Citation
UNITED NATIONS, April 13 (Reuter) - The rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front
(RPF) and the country's recently installed interim government have
agreed to meet Thursday under U.N. auspices to discuss a ceasefire in
the civil war-torn nation, the president of the Security Council said
late Wednesday.
Council President Colin Keating of New Zealand said the meeting would
take place at the headquarters in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, of the
2,500-man U.N. force sent in last year to help implement an accord
which temporarily ended a three-year civil war.
That is the first optimistic sign we have seen perhaps since the
beginning of this crisis and the Security Council wants to welcome it
very much and encourage that process,
Keating told reporters.
He said the council attached great importance to the RPF living up to
its statements of peaceful intent and that it wished to establish a
broad-based government and stop the killing. The council's response to
that is we will judge you by your actions, not your words, and we want
you to act right now to stop the killing. And that means a ceasefire,
and we want it soon.
The latest round of violence, estimated to have killed thousands of
people, erupted a week ago after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana,
together with President Cyprien Ntaryamira of neighbouring Burundi,
were killed when their plane was shot down as it was landing at Kigali
after a flight from Tanzania.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
