Tres
Au camp de Nyarushishi, le 28 juin, le colonel Didier Thibaut déclare « Nous n'avons pas d'ordres pour désarmer les milices »
Résumé
A French colonel, Didier Thibaut, said, ``We don't have orders to disarm militias''
Citation
In a thicket of tall weeds, thorny bramble, dead cornstalks and
eucalyptus trees, a few ferns have been laid. It is where three men
have been sleeping and hiding for more than two months, since Hutu
militia attacked this village in April, killing scores of Tutsi and
forcing others.
A week ago, a journey along almost any road in this area was
perilous. There were road blocks every 200 or 300 yards, manned by
young men in civilian clothes, armed with machetes, clubs and rifles.
While most of the roadblocks and armed militias have vanished,
checkpoints are still ubiquitous. At a roadblock just east of
Nyungwe Forest, a teen-ager in a checkered red shirt held a grenade
in his right hand, as his comrades searched vehicles. The roadblocks
are a nuisance for every traveler; they are potentially fatal for a Tutsi.
The safety of Nyarushishi refugee camp is just over a hill from
Ruganda, less than three miles distant. A woman in the camp said today
that her mother was still hiding in Ruganda -- she is protected by a
Hutu family, her daughter said, and would like to come to the camp but
that she could not do so safely.
Mr. Rwakazina's wife and children are also in the camp, and today he
beseeched american reporters who found him and his friends to escort
them to the camp ``It is not safe to go on the road'', said one of the
men, who was barefoot and whose torn and soiled clothes were all he
had. A Hutu intellectual in the village, a political centrist, agreed
that it was not safe for Tutsi to travel unescorted.
``The French are here, but I am still afraid'', Mr. Rwakazina
said. ``I don't know if I would be alive tomorrow''.
A French colonel, Didier Thibaut, said, ``We don't have orders to
disarm militias''
Asked about the Tutsi who were hiding in fear of the Hutu -- no one
has any idea how many like Mr Rwakazina there are -- Colonel Thibaut
said they should come to the camp.
But the question is how they get there. If French paratroopers fond
Tutsi while on their patrols, they bring theme to the camp. But the
French do not go on missions in search of those hiding.
Colonel Thibaut maintained, ``The province of Cyangugu is calmer,''
referring to this region in the south-western corner of Rwanda, on the
southern tip of Lake Kivu. ``The civilian population is protected.''
