Citation
NAIROBI, April 21 (Reuter) - Rwanda's warring rebels and government,
locked in an orgy of ethnic killing, agreed to attend peace talks on
Saturday in northern Tanzania, the neighbouring country's president
said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which said on
Thursday it had rarely seen a human tragedy on the scale of massacres
in Rwanda, urged U.N. peacekeepers to stay in the country, now
bordering on famine.
Tanzania's President Hassan Ali Mwinyi said in a statement on Thursday
that both sides would meet in the Tanzanian town of Arusha to focus on
ending the bloodshed with a ceasefire and implementing accords signed
last year.
The violence, in which the ICRC said hundreds of thousands of people
may have died, was triggered by the killing of the Rwandan and
Burundian presidents when their plane was shot down at Kigali airport
as they were returning from peace talks in Tanzania on April 6.
In separate meetings on Wednesday, Mwinyi urged visiting Rwandan
Interior Minister Faustin Munyazesa and a delegation of the rebel
Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to end hostilities.
Despite the failure of two weeks of U.N. efforts to broker a ceasefire
or even a face-to-face meeting since last Friday, the U.N. Assistance
Mission in Rwanda (UNAMIR) welcomed the talks as a postive step.
Tanzania as a U.N. member and close neighbour of Rwanda and active
initiator of the Arusha agreement has every right to convene such
negotiations,
said U.N. spokesman Mukhtar Gueye.
He avoided answering directly when asked whether the Arusha talks stood
much chance of success where UNAMIR had failed.
We can have talks in various locations as long as they are in the same
direction -- towards implementing the Arusha accords and arranging a
ceasefire,
he told Reuters by telephone from Kigali.
Diplomats said that although they prayed for a breakthrough in Arusha
little appeared to have changed since the RPF told the United Nations
last week it saw little reason to stop fighting when it appeared
victory was within its grasp.
Any initiative is welcome and both sides won't insult the president by
refusing to turn up. But going to talks and reaching agreement are very
different,
said one envoy, adding it took 11 months to hammer out the
original Arusha accords.
The RPF, dominated by Rwanda's Tutsi minority, has vowed to topple the
interim government and force an end to massacres of Tutsis and
sympathisers from the Hutu majority by hardline Hutu militiamen and
troops.
U.N. officials in the embattled capital said they were awaiting word
from New York later on Thursday on whether all remaining 1,600 U.N.
troops should quit Rwanda until the killing stopped.
They said rebel and government forces had verbally agreed to protect
refugees in case of a U.N. withdrawal. But officers said they expected
only increased bloodshed if the peacekeepers left.
In Geneva, the ICRC, the largest aid agency still struggling to
function in Rwanda, said it would be a mistake for the U.N. to reduce
its operations.
The humanitarian agency said Rwanda was bordering on anarchy and there
was a definite risk of famine
in the central African country of seven
million people, of which up to two million have been driven from their
homes by hunger, battles and killings.
It would be a mistake to scale down,
Jean-Daniel Tauxe, ICRC
delegate-general for Africa, told reporters when asked about a U.N.
withdrawal. There is a definite risk of famine.
The ICRC also said it was concerned over an increase in violence at
Butare, in southern Rwanda, where an estimated 100,000 displaced people
have massed near the closed border.
It said hundreds of thousands of people may have been killed but the
exact number of massacre victims would never be known.
UNAMIR commanders said RPF fighters captured the key frontline town of
Byumba on Tuesday and now held a large slice of northern Rwanda from
Kidaho to Gabiro in the northeast.
The RPF is advancing in the north and in Kigali,
a U.N. commander
said during clashes in the city, which is carved up into tiny fiefdowms
ruled by mobs out to kill any strangers, including fleeing civilians.
Three hundred Belgian U.N. peacekeepers, including some who burned
their blue berets in disgust at the U.N.'s inability to end the carnage
and prevent the killing of 10 of their comrades, left Rwanda on Tuesday
followed by 200 Ghanaians on Wednesday.
Belgium has pulled out of what was the 2,500-strong force sent to
Rwanda to help implement the Arusha accords last year. Other units have
since left to avoid being caught in crossfire.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
