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]