FBIS4-48838 "drafr103_a_94003"
FBIS-AFR-94-103 Daily Report 26 May 1994
CENTRAL AFRICA Rwanda

Fighting Resumes in Kigali After UN Envoy's Departure

Fighting Resumes in Kigali After UN Envoy's Departure AB2605144094 Paris AFP in English 1155 GMT 26 May 94 AB2605144094 Paris AFP English BFN [By David Chazan] [Excerpt] Nairobi, 26 May (AFP) -- Rwandan rebels pressed their offensive to capture the capital Kigali Thursday [26 May] as a UN special envoy sought to persuade them to accept a ceasefire already agreed by government forces, relief officials and diplomats said. The rebels pounded Kigali with artillery and mortar fire shortly after the UN envoy, Iqbal Riza, left the embattled capital Thursday to meet rebel leaders in their northern stronghold of Mulindi, relief officials said. The rebels reportedly advanced further against battered and demoralised government forces to capture another key eastern district near Kigali's airport, which they took from the army Sunday, the officials said. Riza is trying to negotiate a ceasefire to allow the United Nations to deploy 5,500 peacekeepers in Rwanda, where 200,000 to 500,000 people have been slaughtered in relentless attacks by pro-government militiamen against minority Tutsis and Hutu opposition supporters. Diplomats in the region said the government had agreed to a ceasefire but the mainly Tutsi rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) was unlikely to do so because a military victory was within sight. The rebels have said they want to seize control of as much of Rwanda as possible to staunch the bloodbath, and seem anxious that UN peacekeepers might arrive before they have had time to rout the army, the diplomats said. "The success of Riza's mission hangs on the RPF's acceptance of a ceasefire," a senior Western diplomat told AFP. "It will be difficult for the UN to achieve much here unless both sides stop fighting," said the diplomat, who requested anonymity. Riza met rebel leader Paul Kagame in Mulindi on Monday, but failed to persuade him to drop his demand for the United Nations to cut the size of its planned force from 5,500 to 2,500. On Tuesday Riza went to Kigali for talks with Army chief of staff Augustin Bizimungu, followed by talks with members of the self- proclaimed all-Hutu interim government at its refuge in Gitarama, 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest of the capital. The government and Army accepted his proposals for a ceasefire, according to the diplomats. But even if the RPF also goes along, the future of the proposed UN peacekeeping mission is still uncertain. Western countries, shaken by the world body's failure to end anarchy in Somalia despite heavy losses among foreign peacekeepers there, are reluctant to commit troops to another perilous African venture, diplomats said. UN Secretary-general Butrus Butrus-Ghali on Wednesday complained that the world had turned its back on the "genocide" in Rwanda. "Let's recognise that it is a failure not only for the UN but also for the international community," he told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York. "All of us are responsible for this failure." "Unless we have the support of the member-states, we will not be able to obtain the troops which we need on the ground," he said. The UN Human Rights Commission has appointed a lawyer from Ivory Coast to investigate the bloodletting, in which civilians have been systematically hacked, clubbed, burned and shot to death, according to witnesses. [passage omitted]