Orphans’ Land Rights in Post‐War Rwanda: The Problem of Guardianship

In 1994, the Rwandan civil war and genocide produced thousands of orphans. Alongside the war, the growing HIV/AIDS crisis in Rwanda has produced a current population of about 300,000 orphans — many of whom are compelled to head households. These orphans urgently require land use rights, but many find that their rights to their deceased parents’ customary land holdings are denied or restricted by their guardians and others. Despite the legal protections for children that are guaranteed within Rwanda's laws, the reality is that many guardians do not respect orphans’ land rights and few orphans have sufficient access to administrative and legal forums to assert and defend these rights. In contrast to most accounts in the literature that discuss more generally the issue of African orphans’ land rights in the context of adults’ land rights, this article focuses on specific cases in which Rwandan orphans independently pursued their land rights. Ultimately, the article concludes that in Rwanda — and elsewhere in Africa — government officials should re‐examine their ideas about guardianship and grant orphans urgent attention as individuals and as a special interest group.     

Reviews: Australian

Richard Lucy, The Australian Form of Government, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1985, pp.460. $19.95 (paper)

Greg Whitwell, The Treasury Line, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp.308. $17.95 (paper)

Dean Jaensch, Getting Our Houses in Order: Australia's Parliament, Ringwood, Penguin, 1986, pp.192. $9.95 (paper)

Lionel Murphy, The Rule of Law, edited by Jean and Richard Ely, Amcliffe NSW, Akron Press, 1986, pp.xx,309. $17.95 (paper)

The Whitlam Phenomenon: Fabian Papers, Melbourne, McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1986, pp.202. $8.95 (paper)

Malcolm Saunders & Ralph Summy, The Australian Peace Movement: A Short History, Canberra, Peace Research Centre (distributor Social Alternatives), 1986, pp.78, $3.75 (paper)

David McKnight (ed.), Moving Left: The Future of Socialism in Australia. Sydney, Pluto Press, 1986, pp.221. $11.95 (paper)

Braham Dabscheck, Arbitrator at Work: Sir William Raymond Kelly and the Regulation of Australian Industrial Relations, Sydney, Allen & Un‐win, 1983, pp.169. $14.95 (paper)

C. D. Rowley, Recovery: the Politics of Aboriginal Reform, Ringwood, Penguin, 1986, pp. 169. $8.95 (paper)

James Walter, The Ministers’ Minders: Personal Advisers in National Government, Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.237. $25.00 (cloth), $12.00 (paper)

Warren Osmond, Frederic Eggleston: An Intellectual in Australian Politics, Sydney, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp.357. $29.95 (cloth)

Barry Gustafson, From the Cradle to the Grave: A Biography of Michael Joseph Savage, Auckland, Reed Methuen, 1986, pp.369. $35.00 (cloth)

J. M. Mitchell, International Cultural Relations, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp. xvi, 253.

Leslie Holmes, Politics in the Communist World, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1986, pp.401. $32.00 (paper)

Bronislaw Misztal (ed.), Poland After Solidarity: Social Movements versus the State, New Brunswick, Transaction Books, 1985, pp.167. US$20.00 (cloth)

David S. Mason, Public Opinion and Political Change in Poland. 1980–1982, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1985, pp. 275. $74.00 (cloth)

Robert F. Miller and T.H. Rigby (eds), Religion and Politics in Communist States, Canberra, Occasional Paper No. 19, Department of Political Science, Research School of Social Sciences, The Australian National University, 1986, pp.141.

John Rayenhill, Collective Clientelism: The Lome Conventions and North‐South Relations, New York, Columbia University Press, 1985, pp.389. $49.00 (cloth)

E.J. Clay and B.B. Schaffer (eds) Room for Manoeuvre — An Exploration of Public Policy in Agriculture and Rural Development, London, Heinemann, 1984, pp.209. $ 13.50 (paper)

Kenneth Fox, Metropolitan America: Urban Life and Urban Policy in the United States, 1940–1980, London, Macmillan, 1985, pp.274. $19.95 (paper)

K.J. Holsti, The Dividing Discipline: Hegemony and Diversity in International Theory, London, Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.165. $39.95 (cloth)

Richard Clutterbuck (ed.), The Future of Political Violence, London, Macmillan, 1986, pp. 206. $19.95 (paper)

Christopher Lee, War in Space, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1986, pp.242, £10.95 (cloth); and E.P. Thompson (ed.), Star Wars, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1985, pp.165, $6.95 (paper)

Kevin Boyle and Tom Hadden, Ireland: A Positive Proposal, Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1985, pp.127. $7.95 (paper)

Malcolm Slater, Contemporary French Politics, London, Macmillan, 1985, pp.xv + 259. $13.95 (paper)

Olajide Aluko and Timothy M. Shaw (eds), Southern Africa in the 1980s, London, George Allen and Unwin, 1985, pp.327. $45.00 (cloth)

Commonwealth Group of Eminent Persons, Mission to South Africa: The Commonwealth Report, London, Penguin Books for the Commonwealth Secretariat, 1986, pp.176. $6.95 (paper)

N.P. Hepworth, The Finance of Local Government, rev. 6th edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1985, pp.344. $22.95 (paper)

Government, 2nd edition, London, Allen & Unwin, 1986, pp.164. $14.95 (paper)

Anthony Giddens, The Nation‐State and Violence, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1985, pp.399. $58.50 (cloth)

Donald Home, The Public Culture: The Triumph of Industrialism, Sydney, Pluto Press, 1986, pp.264. $12.95 (paper)

Mark Cousins and Athar Hussain, Michel Foucault, London, Macmillan, 1984, pp.278. $18.95 (paper)

J.A. Downie, Jonathan Swift, Political Writer, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985, pp.391. $35.95 (paper)

Robert Young, Personal Autonomy: Beyond Negative and Positive Liberty, London & Sydney, Croom Helm, 1986, pp.123. $44.95 (cloth)

David Muschamp (ed.), Political Thinkers, Melbourne, Macmillan, 1986, pp.259. $29.95 (cloth), $14.95 (paper)

Alistair Mant, Leaders We Deserve, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1985, pp.250. $16.95 (paper)

Richard J. Badham, Theories of Industrial Society, London, Croom Helm, 1986, pp.188. $49.95 (cloth)

Derek Phillips, Toward a Just Social Order, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1986, pp.490. US$50.00 (cloth)

John Burnheim, Is Democracy Possible? The Alternative to Electoral Politics, Cambridge, Polity Press, 1985, pp.205. $39.95 (cloth).

Philip Green, Retrieving Democracy: In Search of Civic Equality, London, Methuen, 1985, pp.278. $53.95 (cloth)     

Book reviews

The Essential Codex Mendoza. By FRANCES F. BERDAN and PATRICIA RIEFF ANA WALT. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press, 1997. Pp. xiii, 268, 148.

Cruzados, mártires y beatos: Emplazamientos del cuerpo colonial. MARIO CESAREO. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1995. Pp. xi, 201.

Dineros de ventura: La varia fortuna de la emigración a Indias (siglos XVI‐XVII). By CARLOS ALBERTO GONZALEZ SANCHEZ. Seville: Universidad de Sevilla, 1995. Pp. 277.

La administración como un fenómeno social. La justicia penal de la Ciudad de Quito (1650–1750). By TAMAR HERZOG. Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1995. Pp. 352.

The Countryside in Colonial Latin America. Edited by LOUISA SCHELL HOBERMAN and SUSAN MIGDEN SOCOLOW. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. Pp. 295.

Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State. By PETER F. GUARDINO. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. viii, 319.

Poder terrateniente, relaciones de producción y orden colonial. By EDUARDO AZCUY AMEGHINO et al. Buenos Aires: Fernando García Cambeiro, 1996. Pp. 259.

Storms Brewed in Other Men's World's: The Confrontation of Indians, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540–1795. By ELIZABETH A. H. JOHN. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, [1975] 1996. Pp. 805.

The World Upside Down: Cross‐Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth‐Century Peru. By SUSAN ELIZABETH RAMIREZ. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996. Pp. 234.

Architecture and Power in the Ancient Andes: The Archaeology of Public Buildings. By JERRY D. MOORE. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xiii, 256.

Las crónicas y los Andes. By FRANKLIN PEASE G. Y. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1995. Pp. 632.

The War with Spain in 1898. By DAVID F. TRASK. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, [1981] 1996. Pp. xiv, 654.

The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile. Mobility and Migration in Everyday Rural Life. By DAVID E. VASSBERG: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Pp. xvii, 253.     

Foot amputation by the Moche of ancient Peru: osteological evidence and archaeological context

Three probable cases of foot amputation, with healing, in skeletal remains associated with the Moche culture (AD 100–750) of northern coastal Peru are described. Each case exhibits non‐functional tibio‐talar joints with proliferative bone occupying the normal joint space. The robusticity of the tibiae and fibulae suggest renewed weight‐bearing and mobility following recovery. The osteological evidence is consistent with details shown in Moche ceramic depictions of footless individuals. A footless Moche skeleton with wooden prostheses, described in 1913 by Peruvian physician Vélez López, appears to represent a fourth example of this procedure. The Moche surgical approach was similar to a technique that would be pioneered in western medicine by the Scottish surgeon Sir James Syme some 1500 years later. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.