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KIGALI, May 2 (AFP) - Rwandan sources on Saturday accused the former single ruling party headed by President Juvenal Habyarimana of involvement in a mine blast that on Friday killed 17 people and injured 13 at Ruhango, in southern Rwanda.
The 17 died when a mine blew up a van outside a busy shopping centre, informed sources said here. A toll obtained Friday from diplomatic sources said 13 had been killed, with 22 injured, in the blast, about 100 kilometres (60 miles) south of the Rwandan capital Kigali.
No claim has been made for responsibility for the blast. Official Rwandan radio said Friday the authorities would do "everything in their power" to track down those responsible.
However sources close to the Rwandan opposition accused the Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND) of involvement, saying the party had an interest in maintaining a climate of insecurity in Rwanda so that it could accuse the recently-formed transitional government of incompetence.
Similar attacks with Soviet-made mines have killed 10 people and injured some 50 others since March 12, when 10 people including four children were injured at Nyanza in central Rwanda as they were travelling to a funeral.
An explosion in a collective taxi at the Kigali bus station left five dead and about 30 wounded on March 19, while on March 31 another mine exploding as a car rode over it at Nyanza left four dead and four injured. On April 8 a vet was killed in a mine blast at Bugesera, in southern Rwanda.
None of the attacks have been claimed, but the small east central African nation has since October 1990 been under attack by Rwandan rebels based in neighbouring Uganda.
Since April 16 Rwanda has been governed by a transitional administration headed by Dismas Nsengiyaremye, one of the leaders of the Republican Democratic Movement, the leading party of opposition to Habyarimana's MRND.
Appointed by Habyarimana, Nsengiyaremye heads a coalition that includes opposition parties and has a mandate to negotiate a peace settlement with the rebels.
The government is also expected to organise free elections.
mgu/bb/ap AFP AFP SEQN-0083
