FBIS4-28901 "dreas114_m_94001"
FBIS-EAS-94-114 Daily Report 12 Jun 1994
Thailand

U.S. Blamed for Delay in Helping Rwanda

U.S. Blamed for Delay in Helping Rwanda BK1306092894 Bangkok THE SUNDAY NATION in English 12 Jun 94 p A6 BK1306092894 Bangkok THE SUNDAY NATION English BFN [Editorial: "US Drags Its Feet as Ethnic Madness Grips Rwanda"] [Text] After months of dithering over what to do about the orgy of tribal bloodletting in Rwanda, the United Nations finally gave the go-ahead late Wednesday for the deployment of 5,500 peacekeepers to guard aid convoys and protect civilians in special humanitarian zones inside the country. Almost immediately, the governments of Ghana and Zimbabwe announced they were ready to deploy troops but the United States says it will be weeks before it can send long-promised equipment. This delay is intolerable. Each day that help fails to arrive, more Rwandans are being slaughtered and the food and health crisis gripping the country worsens. On Friday, the head of the UN operation in Rwanda, General Romeo Dallaire said the deployment of more UN reinforcements was "already weeks late."
Priests massacred
He said that he had been receiving desperate calls for help daily, including one from the archbishop of Kigali before he and other 12 priests were massacred last week. But with few troops and limited equipment, the general said he was powerless to save them from death squads. Estimates of the number of people butchered in the small African state range from 200,000 to half a million but even these horrific figures may be under-representing the scope of the mayhem in the country. In the black hole of government-held land to the west of the country, where Hutu death squads are continuing their rampage against the minority Tutsis, about two million refugees have "vanished." Aid groups which expected them to pour across the border into Burundi say they have simply not turned up. Washington must take much of the blame for the tardiness of UN action. It repeatedly blocked earlier efforts to deploy UN peacekeepers, demanding that a ceasefire be agreed first. The U.S. position sought to restrict the reinforcements to operating on border areas. The new resolution allows the mainly African extra peacekeepers to go to the capital Kigali, if possible, and fan out through the country to places where civilians are most at risk. Washington's position has shown an appalling disregard for the lives of Rwandans. Even as late as Friday, the White House was still trying to avoid categorizing the Rwanda killings as genocide out of fear the term might incite public calls for greater U.S. action. A State Department spokeswoman told a disbelieving press conference: "Clearly not all of the killings that have taken place in Rwanda are killings to which you might apply that label (genocide)."
Slashing and hacking
How the Clinton administration can classify the slashing and hacking of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis to death as anything but genocide is bewildering. Nearly two million Tutsis, including an estimated 500,000 unaccompanied children whose parents have either been killed or lost, are displaced and thousands are trapped in hostile zones under the constant fear of death. UN officials says they are starting to see children in Kigali with bloated bellies, an early sign of starvation. Hunger-related deaths have already been reported in the south. It is imperative that the US waste no more time in dispatching the equipment the UN needs to restrain the ethnic madness in Rwanda. Washington must also bring whatever diplomatic pressure it can on Uganda, the main backer of the predominantly-Tutsi Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). Unless the RPF halts their offensive and agrees to a ceasefire, it will be difficult for the UN to make arrangements for the care of refugees.