Citation
ARUSHA, Tanzania, April 23 (Reuter) - Rwandan rebels said they were not
meeting government officials at talks in northern Tanzania on Saturday
but were there only to deliver news of a unilateral ceasefire.
I had two aims in coming here. One was to talk with the
secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and to
meet Tanzanian government officials to brief them on our ceasefire,
said Theogene Rudasingwa, secretary-general of the Rwanda Patriotic
Front (RPF).
Talks scheduled to start at 6.00 pm local time (1600 GMT) never
convened and officials from the Rwandan government expected to arrive
by a United Nations aircraft had not turned up hours later.
Tanzanian-born OAU Secretary-General Salim Ahmed Salim, top African
officials and Western diplomats were in the Tanzanian town of Arusha
for the talks aimed at winning a ceasefire when Rudasingwa announced
the RPF had unilaterally declared a truce that would take effect at
midnight on Monday (2100 GMT).
Rudasingwa said that he would be leaving Arusha on Sunday morning and
that the RPF would wait to see if the government side could fulfill
conditions of its ceasefire including the end of massacres and a return
to the rule of law.
But the RPF official condemned the international community for not
apportioning blame in the violence which he said was sparked by the
government and its militias.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
