FBIS4-48277
"drafr095_a_94008"
FBIS-AFR-94-095
Daily Report
16 May 1994
CENTRAL AFRICA
Rwanda
RPF Shoots at Convoy Carrying Former French Official
RPF Shoots at Convoy Carrying Former French Official
UN Official Comments
AB1605194294 Paris AFP in English 1859 GMT 16 May 94
AB1605194294
Paris AFP
English
BFN
[By Annie Thomas]
[Excerpts] Nairobi, May 16 (AFP) -- Rwandan rebels sealed
the road from the embattled capital Kigali to Gitarama, where
the government fled last month as ethnic carnage engulfed the
country, a UN official said Monday [16 May].
The army denied that their foes had seized control of a
stretch of the road from Kigali to Gitarama, 40 kilometres (25
miles) to the southwest. But Abdul Kabia, executive director of
the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda, said the rebel Rwanda
Patriotic Front (RPF) had cut the road as they tightened their
grip on Kigali, which they have sealed off on three sides.
Kabia said government forces now controlled only the western
part of Kigali and the rebels were trying to sever their supply
lines.
The RPF, dominated by the minority Tutsi tribe that has
borne
the brunt of six weeks of bloodletting in which 200,000 people
have been butchered, claimed responsibility Monday for shooting
at an army-escorted convoy carrying former French humanitarian
minister Bernard Kouchner on a mercy mission. [passage omitted
covered in referent items]
Kouchner left Rwanda on Monday after spending five days
trying to persuade both sides to allow civilians trapped in the
capital and still being massacred by death squads to leave via
"humanitarian safe corridors" which he wants the army and rebels
to keep free from fighting.
Kouchner was still trying to secure an agreement to begin
evacuating civilians Monday, but UN sources said his mission
could still produce results.
Sporadic firefights broke out in different areas of Kigali
on
Monday as rain lashed the surrounding hills, once green with
banana trees but now brown and barren, stripped by hungry
displaced people. It was a relatively quiet day after 10 days of
fierce artillery duels, said UN spokesman Moctar Gueye, who was
slightly hurt when bullet fragments struck his face during the
attack on Kouchner's convoy. "Everyone's waiting," Gueye said.
The UN has protested to the rebels over the shooting, and
has
also complained to the army over its failure "to ensure the
security" of Kouchner.
The UN Security Council is preparing to approve
Secretary-General Butrus Butrus-Ghali's call for the UN force in
Rwanda to be increased to 5,500, according to reports from New
York. [passage omitted]
French officials said several African countries including
Tanzania, Ghana and Nigeria were willing to contribute troops to
a strengthened UN force.
Eleven UN peacekeepers have been killed in the past six
weeks
in Rwanda, 10 of them Belgian soldiers allegedly murdered by the
presidential guard.
Most of the 200,000 Rwandans butchered with machetes or
clubbed to death with wooden stakes were Tutsis or opposition
supporters from the majority Hutu tribe.