of
Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees, normal agricultural and
pastoral activities are severely curtailed, some due to landmines.
Landmine Problem
According to the U.N. and U.S. data bases there are
between 100,000 and 250,000 mines in
Rwanda.[14] Rwanda's National
Demining Office estimated in December 1997 the figure to be 100,000.
Mine Action Funding
In January and February 1995, the U.S. Department
of Defense (DoD) sent a team to Kigali to undertake a site assessment to
determine the parameters, scope and extent of a humanitarian demining program.
This was followed in July and August when thirty-five U.S. military personnel
helped to establish a National Demining Office (NDO) and train 120 Rwandan
Patriotic Army (RPA) personnel for the NDO at a cost of US$1.2 million. In
support of this program the U.S DoD provided demining equipment, medical
supplies and communications equipment. The U.S. Department of Defense also
funded the operations of a U.S. contractor, RONCO, for a demining dog training
program including equipment and services at a cost of $1.4
million.[15]
Some military maps exist of the mined areas. In September 1995, the Rwandan
government opened its National Office of Demining. The office keeps a data base
and a country map on mined areas and updates this data base every month,
including the casualty incidences.
Between September and October 1996, twelve U.S. military conducted a
refresher demining training course for seventy-two RPA personnel at a cost of
US$160,000. This training focused on mine clearance, minefield survey
techniques, mine marking and medical training. This training team also assisted
in integrating the eighteen RONCO-trained demining dogs into the Rwandan
demining operations. Nine other U.S. military personnel conducted specialized
training for the National Demining Office in mine awareness and an assessment of
earlier humanitarian demining training at a cost of
$38,000.[16] Follow-up training
occurred between March and May 1997 when ten U.S. military personnel conducted a
train-the-trainer course in the NDO. The team also established a computer
training program in the NDO, revitalizing the NDO's data collection center.
Between May and July a second team of eleven U.S. personnel conducted training
on humanitarian demining for ninety-three RPA deminers and EOD personnel at the
NDO in Kigali and at the Rebero training site in eastern
Rwanda.[17] Canada also provided
demining experts after the 1994 genocide within the United Nations Assistance
Mission to Rwanda (UNAMIR) forces that came to Rwanda. UNAMIR withdrew in March
1996.
Destruction of the cleared mines is through explosions against a wall of sand
bags. The British and U.S. governments assisted with
this.[18] According to Paul Brown
of RONCO,'clearing of mines is concentrated on former defensive positions of
the former government, including terraces and areas surrounding defensive
positions.' Brown further stated that the major problem in demining was that
many mines were ' indiscriminately
laid.'[19]
The humanitarian demining/mine clearance by the military is said to be very
effective, at ninety to ninety five percent success level. According to the
government sources the total area cleared is 75 percent, comprising of 65 per
cent clearance of agricultural/grazing land; 95 per cent transportation areas;
100 per cent of infrastructure area; 95 per cent of population area; and 35 per
cent in others (national parks). Most of the clearance has been in the Mutara,
Byumba and Kigali prefectures. According to the government the national
priorities for demining are: one, socio-economic areas; two, schools and
hospitals; and three, resettlement areas. The records of areas cleared are
accessible and maintained at the
NDO.[20]
Mine Awareness
The need for mine awareness education was long
recognized by the Rwandese government, and the NDO is charged with mine
awareness education and indeed runs an aggressive mine awareness program which
comprises radio programs, TV adverts, t-shirts and banners. According to the
NDO, twelve people have been trained as mine awareness
educators[21].
UNESCO and UNICEF working with teachers and health authorities, launched a
campaign to sensitize people on the presence of mines and other UXOs. More than
2000 teachers have been trained. The campaign has its own song, which is played
on national radio. In November 1994, 500,000 posters and booklets in Kinyarwanda
were distributed to school teachers. Mine awareness materials were linked to
UNESCO-Program for Education for Emergencies and Reconstruction (UNESCO-PEER)
school in a box, which aims to teach children about the dangers of landmines,
while at the same time providing basic literacy and
numeracy.[22]
Landmine Survivor Assistance
Incidences of casualties of AT mines as well as AP
mines still continue to rise due to insurgency and counter insurgency operations
in Rwanda. Up to last year (1998) 500 people were recorded by the NDO has having
been killed by mines. The death rate has been reduced to an average of one per
month. Both civilians and military personnel are affected. Most of the civilian
casualties are women and children.
Rwanda's health infrastructure is being steadily rebuilt but regaining former
levels of health cover is proving difficult. The NPA started its relief efforts
in Rwanda after the genocide that took place in 1994. NPA is engaged in
rehabilitation and running of two regional hospitals in Nyagatare and
Cyangugu.[23] There are several
centers for prosthetics run by the ICRC South of Kigali. The ICRC opened a
hospital in Kigali in 1994 and from 1995 to 1997 seconded Swiss and German Red
Cross teams to Kibue Hospital. This has now become an ICRC-run project. The ICRC
has run a rehabilitation program in Gatagara since
1996.[24]
[3]In 1993 the South African
arms manufacturer Armscor refused to issue Denel any further export permits to
Rwanda and it had to dishonor an order worth US$45 million. This order included
5,000 antipersonnel mines. See, Jacklyn Cock, "A Sociological Account of Light
Weapons Proliferation in Southern Africa,"in Jasjit Singh, Light Weapons and
International Security (Delhi: Indian Pugwash Society and British American
Security International Council, 1995) footnote eight, p.123.
[4]Human Rights Watch Arms
Project, Arming Rwanda: The Arms Trade and Human Rights Abuses in the Rwandan
War, Vol. 6, Issue 1, January 1994, p. 15.
[14]UNDHA, Landmine Database.
Country Report: Rwanda,
http://www.un.org/depts/landmine/country/rwanda.html; and U.S. Department of
State, Hidden Killers: The Global Landmine Crisis (Washington DC: U.S.
Department of State, 1998) p.A-2.
[15]'Summary - Report to
Congress on U.S. Military Activities in Rwanda, 1994 - August 1997,' p.1.
Available at: www.eucom.mil/africa/rw/index.htm.
[18]Paul Brown of RONCO talking
about mine clearance in Rwanda in Kigali in 1998 on Reuters film footage by
Patrick Kariuki Muiruri, Reuters cameraman, Nairobi.
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