Re: *DHR* Daily Monitor: Rwanda in dilemma over land disputes

Ese aba baracyavuga ko mu Rwanda 1.000.000 y'abanyarwanda yaguye muri genocide! Iyo mibare yataye agaciro kubera ko  ubu ntawe utazi ko atariyo ko kandi na Kagame wafashe imyaka 20 yose akusanya ibisigazwa by'abishwe kandi  yitirira iby'abahutu ko ara abatutsi,  ntabwo yashobora kwrekana aho uwo mubare uturuka. Azerekane iyo mibare akoresheje ibisigazwa  biri mu za sites memoriaux yubatse mu gihugu hose.

On Friday, 29 November 2013, 1:18, Jean Bosco Sibomana <sibomanaxyz999@gmail.com> wrote:

 

Rwanda in dilemma over land disputes

Thousands of Rwandan youth participate in the walk event in Kigali,
capital of Rwanda, April 7, 2013 to pay tribute to the over a million
people who perished in the 1994. The country is facing the challenge
of land related disputes as most Rwandans return back from exile
months after the cessation clause. Xinhua Photo.

By Xinhua
Posted Wednesday, November 27 2013 at 13:54

Kigali - Rwanda is facing a challenge of land related disputes as
Rwandans continue returning back from exile months after the cessation
clause.

The latest report by Office of the Ombudsman, says that 15 percent of
murder cases in the country in the last fiscal year were related to
property, mainly land. Of the 894 complaints the Office of the
Ombudsman received, 256 (28 per cent) were related to land.

On June 30, the cessation clause concerning Rwandan refugees came into
effect, meaning that Rwandans who fled the country between 1959 and
1998 have lost their refugee status across the world. This move
follows a process that began in 2002 where the Rwandan government
approached the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR),
saying that the reasons that caused Rwandans to flee were no longer
applied and that Rwanda was ready to receive all refugees.

"I returned recently from Zambia and found my land occupied by the
people I don't know. I really want my land back," Jeanne d'arc
Mugakwaya, a mother of five children told Xinhua. The 56-year-old said
that she needs her ancestral land back and she sought assistance from
the local leaders.

Mugakwaya went to Zambia immediately after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda
that claimed over 1 million Rwandans majority Tutsis and moderate
Hutus. She owns a five acre land in Kicukiro District within Rwandan,
Capital Kigali suburbs. In 2004, the Rwandan government enacted an
organic law on land to guarantee a safe and stable form of land
tenure. Before that, the country never had a proper land policy. In
order to define and decide how the land registration process should be
carried out, a Ministerial Decree determining modalities of
registration was enacted in 2008 and a year later, land registration
process kicked off.

Article 30 of the Land Law stipulates that registration of land any
person owns is obligatory. It allows owners to get legal documents and
clarify their land rights, which increases their land tenure security.

"My plot has been claimed by the people who are neither my relatives
nor friends, they used the opportunity that we are not around and
confiscated my plot," said Thomas Kalisa, a returnee from Malawi. He
claims to own a two-acre land in Gasabo district in the outskirts of
Kigali City. The 40-year-old and a father of three children has gone
to local courts seeking for help to evict people from his plot.

According to Eng. Didier Sagashya, the Rwanda Deputy Director General
for Land and Mapping, that out of 10.3 million parcels registered,
11,840 families with land wrangles were recorded in a book dedicated
to land disputes. "The conflicts are being solved at the local level
and the complicated ones have been taken to courts," he said.

Most of the land disputes encountered are largely among family members
who fail to agree on sharing their land, especially in polygamous
families and cases from returnees who claim back their land. One of
the benefits of land registration is efficient, transparent and
equitable system of land administration where people use their own
land as security to acquire loans from banks. He appealed to people to
always make land transfers after selling their plots to change
ownership from the original holder to the new one.

"We are using mediators to look into the cases of land wrangles
because they help us to do away with backlog of cases. These
committees sort out conflicts before they escalate," said Johnston
Busingye, Rwanda's Minister for Justice. He noted that Rwanda's home
grown justice system has played a key role in promoting unity and
reconciliation among Rwandans.

Through their project, "Securing Land Rights," Rwanda Initiative for
Sustainable Development (Risd), a local nongovernment organization,
supports the mediators' activities in 10 districts.

Available statistics from the ministry of justice show that between
July, 2012 and May; the mediation committees received 40, 118 cases,
of which 32,474 were successfully settled. Only 6,123 cases were
referred to conventional courts." We are planning a land rights
awareness campaign. We know land registration exercise has sorted many
of these issues. We don't want to see land disputes resulting into
homicide," the minister said. The Rwanda Natural Resources Authority
(RNRA) has issued 8.4 million land titles despite the fact that 2.7
million title deeds remain unclaimed.

editorial@ug.nationmedia.com
http://www.monitor.co.ug/News/Rwanda-in-dilemma-over-land-disputes/-/688324/2090384/-/embupp/-/index.html

--
SIBOMANA Jean Bosco
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