UNHCR - ZAMBIA INCRIMINATION AND SEGREGATION AGAINST RWANDAN REFUGEES IS LIKE APARTHEID AND MUST BE CONDEMNED BY THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY.
“You are seriously joking…, you are a self-destructive refugee and you need to apologize before anyone receives you. I can write a story on the Rwandan drama but prefer to hold station because clearly you have now shown your real face.” Ms. Pierrine Aylara, the former UNHCR-Representative in ZAMBIA responded to me on 22 August 2021 in other email thread, for simply telling her that she was morally wrong to force me to return back to my oppressors and incriminating me by saying that refusing to go back to Rwanda I don’t have a clean conscience (meaning that I am a criminal).
The principle of non-refoulement and its abuse by UNHCR-ZAMBIA
As stated by the United Nations, Office of the High Commission for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the principle of non-refoulement, it says that;
“Under the international human rights law, the principle of non-refoulement guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm. This principle applies to all migrants at all times, irrespective of migration status.”
The principle of non-refoulement is also defined in the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to the Status of refugees as explained by UNHCR, it states that:
“Refugees are owed international protection precisely because their human rights are under threat. The most fundamental protection owed to a refugee is protection against refoulement to a territory where the refugee’s life or freedom would be threatened on a Convention ground. Non-refoulement is guaranteed, inter alia, by Article 33 of the Convention.”
This principle of non-refoulement constitutes the cornerstone of the international refugee protection, and it is the most cherished principle by the UNHCR.
However, despite Ms. Pierrine Aylara and her UNHCR team in Zambia knowing the above UNHCR principle, they are working very hard to force me to return back in the hands of the most oppressive regime I fled, not a regime like any other but a regime that crosses international borders to hunt down, assassinate and kidnap its unwanted refugees (refugee dissidents).
One of the biggest mistakes made by some unprofessional and incompetent UNHCR officials driven by conflicts of interests and political motivations when taking advantage of refugees’ vulnerability and misery; it is thinking that refugees are gullible, coward, mindless and dull in the face of persecution, and that the moment you threaten them with deportation, forceful return, assassination or kidnapping, they can either surrender to their oppressors or run away to hide in silence, and that can ease their complicity in Rwanda’s transnational repression. Unfortunately doing so, violates the international refugees’ human rights and protection principles, and must be condemned.
The case of Ms. Pierrine Aylara tormenting me, tells it all, and the threads of communications emails I had with her from the time she started persecuting me because of her political motivations, prove deeply how negatively she thinks of Rwandan refugees, and her determination to oppress me. She thinks with her UNHCR-Zambia team, by tormenting, threatening, bullying and harassing me, I will surrender and return back to Rwanda as she claims that my President wants me back if I have a clean conscience.
MY BRIEF STORY ON WHY I FLED THE RWANDAN REGIME
My name is Michel MUSHIMIYIMANA, a refugee in Zambia and exiled Rwandan human rights activist. This write up is a sequence of the previous part 1, and if you haven’t read the first par, I would like you to check it on this link ( https://globalsoulsnetwork.org/statements/3-unhcr-zambia-refugee-incrimination-politically-motivated-persecution-and-transnational-repression-conspiracy-against-a-rwandan-refugee-activist-part-1 ).
Following is my brief story that drove me to exile.
I fled the Rwandan regime in the end of 2013 after numerous persecutions related to my human rights activism, and in many cases I challenged the ruling regime over the continuation of its authoritative leadership, human rights abuses, ethnic marginalization especially in the education systems, and mostly the use of the Rwandan youth as tools of oppression, something similar to what led Rwanda to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
In 2011, while still at the University, I confronted President Paul Kagame himself over the embezzlements of poor students’ funds especially orphans, lack of transparency and accountability in the education system targeting the marginalized Hutu ethnic group students.
(You can watch the video below when I was challenging President Kagame himself and his ministers https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Djg1ie1Gdrw ).
When I got abducted and forcefully recruited in the military in October 2013, for the second military IT (Information Technology) Unit intake as they called it, and that was to reinforce the M23 rebels, I categorically tried to resist that and escaped(fled) as it was against my morals and values to be used as a tool of committing mass atrocities, women raping and waging wars in the neighboring countries especially in the Democratic Republic of Congo. I had been the victim survivor of such tragedies, and of course as a human rights activist, it was against my values and principles.
In the end of 2011, I had that time founded the non-profit and non-governmental organization called Rwanda Youth for Leadership and Change Initiative (RY4LCI) with its website called https://www.impinduka.com ; the organization that was exhorting the Rwandan youth not to be tools of bad leaders as that is what led to Rwandan bloody tragedies and the youths are the ones used. Instead, exhorting the youth as future responsible leaders to promote good leadership, sustainable peace, justice, development and humanity by respecting the human rights.
Therefore, on my issues with the UNHCR, it is very absurd that the UNHCR former representative in Zambia Ms. Pierrine Aylara would tell me that I don’t have a “Clean Conscience”. I would like to take this opportunity to tell her that mine is much cleaner than hers who is forcing me to go back in the hands of my oppressors by violating the UNHCR principles and values she is supposed to uphold.
Everyone worldwide including her knows well that the Rwandan regime is the one behind the M23 rebels in Congo, and it is well documented by the international community among them UN Experts that the M23 rebels have been raping women, killing innocent children, women and elderly people, and those who manage to survive their inhuman brutality are fled, and those are the Congolese refugees UNHCR assist every day not only in Zambia but across African continent.
Ms. Pierrine Aylara, former UNHCR - ZAMBIA Representative together with her minions in UNHCR - ZAMBIA are threats to the Rwandan refugees and must be condemned by the international community.
Therefore, Ms. Pierrine Aylara and her UNHCR-Zambia team should know that there are the Rwandan youths like me with much more clean conscience who have refused to participate in such horrendous acts of inhumanity that are being committed by the Rwandan regime proxy militia (M23 rebels), and rather chose the misery of being a refugee, and for that to the last drop of my blood, I am unapologetic, and I will never regret of that choice.
Briefing on the killings of my parents. My mum and sister were raped before being killed by the Rwandan soldiers.
Before the 1994 Rwandan genocide happened as we know it, it was after 4 years of war that had started in 1990. My native area being closer to volcanoes national park bordering both Uganda and Congo, where the Rwanda Patriotic Front Army (RPA) waged war against Rwanda from, I started fleeing since then when I was almost 4 years old. My growing up and childhood was only about hearing gunshots and bombings every day. The dead bodies on the road sides, in potatoes and maize farms, in banana plantations and in the bushes where we would go to hide from the war are all I have known in my life.
From that day I started the journey of becoming a refugee, but then as an internally displaced people (IDPs). None of my parents were politicians nor affiliated to any political parties, though it is not a problem to participate in any political activities when it aligns with the promotion of good morals.
Today what makes me sad is that the current Rwandan regime does not allow us to talk our stories, and daring to talk about it is digging one’s own grave in Rwanda, and even when you are abroad, you are falsely accused of Tutsi genocide denial, revisionism, genocide ideology and in additional, you are hunted down for assassination by the Rwandan regime.
None of my parents was buried officially as well as many Rwandans from the Hutu ethnic groups who were systematically massacred by the Rwanda Patriotic Army (RPA), the ones ruling Rwanda today. All my parents were burnt, my mum and my sister were raped before they got killed.
Mum and Dad on their wedding day. Before she was killed chopped and burnt by the Rwandan RPF Army, they first raped her, like my young sister. My dad was burnt alive by the same Rwandan soldiers. Unfortunately, the UNHCR - ZAMBIA incriminate and segregate me as if surviving such atrocities was a crime.
Before my mum got killed in the massacres by the Rwandan Patriotic Front Army (RPA) in Tingi Tingi refugee camp, Democratic Republic of Congo in 1997 she was sick to run away and escape the RPF Army. Like many refugee women captured in war zones by the atrocious army with the rape as a dehumanization weapon, my mum was raped by the Rwanda Patriotic Army of President Paul Kagame before she was killed chopped and her body was burnt. And that was in Congo when we had got separated in the spate of fleeing after the Rwandan regime soldiers attacked refugee camps and were killing refugees and capturing some for repatriation show off to the international community.
Reaching in Rwanda, as days passed, we were being harassed by the RPF army and their intelligence agents on daily basis and in some cases, they would attack us home tonight by throwing stones on our house. Eventually in April 1997 my young sister who was only 8 years, was murdered by the Rwandan forces after raping her, her head was decapitated by those soldiers who had taken our properties and were not happy when we got repatriated, because they got evicted from our house as per the then government policies.
How I survived that day as I was with my younger sister prior to that cruel, shameful and inhumane act is another story, and I will forever be indebted to her for dying on my behalf as those who killed her wanted both of us. Even the time we learnt where she was dumped in the nearest eucalyptus trees plantation by the children who were fetching firewood, I was among the first to reach her then-decomposing body after 5 days of her disappearance. May Her Soul Rest In Peace!
Seeing all these, like any protective parent, my dad took me into refuge far from our district (then Commune) to my grandma. Before that, I remember the RPF soldiers could come and take him to their barracks by beating him in my eyes, they would bring him after 3 to 5 days and dump him near our house, and all the times I was the one nursing his wounds and doing his massage. Whenever I would ask him why his skin feet and legs were always swollen, with swirls and streaks all over, and looking whitish, he would tell me that the soldiers were hanging him in underground prison with his legs socked in human feces(shit) mixed with salt, urine, cold water and soldiers would come and urinate on him. It was too painful, and it is horrible to tell but worth it. I thank Ms. Pierrine Aylara and her UNHCR-Zambia minion team for coercing me to telling this side of my story.
Unfortunately, later the RPF regime forces in their war against insurgency took opportunity to massacre Hutu civilians in our area and my dad who had sought refuge in the underground natural caves in Musanze with many other civilians were bombed in there and those who survived were burnt alive.
This is a brief story that doesn’t include the massacres of most of my extended family members.
UNHCR SHOULD CARE OF ITS MANDATE WITHOUT SEGREGATION OF REFUGEES AND STOP MINGLING IN THE DEADLY RWANDAN ISSUES.
As I am writing this, we are in April 2023, and the Rwandans are commemorating the Rwandan genocide, it hurts me more to find that foreign nationals who don’t understand well the painful stories and anguish of Rwandans, taking sides and claiming to know Rwandan history more than Rwandans themselves who have been living it, and unfortunately using their power, official positions or whatsoever authority to oppress some Rwandan refugees based on their fleeing experience and ethnic groupings like Ms. Pierrine Aylara who claims that she knows the Rwandan story, the one she calls the Rwandan drama and that she can write on it but prefers to hold station. Sure?
What does Ms. Pierrine Aylara know? And why using that so-called drama story to oppress a vulnerable Rwandan refugee like me? Why as the UNHCR official at the level of a country representation should play around the so-called Rwandan drama as she calls it to oppress a Rwandan refugee? Doesn’t she know how some Rwandan refugees are getting killed, kidnapped and disappearing abroad by the Rwandan regime, and the Rwandan regime leaders boast about it every day? Why some UNHCR officials like Ms. Pierrine Aylara enjoy in assisting the Rwandan regime in its transnational oppression and assassinations on detriment or jeopardy of the UNHCR ethics and professionalism? How big are their conflicts of interests to put the vulnerable life of a refugee like me to danger at this extent? What wrong have I done to UNHCR to deserve such cruel treatment by UNHCR – Zambia?
The absurd thing, when Ms. Pierrine Aylara used her political motivations’ interests in the Rwandan matters in oppressing me, she even mobilized her fellow junior UNHCR officials she is rather supposed to positively mentor and guide for more professional ethical work as their leader. Instead, hers wasn’t about that, but instigating them for hooliganism, harassment, intimidation, threatening and more systematic reinforcement of her oppression against my life as well as of my family.
What crazy and shocking is that none of them could advise one another on the ethical move and remind one another of their professional duties as mandated by UNHCR, instead, they teamed up to implement her wicked desire of tormenting me up to now.
Now that I come to write some of my story, I publicly invite her and her minions at UNHCR – Zambia to write their politically motivating story; the one she calls Rwandan drama story and moves them to oppress me.
CHARACTER ASSASSINATION AND DEHUMANIZATION BY PIERRINE AYLARA
Ms. Pierrine Aylara labelling me that I am a “self-destructive refuge” and that I would have apologized to her for telling her that she is morally wrong to force me to return back to my oppressors, and saying that she can write a story on what she calls the Rwandan drama, I would like to challenge her publicly to start writing her so-called drama stories on Rwanda so that the public and the international community can know her story that motivates her to oppress the Rwandan refugees like me.
Moreover, I would like to publicly let her know that I am not a self-destructive refugee, and her dehumanization on me won’t make me self-destructive as she wishes. She can defame me, call me names, judge me, bully me and label me anyhow as she has been doing, because as refugees we are used by such crap on the streets where indiscipline street kids call us names. However, as the person at the level of UNHCR country representation, doing what indiscipline street kids do put herself on disrepute and extreme shame. It is very ridiculous to dehumanize and bully a vulnerable refugee one is mandated to protect. What a hypocrite masquerading as a UNHCR leader! Nothing sucking as a leader who is irresponsible and lacks compassion towards those under her protection.
I started being a refugee at my early childhood as I come to share it above in my story and no single crime I committed to be a refugee or to apologize to her. As someone who learnt to stand for my dignity at my early young age, there is nothing she can do to silence me from telling her that her oppressive acts on my life are unacceptable and wicked. If anything wrong she is accusing me that I could have done before she started oppressing me, she could have counselled me and even if I could have been mad at her she could have taken me to the psychiatric hospital if she was professional, instead of bullying me. Shameful UNHCR leader indeed!
CONCLUSION
Of course, my childhood has been all about anguish, pain, trauma and suffering… but from that suffering and trauma I have learnt that I can stand against those trying to shake my human dignity by exploiting my vulnerability like the UNHCR-Zambia officials are doing. Their immoral acts are very unacceptable and undermine the UNHCR mandate to protect refugees worldwide without any segregation.
One of the key aspects of a leader is to know that his/her utterances and actions are aligned to the professional ethics of his/her institution’s mandate. In doing that one safeguards his/her institution reputation and that makes it easy to discharge one’s duties according to institution/organization mandate while saving and protecting lives.
Therefore, I call upon to the United Nations (UN), UNHCR, the government of Zambia, Office of the High Commission for Refugees in Zambia, the well-meaning diplomatic corps in Zambia, the Office of United Nations High Commission for Human Rights, Human rights organizations and the international community at large to categorically condemn the UNHCR-Zambia immorality and oppression against my life. This is my life as a one family but think about those thousands refugees persecuted by Ms. Pierrine Aylara like-minded UNHCR personnel and are unable to express their anguish of oppression like me, and act. I believe together we can make a change and emancipate persecuted refugees.
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3. (How UNHCR-ZAMBIA Representative Ms. Pierrine Aylara was sending Rwandan operatives to locate me, spy on me, and physically threaten me in my neighborhood. Names will be included, what we talked and how I had to stand amid those threats.)
Written by;
Michel MUSHIMIYIMANA
Refugee, Human Rights Activist & Founder at GLOBAL SOULS NETWORK (GSN).
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Website: https://globalsoulsnetwork.org
