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FT 25 MAY 94 / UN finds Rwandan haemorrhage unstaunchable: Leslie Crawford
on few hopes of an end to the massacre of civilians on the day UN envoy
flies into Kigali
By LESLIE CRAWFORD and MARK SUZMAN
JOHANNESBURG
A special UN envoy was flown into the eye of the Rwandan storm yesterday
with a mission to broker a ceasefire between government and rebel troops
that could bring an end to the indiscriminate massacre of civilians in
Rwanda.
Tutsi rebels and the Hutu army continued to fight for control of the
capital, Kigali, as Mr Iqbal Riza, the UN envoy, tried to reach a central
hotel for talks with representatives of the Rwandan government. A truce
agreed between rebels and the army for the duration of Mr Riza's visit
collapsed on Monday.
However, Reuter reported out of Kigali yesterday afternoon that UN officials
had said bombardments of the centre of the city halted just before Mr Riza
arrived. But sporadic mortar bomb blasts and clashes between rebel and
government troops shook other areas of the capital.
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) guerrillas control the airport and outskirts
of the capital, while the city centre is held by the army or Hutu militias.
Mr Riza is trying to negotiate conditions under which a 5,500-strong UN
force would be allowed to enter Rwanda to protect civilians and deliver
humanitarian aid.
The ethnic bloodbath in Rwanda, sparked by President Juvenal Habyarimana's
death in an air crash seven weeks ago, has claimed the lives of half a
million people, most of them members of the minority Tutsi tribe, according
to aid agencies. More than 1m people - an eighth of the population - are
estimated to be displaced and in need of food, medical aid, and protection
from gangs of murderers who still roam the countryside.
Tens of thousands of decomposing corpses from Rwanda's killing fields have
been washed into Lake Victoria. Authorities in neighbouring Uganda fear the
outbreak of disease in the districts bordering the lake. They say they have
buried more than 27,000 corpses in mass graves.
The Rwandan mission ordered by the UN Security Council last week faces
several immediate problems. No country has yet volunteered troops, though
Italy's defence minister said on Monday his country would be willing to do
so.
The UN has not spelled out how it is to secure safe havens for civilians and
deliver humanitarian assistance in the midst of the civil war. Without a
ceasefire and negotiations to halt the slaughter, many believe the UN's
presence in Rwanda would be futile.
Having withdrawn its peace-keepers when the butchery began seven weeks ago,
the UN faces charges of providing too little, too late.
In the eyes of the Tutsi-led rebel movement, the UN's reputation has been
tarnished by its decision to abandon civilian Tutsis to their fate. At the
same time, government forces accuse the UN of allowing the rebels to shelter
behind UN positions as they advance with their assault on the capital. This
may explain why the UN garrison in Kigali came under fire this week.
Sandwiched between the warring parties, the UN forces in Rwanda, like their
ill-fated colleagues in Somalia, risk losing their neutrality, and therefore
their effectiveness.
Both the Rwandan army and the RPF have said they would fire upon UN troops
if they got in the way of the fighting.
Australia was yesterday the latest country to decline a UN request for
specialist troops, including engineers, signallers and medical teams, saying
it would not send soldiers to Rwanda until their safety could be assured.
In Nairobi, Mr Theogen Ruvasingwa, the secretary-general of the RPF, cast
doubt on the UN's ability to alleviate the suffering in Rwanda.
'The UN's first response was to pack their bags and go. The latest UN
response has come too late,' he said. 'The UN will not be able to restore
law and order in Rwanda. That is the task of the RPF.'
Mr Ruvasingwa pledged to continue fighting until 'the machinery responsible
for the genocide in Rwanda is totally crippled'. The tardiness of the UN
response, and doubts about the effectiveness of a military intervention,
have prompted certain African nations to mediate a political solution to the
Rwandan conflict.
Tanzania, which is sheltering more than 300,000 Rwandan refugees, has twice
failed to bring the warring sides together in the past month. Plans to hold
a summit of regional heads of state next week have also been postponed,
according to Mr Shani Lweno of the Tanzanian foreign ministry.
'We are holding more consultations; there are no easy answers to the Rwandan
conflict,' Mr Lweno said yesterday.
Diplomats in the region, however, believe the RPF is unlikely to agree to a
new peace accord while it retains the military advantage.
But a rebel victory would not necessarily allow it to govern. The Tutsi-led
RPF would have difficulty imposing its rule on the majority Hutu population
in the wake of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi civilians by
Hutu militias. Even Hutus who have not been involved in the tribal bloodbath
fear Tutsi retaliation.
Although the Rwandan conflict has the potential to destabilise neighbouring
Burundi, Tanzania and Uganda, all of which have populations of ethnic Hutus
and Tutsis, regional governments have ruled out an African military
intervention to end the conflict.
Mark Suzman adds from Johannesburg: In his state of the nation address
yesterday South Africa's President Nelson Mandela mentioned Rwanda, as well
as Angola and Mozambique, as countries where South African assistance might
help the peace process.
However defence and foreign affairs officials are known to be strongly
against military involvement in the conflict and a government press
secretary, who last week implied that South Africa was on the verge of
sending troops to Rwanda, was publicly reprimanded.
Countries:-
RWZ Rwanda, Africa.
ZAZ South Africa, Africa.
Industries:-
P9721 International Affairs.
Types:-
NEWS General News.
The Financial Times
London Page 4