Great Lakes Refugee Crisis - Militarization of Refugee Camps

Militarization of Refugee Camps

The first goal of the political leadership was to gain control of the food supply. This was accomplished by a system of "elected popular leaders", who acted as a front for the real leaders and were able to secure control of the humanitarian aid. The leadership could punish their enemies by withholding aid, reward their supporters by giving it and even make money either by reporting more refugees than actually existed and selling the surplus or by forcing the refugees to pay a food tax. The political elite and ex-FAR soldiers were given preferential treatment. This led, for example, to the otherwise curious finding of one humanitarian aid study that 40% of refugees in Kibumba camp ate less than 2,000 kcal per person, while 13% received over 10,000 kcal per person. Refugees who disagreed with the structure, who tried to return to Rwanda or were too frank with aid workers in discussing the situation were subject to intimidation and murder.

As the initial acute humanitarian crisis was stabilized, aid workers and others began to raise concerns about the presence of armed elements in the camps. Soldiers of the former and the Interahamwe militia created armed outposts on the outskirts of the refugee camps, while the camps themselves came under the control of officials of the former government. Humanitarian workers reported that former government officials, especially near Goma, were passing out large amount of money to the militia to control the refugees on their behalf. Those refugees who tried to protest were either beaten into submission or killed.

The relief operation began to be accused of "feeding the killers", causing a crisis of conscience among the agencies, who began to leave what some have called "the messiest humanitarian quagmire ever". The first to leave was Médecins Sans Frontières, who stated that "this humanitarian operation was a total ethical disaster" as it rewarded those responsible for the genocide rather than punishing them. The International Rescue Committee, a long-standing implementing partner of the UNHCR, then left stating that "humanitarianism has become a resource and people are manipulating it as never before. Sometimes we just shouldn’t show up for a disaster." These two organizations were joined by Oxfam, Save the Children and CARE, completing the departure of the largest and most professional humanitarian aid organizations upon which UNHCR relied heavily. A secondary reason given by some of these organizations is that they hoped that this dramatic action would prompt the international community to disarm the camps.

Despite repeated calls by the UN for international intervention to separate the armed elements from the civilians in need of assistance, there was little response. Of over 40 countries that UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros Ghali approached to provide peacekeepers, only one replied affirmatively. The UN eventually resorted to hiring Zairean soldiers to provide a minimum level of security, a situation that everyone realized was far from ideal. In light of their abandonment by its trusted partners and the insecurity, High Commissioner Sadako Ogata was asked why UNHCR did not simply leave as well. She replied:

There were also innocent refugees in the camps; more than half were women and children. Should we have said: you are related to murderers, so you are guilty, too? My mandate — unlike those of private aid agencies — obliges me to help.

Both for those organizations that left and that stayed, the post-Rwandan Genocide refugee crisis became a watershed event that prompted an extensive reevaluation of their mandates and procedures, and the relative ethical cases for abandonment and continuing aid were hotly debated. At the same time, France and the World Bank withheld development aid from the new government of Rwanda until the refugees were repatriated, prompting accusations that the donors were simply repeating the cycle of poverty that had led Rwanda into crisis originally.