EMBASSY VISIT TO GIKONDO TRANSIT CENTER

C O N F I D E N T I A L KIGALI 000392 SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/06/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM RW SUBJECT: EMBASSY VISIT TO GIKONDO TRANSIT CENTER Classified By: DCM Cheryl Sim for Reason 1.4 (b) (d) ¶1. (SBU) Pol/Econ Chief and Pol Assistant visited the Gikondo Transit Center in Kigali in late May. Kigali City Vice Mayor for Social Affairs Jeanne D'Arc Gakuba and center officials conducted a tour of the large spare complex, formerly a warehouse, in a mixed industrial and residential area of the city. Officials displayed their hand-written records of the center's inhabitants, 356 persons divided into four categories: women street sellers, prostitutes, male minors, and "inzererezi," which roughly translates from Kinyarwanda as "layabout criminal vagabonds" - the center director repeatedly referred to the 216 adult male inhabitants of the center as "thugs." ¶2. (SBU) The center consisted of several enormous halls with concrete floors, metal walls and high corrugated tin roofs, the halls arranged around a concrete central courtyard. The sleeping arrangements in each storage area consisted of two persons per foam mattress on the floor (with blankets provided) which were placed along the walls. Women street sellers and prostitutes shared ONE area, with male minors and adult males in two separate areas. The center appeared quite dilapidated, but relatively clean and well-ordered, and with much unused space. Each enormous hall could easily have accommodated many more inhabitants -- indeed the people kept in each hall appeared almost lost in the huge concrete spaces. Armed policemen kept watch inside and outside the facility. ¶3. (SBU) Center officials said that normal procedure would be for the inhabitants to be registered, interviewed, and then transported to their home districts, although some of the children would be sent to ONE of four Kigali centers for homeless children (or returned to their families if mistakenly incarcerated). Most of the inhabitants, said officials, arrived after police "operations" to remove homeless persons from the streets. Officials said the normal stay at the center was ONE to three weeks, although several of the inhabitants told us in side conversations they had been there for ONE to two months. Officials freely admitted many of the center inhabitants had been there before, particularly among the prostitutes -- some on their fifth or sixth stay. Officials said staff counselors and medical staff conducted "training and counseling" on HEALTH issues and improving personal habits. ¶4. (C) Pol/Econ Chief spoke on June 6 with ICRC Head of Delegation Tobias Epprecht about the transit center. Epprecht related that ICRC had visited the center in February, after protracted discussions with Kigali officials. No further visits had occurred, he said, as city officials resisted ICRC requests for regular, including unannounced, access. Epprecht said the ICRC was chiefly concerned by what he described as poor family notification efforts by center personnel. If city officials mistakenly placed someone in the center, it was not clear how their families could intervene to seek release. There had also been ONE or two reports of abuse of center inhabitants by fellow inmates, suggesting sometimes poor supervision of the center population by center personnel. The ICRC had offered the prospect of ICRC assistance to the city government, he said, if regular ICRC access could be arranged. ¶5. (C) Comment. This center was heavily criticized in 2006 by Human Rights Watch as a scene of abusive treatment