Rwandan refugees living in Uganda are facing the possibility of involuntarily returning home as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees begins the process of withdrawing their status.

The UN agency had hoped to begin defining exemption categories for the refugees in August 201 as the first step in the road map to the withdrawal of their status, what is technically termed invoking the cessation clauses, to compel them to return to their country.

There are 16,075 Rwandan refugees on record with the UNHCR in Uganda.

No explanation was forthcoming from the refugee agency as to why the exercise did not take off as scheduled. This delay, in effect, throws back every other planned exercise in the road map, including mass awareness and reassurance campaigns.

More importantly, it casts doubt on whether the agreed date of the invocation of the cessation clause, December 31, 2011, will be achieved. The agency has twice extended the date for the repatriation.

Research carried out by the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) among the Rwandan refugees has shown that they are not willing to return home and the organisation hopes that there will be an extension to the deadline.

“There is no clarity yet regarding the procedures that would have to be in place for the cessation clause to be lawfully applied and this is a major impediment to beginning any such process with just a few months to go,” noted Dismas Nkunda, IRRI’s co-director.

Rwanda has persistently demanded the return of its citizens, arguing that the situation in the country has changed completely after the genocide of 1994. As the government in Kigali sees it, Rwanda’s stability and steady economic growth meet the crucial benchmark set by the UNHCR as preconditions for invoking the cessation clauses, that a country must have changed in a profound and enduring way.

While Rwanda has not publicly expressed security concerns as driving its repatriation demands, there is lingering suspicion in both Uganda and Rwanda that the refugees could pose a significant security threat, placing an unwanted burden on the security apparatus of both countries.

An official working with one refugee organisation noted: “Rwanda has an absolutely understandable concern that persons outside Rwanda may be engaged in activity that would threaten the stability of the state.”

However, Rwanda’s argument is weakened by the fact that its citizens continue fleeing the country and are being accepted as refugees even in Uganda.

Dr Barbara Harrell-Bond, a leading figure in the field of refugee studies, says the country scores poorly on the constituent parts of the markers of enduring change, such as democratic elections; declaration of amnesty; repeal of oppressive laws, such as the genocide ideology law; dismantling of former security services; respect for fundamental freedoms; access to courts and fair and open trials; the rule of law generally; quick restoration of land and property rights, and sufficient means of livelihoods. All these have to be addressed, each on its own, before cessation is considered.

Kai Nielsen, UNCHR’s representative in Uganda, however, stressed that the UNHCR was under no pressure from Rwanda at all but couldn’t say the same for host governments like Uganda.

Studies

“In some cases, there might be some host governments who may feel inclined to agree with the position of the Rwandan government. It’s one of the issues particularly in Uganda that we keep stressing to the government here. They should not, we believe, be bound by any pressure from Kigali or any other country.”

Two studies, one a collaboration of the International Refugee Rights Initiative, the Refugee Law Project and the Social Science Research Council, and the other by Northwestern University’s Centre for Forced Migration Studies, have found that the refugees are opposed to returning home.

“There’s a general fear among the Rwandan refugee population in Uganda and elsewhere that cessation somehow equates to deportation. But this is not the case. The Ugandan government has been extremely generous towards refugees and asylum seekers and has recently confirmed that it will not deport or expel anybody against their will,” Nielsen said.

Legal determination

The communiqué in which the cessation deadline is contained also stresses that the refugees would have to repatriate of their own volition. The Ugandan government reaffirms this. Yet, as IRRI has argued, there’s no corresponding legal determination, which means the refugees can’t legally challenge the decision that their status should end.

Douglas Asiimwe, a senior refugee protection officer from the Office of the Prime Minister in Uganda, revealed how other alternatives like integration through naturalisation and citizenship, which, for instance, Tanzania extended to Burundi refugees, still await constitutional interpretation. In short, voluntary repatriation appears only on paper and reinforces the argument of those who oppose cessation.

According to Asiimwe, the Ugandan government has been concerned that cessation should not be rushed without provision of a comprehensive solution for those it will affect. “We think that proper studies should be done before this cessation clause is enforced. As a government, we have not been so keen on the cessation clause application because we think it may not solve the question of the Rwandan refugees by mere application,” he noted.

Harrell-Bond questions the UNHCR’s enthusiasm for the cessation clause. “What’s the necessity for it if we’re going to allow people to stay who have acquired rights or people who still feel the need to be refugees when the cessation clause means no refugees?

“The 1951 Convention is exilic in its bias. It speaks of assimilation and naturalisation. Because it knows when anybody lives in another place, maybe for a year but certainly for five years, they become a different person and home is never the same.

“There aren’t many successful examples of repatriation although UNHCR is terribly enthusiastic about it. People returning are usually not welcome. Even in South Africa, returnees after the ending of apartheid had a terrible time. They weren’t welcome on the whole by the society. There are many examples from research to show that repatriation usually is a failure.”

Persisting problem

However, Rwanda’s Paul President Kagame believes the invocation of the cessation clause fits in trying to resolve an unnecessarily persisting problem. Kagame isolated four situations that, according to him, cessation clauses would directly address: Where refugee status is continued when the conditions have entirely changed and the status doesn’t fit in the situational circumstances; where being a refugee turns into an industry for people who profit from it; where some people hide behind their refugee status and as such avoid being held accountable for their own participation in Rwanda’s tragic history; and others who turn economic problems they face into claims that would give or warrant them refugee status.