Resource information
More than eleven years after the 1994 genocide, Rwanda might be an internally pacified, but by far not unified nation. There are different factors, which threaten the fragile social equilibrium. The issue of land is one of them. Land has long been a scarce and disputed resource in Rwanda. Ongoing shortages due to decreasing soil quality, growing population pressure and unequal distribution, as well as a lack of income generating alternatives beyond agriculture create an extremely precarious future to the national economy of the small, landlocked country. An all-embracing land reform based on a new land law and land policy is intended to remedy this situation. The main focus is on privatization and commercialization of land property. Yet, ongoing discrimination in the distribution of land, the growing concentration of large plots in the hands of political cronies as well as a tendency towards historical revisionism, raise doubts about the government’s true intentions. This impression becomes even more pertinent in relation to the de facto exclusion of civil society from the drafting process of the new land law and policy. Moreover – or as a result – neither the policy nor the law adequately guarantees the protection of the interests of large parts of the rural population. Local non-governmental stakeholders thus fear a further marginalization of discriminated groups and/or the establishment of a system following pre-colonial feudal rule. Today’s increasing disagreements over land property should be a warning sign that such a development would be anything but favorable to Rwanda’s reconciliation and the establishment of long-term peace in the country.
