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FT 24 JUN 94 / French troops mount first Rwanda patrol
By LESLIE CRAWFORD and DAVID BUCHAN
NAIROBI
French troops entered Rwanda yesterday on a reconnaissance mission,
launching a disputed intervention to save civilians from massacres in the
war-torn country.
The detachment crossed into Rwanda from Zaire and de-ployed at a refugee
camp near the town of Cyangugu, where thousands of minority Tutsis are
threatened with death at the hands of Hutu militias, a senior French officer
said.
The mission marked the start of the United Nations-backed Operation
Turquoise, following the arrival of French troops and equipment in eastern
Zaire. Highlighting lukewarm European Union support, France was forced to
charter four huge Soviet-built Antonov 124 transport aircraft from the
Russian state airline, Aeroflot, to help fly troops and material from Istres
in southern France.
French diplomats struggled to find more partners as French humanitarian
agencies, intellectuals and parliamentarians warned the action could worsen
the genocide which is already estimated to have claimed 500,000 lives.
The French intervention is fiercely opposed by the rebel Rwanda Patriotic
Front (FPR). Dismissing assurances that the military operation was purely
humanitarian, the RPF representative in Europe said French troops would be
regarded as aggressors and confronted. Mr Jacques Bihozagara, apparently
unswayed by talks with the French foreign minister, Mr Alain Juppe, said the
French action was designed to give Rwandan government forces 'a breathing
space'.
The French military official said the first troops to enter Rwanda, a small
motorised detachment of some 50 men, 'was fairly well received by
administrative authorities and local inhabitants' in Cyangugu and at a camp
containing between 5,000 and 10,000 refugees a few kilometres outside the
town. 'The detachment will carry out a census and take the first
humanitarian measures,' the official said.
The French have emphasised that they do not intend to set up bases inside
Rwanda. Most troops will be based in Bakavu and Goma in eastern Zaire, but
make short forays into the west of Rwanda, where thousands of persecuted
Tutsis are herded in concentration camps guarded by Hutus.
The RPF rebels distrust Paris because of its military and financial support
for the government of Gen Juvenal Habyarimana until his death in an air
crash on April 6. Having bolstered Rwanda's crumbling army with military
advisers, weapons, armoured cars and helicopters, France is regarded as an
accomplice to the slaughter of Tutsis and Hutu opponents of the Habyarimana
regime following his death.
The UN mandate authorises French troops to use force if attacked.
In Paris, Mr Juppe yesterday sought to lay down the military and political
risks in the face of hostility from rebels controlling two-thirds of the
country. 'Senegalese soldiers will be at our side and discussions are in
train with Guinea-Bissau,' he told the French Senate yesterday. Senegal is
to send troops it had already agreed to contribute to the planned UN force
due in Rwanda in late July when France intends to withdraw.
Mr Juppe said he hoped European countries would give France the logistic
support the US has already pledged. France will be pressing its European
Union partners for backing when the Twelve start their summit in Corfu later
today, Mr Alain Lamassoure, French EU affairs minister, said yesterday,
adding that while 'there might be 10 good reasons for not intervening, the
one essential reason for doing so is that a whole people is in the course of
dying'.
The French are setting up hospitals on the Zaire border. But it is not clear
whether they will just seek to evacuate refugees and wounded, or try to set
up safe zones as they and other UN peacekeepers have sought to do in Bosnia.
Countries:-
FRZ France, EC.
RWZ Rwanda, Africa.
Industries:-
P9721 International Affairs.
Types:-
NEWS General News.
The Financial Times
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