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KIGALI, Nov 1 (AFP) - U.N. peacekeeping operations in Rwanda aimed at supervising a three-month-old ceasefire accord and monitoring the return of refugees after the end of a civil war officially started Monday.
A ceremony, held some 70 kilometers (45 miles) outside Kigali, marked the beginning of the United Nations assistance mission in Rwanda (MINUAR), the 16th U.N. operation worldwide.
It was presided by General Romero Dellaire of Canada, the commander of MINUAR forces, and attended by Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and Colonel Alexis Kanyarengwe, the minority Tutsi president of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR).
Tutsi rebels and the Rwandan government reached a peace accord at Arusha, Tanzania on August 4.
MINUAR, the United Nations' 16th peacekeeping operation, got under way as neighboring Burundi was grappling to come to terms with a failed coup in which army rebels assassinated president Melchior Ndadaye, the first member of the majority Hutu tribe to become the country's leader.
The Rwandan army is dominated by the minority Tutsis.
The U.N. Security Council decided in October to monitor the implementation of the Rwandan peace accords.
Security Council Resolution 872 empowers U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali to deploy a first batch of 800 international troops in Kigali, the Rwandan capital, for an initial period of six months.
General elections are to be held in Rwanda in 1995.
MINUAR is to number more than 2,500 troops next year, making it the biggest U.N. contingent in Africa after Somalia and Mozambique.
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