Citation
GATUNA, Rwanda, April 9, Reuter - A Rwandan guerrilla force said early on Saturday it had decided to fight government troops rampaging in the capital Kigali to restore order because of ``murderous acts'' committed there this week.
``The Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) is going to protect innocent Banyarwanda (Rwandan people). Anyone standing in its way will be considered an accomplice and dealt with accordingly,'' a statement broadcast on RPF radio by the commander in chief, Major-General Paul Kagame, said.
The statement appealed to all Rwandan people to help fight what it described as a clique which included the presidential guard, the former president's ruling party and other hardline political forces from the Hutu people.
He also appealed for government soldiers ``who may want to join us'' to fight alongside the RPF.
Although chaos reigned in Kigali, no fighting was reported along the front lines between the RPF and government soldiers, said guerrillas at Gatuna, which is just inside Rwanda near the border with Uganda and about 80 km (50 miles) north of Kigali.
The RPF has about 600 men in Kigali and the announcement on Saturday morning seemed to give a clear signal of an RPF move on the capital from its stronghold in the north of the country.
A U.N. peacekeeping force, stationed in Rwanda to monitor a derailed peace accord between rebels and government forces, said late on Friday the security situation was still precarious
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It said in a statement RPF rebels had captured several positions previously held by an elite presidential guard loyal to the late president, Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu in power for more than 20 years. Habyarimana died with Cyprien Ntaryamira, president of neighbouring Burundi, when a plane bringing them back from regional peace talks in Tanzania was hit by a rocket on Wednesday night.
``Anyone who attempts to stop them is our enemy. We are moving on Kigali,'' Kagame said in the broadcast. ``Any government forces that want to join us are free to do so.''
Kagame said his troops had made an irreversible decision to fight a clique he identified as two political parties close to slain President Juvenal Habyarimana and to end days of anarchy.
The new interim president, parliament speaker Venat Sindikubwabo, was a close Habyarimana ally.
His prime minister, Jean Kambanda is from a faction of the splintered opposition Democratic and Republican Movement (MDR) that is dominated by the majority Hutu tribe and which opposes any cooperation with the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front, which is dominated by the minority Tutsi.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
