The official in charge of the Bye Bye Nyakatsi policy to
eradicate all grass-thatched roofs in the country by the end of this month has
admitted that ‘sometimes we apply some force’
The admission came after hundreds of Twitter users responded to
Survival International’s condemnation of the destruction of Batwa Pygmy houses,
which has left many of the country’s marginalised people without shelter. The government, which is also active
on Twitter, has tweeted that the Bye Bye Nyakatsi programme ‘is about decent
housing for all, no one is left homeless.’
The official overseeing the anti-thatch programme, Augustine
Kampayana, told journalists, ‘for anyone to still be in nyakatsi [thatched
houses] up to now only means that it is in their general attitudes to prefer to
live in grass thatched houses. Some of them just do not want to change, but we
cannot let these drag everyone else back.’
One Batwa man, whose house has been destroyed and who is
living in cramped conditions with ten other families, said last week, ‘it’s a
catastrophic life which resembles that of a refugee.’
The UN’s Racial Discrimination committee last month urged the
Rwandan government to ‘facilitate access to adequate housing for the Batwa,
particularly by avoiding forced evictions without consultation and without
offering alternative housing.’
Although some Batwa families have been given new houses, many
are still waiting and are forced to live in the open, according to COPORWA, Rwanda’s Batwa organization. Rwanda’s Batwa continue
to face racism and discrimination on a daily basis. Most eke out a meager
living as wage laborers or potters after their communities were forced from
their forest homes to create national parks free from human habitation.
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