Citation
MULINDI, April 12 (Reuter) - Rebels singing war songs and carrying
ammunition on their heads tramped through the misty hills of northern
Rwanda on Tuesday as their forces were poised to battle government
troops for the capital Kigali.
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) spokesman Wilson Rutayisire said rebel
radio would start broadcasting messages to Kigali residents as the
rebels entered the city.
We will tell them to take care and stay away from the fighting areas.
They should either stay indoors or move out of the city,
Rutayisire
told Reuters.
He said that 2,400 rebels had surrounded the city and that the
operation to enter the city centre itself had started.
Most of the forces are still on the outskirts,
Rutayisire said.
A 600-strong RPF battalion is already based in the east of the capital
as part of a nine-month old peace accord that fell apart when President
Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash last Wednesday.
The RPF has consistently denied that it recognises any truce with
government soldiers on a killing spree but insisted that they have been
waiting for the evacuation of foreigners to be completed before
starting battles.
We would wish to advance once the French troops have left and we hope
that their mission will be over today,
he added.
Rebel radio, monitored in Nairobi, called for the withdrawal of French
troops from the country, warning that they would be fired on if they
got in the way of the RPF.
The RPF military operation was not affected by the departure of members
of the interim government set-up in the days after Habyarimana's death,
Rutayisire added. The entire cabinet piled into cars and fled the city
for the countryside earlier on Tuesday.
It doesn't make any difference. The troops are still there,
he said
in the rebel-held headquarters of Mulindi 70 kms (50 miles) north of
the capital.
Mortar explosions could be heard regularly on battle fronts north of
the capital on Tuesday afternoon and guerrillas said they were mounting
an assault on a key government garrison in Byumba about 55 kms (30
miles) north of Kigali.
They (rebels) are shelling them (government troops) so that they get
out,
said Rutayisire.
Since the RPF launched a fresh offensive on Saturday they have overrun
garrisons in the northeast of the country and cut key roads to towns in
the northwest.
A major advance by troops towards the capital is expected once Byumba
has fallen to the RPF since guerrilla forces have been spearheding
attacks in this region.
The RPF military commander Major-General Paul Kagame is himself
directing the fighting on the frontline near Byumba.
He is also in contact with RPF forces in and around the capital by
radio, the guerrillas said.
From dawn on Tuesday rebels have been ferried to the front from Mulindi
in trucks crammed with boxes of ammunition.
Young rebels in uniforms stripped from their dead enemies and
shouldering AK-47 rifles were seen marching out into the steep hills
singing liberation songs composed since they first invaded Rwanda from
neighbouring Uganda in October 1990.
Many of them are units from the Tutsi clan who grew up in exile in
countries such as Uganda where their parents had fled to escape a
series of tribal massacres in the last four decades.
But RPF officials say that despite the fact that many of their fighters
are Tutsis they have substantial support of Hutus and people from the
pygmy Twa tribe and their main aim has been to overthrow Habyarimana's
government.
This is not an ethnic war. It is a war against a dictatorship,
said
RPF chairman Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe himself a Hutu and a former
interior minister in Habyarimana's government.
Kanyarengwe, 57, and Kagame, a 36-year old Tutsi who was once the
military intelligence chief in Uganda until he deserted to join the RPF
in Rwanda, both said they would hold all-party talks to establish a new
transitional government if they take power.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
