A Kigali Concert, a UN Warning, and General Kagame Speaks Out

Five months after the start of the Rwandan genocide, officials of the country’s new government organized the first public performance of popular music and traditional song and dance since the end of the killing. I attended the September 1994 performance in Kigali:

It was another sign of a return to normalcy in this war-ravaged capital. More than 500 people packed the auditorium of the French cultural center to hear over two hours of music, popular music performed by Rwanda's top female vocalist, Anonciata, and by the country's leading pop group, Ingeli.

In addition, dancers, musicians, and singers of the Rwandan National Ballet appeared --- along with the traditional music group Indahemuka, known for its fund-raising performances on behalf of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the Tutsi-led rebel group that installed the new government in Kigali.

Sitting in the front row for the concert was General Paul Kagame, the rebel leader who now is Rwanda's powerful Vice President and Minister of Defense. Also on hand were representatives of the small but growing diplomatic community.

The largely youthful crowd applauded and cheered enthusiastically throughout the evening, which began with a moment of silence for those who died in the bloody massacres that claimed more than half a million lives earlier this year.

The event was but a temporary respite from the realities of trying to stabilize Rwanda. The Special United Nations Envoy to Rwanda was warning border incursions and other activities by forces loyal to the ousted Hutu-led government could lead to renewed warfare in the country and even trigger a new round of massacres. Still, the man who led the rebel forces that toppled the old government is confident his troops can handle any threat.

General Paul Kagame, Rwanda's new Defense Minister and Vice President, says the cross-border guerrilla activities of former army soldiers and civilian militias are a matter of concern and must be brought under control as soon as possible.

But in an interview, the former rebel leader says there is no doubt his armed forces can resist any challenge these elements might pose.

“They have just been responsible for isolated incidents. We have noticed it has not really gone to high levels of threat.”

The General's comments follow a fresh warning by the UN Special Envoy in Rwanda sent this past week to the world body's headquarters in New York.

In that confidential situation report, obtained by journalists, Shaharyar Khan describes what he characterizes as classic preparations for guerrilla war by armed elements loyal to the former Rwandan government. Mr. Khan writes that military-age males carrying large supplies of weapons, food and water have been observed crossing into Rwanda from Burundi and Zaire (Congo). He says there are even unconfirmed reports that some late recruits to the former government army who fled into Zaire (Congo) may now be receiving additional military training from Zairean (Congolese) soldiers.

The UN envoy says the situation in Rwanda remains stable for the moment. But he calls for intensified search and seizure measures by UN peacekeepers and new diplomatic efforts at political reconciliation. Otherwise, Mr. Khan warns, the cycle of war and possibly of massacres could continue and even spread throughout the region.

Asked about the warning, General Kagame says he has little confidence the United Nations will act promptly or effectively.

“What happens in New York is beyond my control, and my experience is that their responses are either negative or they come too late. So I think we have to rely more on ourselves than on New York (the United Nations). But it is good for New York to know. Maybe someday, somebody may do the right thing. But I am not very optimistic about the way they handle things.”

Rwanda's new authorities have complained repeatedly that the international community failed to react to warnings that ethnic and political violence were about to erupt earlier this year. They also note that when the bloodshed began, the United Nation's first response was to withdraw the bulk of its forces in the country.

For more on Gen. Kagame’s frustration with the UN, see: http://reporterregrets.blogspot.com/2007/04/anniversary-to-remember.html

Rwandan Troops, In A Surprise Move, Deploy in the Former French Zone

In a surprise move, troops of Rwanda's new army began for the first time to fan out across the southwest in early September 1994 as the UN Special Envoy in the country told reporters it is now just a matter of a few weeks before the new government in Kigali completes its takeover of the former French humanitarian protection zone. The surprise deployments followed complaints from Rwandan officials about continuing security problems in the southwest, where UN forces were solely responsible for keeping the peace following the controversial French mission.

The unexpected military deployments mark a revision of an original UN/Rwandan plan for the new government to move mainly civilian administrators into the area before dispatching troops there.

UN Special Envoy Shaharyar Khan says the decision to begin deploying significant numbers of Rwandan troops in the southwest follows a series of high-level meetings in recent days between UN and Rwandan authorities.

Mr. Khan rejects suggestions that dissatisfaction by Rwandan officials over security conditions in the former French zone prompted the move, involving several platoons totaling about 140 to 150 soldiers. Instead, he says simply that both sides felt the time had come for the new government to make what he terms a gradual and phased introduction of its armed forces into the southwest.

“Of course they are very conscious of the need to have full sovereign authority over the whole of the country. It goes without saying that any government would want this to happen. But I would not say that they are straining at the leash and that in fact they have taken a very responsible approach to this very delicate, sensitive important issue.”

Nevertheless, UN military sources acknowledge there has been a recent increase in armed activities in the former French zone by forces loyal to the ousted government -- activities that have angered Rwandan authorities. Over the weekend, customs and immigration representatives of the new government posted at Cyangugu on the Zairean (Congolese) frontier specifically called for tightened security measures.

The new Rwandan troops who are moving into the southwest will be providing security at key locations, including the Cyangugu border crossing point. They will also protect visiting civilian officials from Kigali and those administrators now being posted to the region.

In addition, Rwandan military liaison officers have been stationed at UN field headquarters in the zone as well as at enlistment centers where security personnel of the ousted government can apply to join the country's new armed forces.

Mr. Khan says he believes the government's takeover of civilian and military responsibilities in the southwest should be completed in two to four weeks. But even then he tells reporters UN troops will not necessarily be withdrawn.

Some two thousand mainly African UN peacekeepers are deployed throughout the southwest. Just over two weeks ago they began providing security there following the withdrawal of the French forces who had established a so-called humanitarian protection zone in the area.

Its purpose was to protect mainly Hutu refugees who fled to the southwest ahead of advancing units of the predominantly Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Front, the rebel organization whose forces now constitute the new army.

Mr. Khan says UN authorities have now sharply revised downward their estimate of the number of displaced Rwandans in the zone -- from one-point-two million to about 480 thousand or less than half that original estimate. The UN envoy says he doesn't know if the initial figure was exaggerated or whether a huge number fled into Zaire (Congo).

But he and other UN officials report increasing numbers of Rwandans are now returning home from the neighboring country. On the second, third and fourth of this month (Sept. 1994), more than two thousand crossed back into Rwanda at the Cyangugu crossing point alone.

Relief workers, meanwhile, are expressing alarm over a series of incidents in which returnees have reportedly been taken off trucks carrying them back to their homes by soldiers of the new government. They say the reports, while unconfirmed by UN officials, are nonetheless persistent enough for them to be concerned.

Sybella Wilkes, a spokesperson for the UN Rwanda emergency office, says the incidents are being reported to liaison officials of the new government. In the meantime, however, she says aid workers are beginning to register the names of those returnees joining UN convoys so they can later check whether anyone is missing. She stresses that registration information will be kept strictly confidential and will be used by UN officials alone. It will not be turned over to representatives of the Rwandan government.

Her comments follow a confirmed case last month in which Rwandan soldiers shot and killed a Hutu refugee returning home in a UN convoy. The man fled at a checkpoint after he and three other returnees were detained, apparently on suspicion of involvement in the ethnic and political slaughter in Rwanda earlier this year.

The new government in Kigali has said returnees have nothing to fear if they had nothing to do with the genocidal massacres that claimed more than half a million Rwandan lives.

Hutu Militias Are Still Crossing the Border

The first military liaison officers of Rwanda's new army took up positions in the southwest of the country as UN authorities held urgent talks on a rise in security problems in that area. I reported on the September 1994 deployment from the Rwandan capital, Kigali.

UN military spokesman Major Jean-Guy Plante declines to be specific. But he indicates the latest security problems in the former French-patrolled southwest have included physical attacks and threats against the only officials of the new Rwandan government stationed there until now.

These are a handful of customs and immigration officers posted at the Cyangugu border crossing into Zaire (Congo). UN peacekeeping force commander, Major General Guy Tousignant, met some of those officers during a weekend tour of the area.

One of them, Alex Mugabo, said in an interview at the frontier that their major problem is security.

“The security is not tough; we feel the militias are still crossing, this side and out, so we need -- if they could tighten it [security] ... there is no other problem.”

Security for the Rwandan officials at the Cyangugu border crossing is provided by Ethiopian soldiers attached to the UN peacekeeping force. General Tousignant acknowledges they are what he terms a "very small" group -- and its officers have disclosed their men are hampered by language problems and have been weakened by illness caused by spoiled rations.

The UN military spokesman, Major Plante, rejects suggestions that the Ethiopians are not up to the task. But he says General Tousignant has held crucial talks with his key field commanders to consider additional actions to tighten security, especially in the southwest.

The UN commander also scheduled an urgent meeting with Rwandan Defense Minister and Vice President Paul Kagame to review security matters.

The new government in Kigali has become increasingly vocal in its complaints about the UN's ability to curb activities by armed members of the country's defeated army as well as extremist militia. There are now suggestions the Rwandan government may speed up its plans for deploying more than just a few liason officers in the southwest.

General Tousignant acknowledged the possibility during his tour of the area.

“Where we cannot do that job, if we cannot protect everybody, then we must gradually allow the government to do that.”

The government soon plans to begin deploying additional elements of a civilian administration in the southwest. For the moment, their security will be provided by UN peacekeepers. UN officials say they are not planning to reinforce the current two thousand strong, mainly African force in the former French zone. But they indicate other concrete measures will be announced shortly to enhance security there.

Rwandan military units have stayed out of the southwest since French troops withdrew in August 1994 in order not to frighten displaced Rwandans now sheltering there into fleeing into Zaire (Congo).

Return to Nyarubuye: Something to Remember on Memorial Day

In June 1994, the world first learned of one of the worst massacres in Rwanda -- a slaughter of hundreds of ethnic Tutsis in a remote part of eastern Rwanda near the Tanzanian border. I was one of the first journalists to visit the site -- a church complex in the small town of Nyarubuye. I re-visited the site in September 1994 and again recorded a report as I walked through the churchyard. (See original report at: http://reporterregrets.blogspot.com/2007/04/what-i-sawverbatim.html)

I have returned to Nyarubuye, a small church parish town in the remote countryside of eastern Rwanda -- a place I visited three months ago and where I saw the most horrible thing I have ever seen: evidence of a massacre that occurred in the middle of April, over five hundred bodies in a churchyard, in the church itself, in school buildings, administration buildings, workshops -- all built around a large red-brick church.

And now, three months later, I can tell you that nothing has changed -- except the corpses are in an advanced stage of decomposition. Many are just piles of sun-bleached bones, tattered clothing still clinging to the remains.

As before, in the village of Nyarubuye, there is not a trace of any population. It is a place abandoned.

But will it be forgotten?

We have heard that some think this should be preserved, perhaps as a place to remember the slaughter that took place in Rwanda -- the slaughter of ethnic Tutsi by Hutu extremists. It's also possible, it's suggested to us, that the new government -- the Tutsi-installed government in Kigali that won the civil war that began with this terrible bloodshed -- may want to preserve this site, possibly as a place where forensic experts can gather evidence for their proposed war crimes trials of those responsible for the slaughter.

But that is an indefinite time from now. For the moment, the wind blows over this abandoned site. Rusting gates creak. Birds sing and then peck at the bodies, bodies that wait for that last measure of dignity that is awarded mankind in the form of a decent burial.

And, yes, bodies that wait for justice.

Rwanda's Prime Minister: UN Overwhelmed in Former French Zone

Rwanda's Prime Minister said in September 1994 that he believes UN troops were doing an adequate job in parolling the former French zone in southwestern Rwanda. But Faustin Twagiramungu charged the peacekeepers in that area were being overwhelmed by what he termed "criminals” tied to the ousted to the Hutu-led government. I had this report from Kigali.

Prime Minister Twagiramungu says his government would soon like to begin deploying small groups of its soldiers in the southwest along with civilian administrators. He tells reporters the idea is still under discussion with UN authorities, but he makes clear it is important to the new Tutsi installed government to establish a visible presence in the former French zone as a deterrent to further activities by forces loyal to the ousted regime.

“Some people still believe that this security zone is a kind of demilitarized zone, and they believe that once we are not there, anything is allowed to those defeated soldiers to come there and do whatever they can.”

UN military authorities acknowledge that since the withdrawal of French troops from the southwest, there has been an increase in armed activities by former government soldiers and members of the Hutu extremist militia. But a UN spokesman denies the situation is out of control.

But no sooner than the Prime Minister had spoken, it was announced that the first military officials of the new Tutsi-installed government to be deployed in southwestern Rwanda would take up their posts shortly. The announcement was made during a helicopter tour of the former French zone by the UN military commander and the highest ranking officer of the Rwandese patriotic army to visit the area since the end of the civil war.

UN military commander Major General Guy Tousignant says liaison officers from Rwanda's new army will be deployed at each of the three main UN force headquarters in the former French protection zone. These are located in Cyangugu along the Zairean (Congolese) border, in the southern town of Gikongoro, and in Kibuye along Lake Kivu.

General Tousignant says the initial deployments will help UN peacekeepers in their dealings with the local population in the southwest and also help the new Rwandan government establish a visible presence in the region.

“This establishes a first contact with the local population in being able to answer some of the questions of people that are reporting to us and saying we want to volunteer and be part of the national force. Plus it will also help us have better understanding between what we do as our force and what that also do so that we avoid any conflict in our missions.”

The UN commander says he hopes the establishment of Rwandan military liaison officers will be followed shortly by the arrival of civilian administrators representing the new government in Kigali. He says UN peacekeepers will provide the officials with protective services.

The Rwandese Patriotic Army's top liaison officer to the United Nations, Major Frank Kamanzi, accompanied General Tousignant on a helicopter tour of the southwest. He is the highest ranking military officer of the new government to enter the former French zone since the end of Rwanda's bloody civil war.

Major Kamanzi says the development of liaison officers in the region is just a first step toward the full integration of the southwest into the rest of the country.

“Of course, the general idea is eventually having the local administration, our own forces, so that with time we take over the responsibilities that as a government and an army we are supposed to provide to the population.”

Until now, no troops of the new government have entered the southwest and the only civilian officials are a handful of customs and immigration officers at the Cyangugu border crossing. UN peacekeepers assumed security responsibilities following the departure of French troops two weeks ago.

But the announcement of the deployment of Rwandan military liaison officers follows an admission by UN officials of an increase in bandit activities in the southwest by forces loyal to the ousted Hutu-led government.

Hutu Killers On the Loose

With the French gone, there was a resurgence in violent activities by armed former Rwandan government soldiers and civilian Hutu militia in the southwestern part of the country. In August 1994, a UN military spokesman said new measures to cope with the problem would soon be unveiled. In the meantime, the spokesman insisted the area was still secure enough for refugees to return to homes there. Not everyone agreed.

UN military spokesman Jean-Guy Plante gives virtually no details and downplays the significance of recent incidents in the southwest involving armed elements loyal to Rwanda's ousted Hutu-led government.

“Nothing is happening there that is out of control or that we're not capable of handling.”

But Major Plante tells reporters there has been what he terms a slight increase in shooting incidents as well as acts intimidation and banditry in the former French-patrolled humanitarian protection zone.

“We are concerned and we are monitoring the situation very, very closely. Don't forget we've got two-thousand soldiers in this area (southwest).”

Yet the UN military spokesman says none of the UN military personnel deployed in southwestern Rwanda have had what he terms any significant confrontations with former government soldiers or members of the extremist Hutu Interahamwe militia. Nor, says Major Plante, have UN forces apprehended any of these elements.

Still, he says UN authorities are not considering any increase in the number of international peacekeepers in the southwest. But Major Plante says the United Nations will soon announce other concrete measures designed to respond to the problem. He gives no details.

Nevertheless, the UN military spokesman says without qualification that the region is safe enough for Rwandan refugees to return to home there.

“I can say without hesitation that they (refugees) can come back home.”

UN relief workers, speaking on condition of anonymity, challenged that view, however. They tell reporters they do not believe security can yet be guaranteed in the southwest.

But aid officials say they are working to help create an atmosphere of confidence in the former French zone, one in which they hope the extent of international reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts make the notion of a return home attractive to refugees.

Troops of the new Tutsi-installed government that has taken power following Rwanda's bloody civil war have yet to be deployed in the southwest. The new government has, however, announced plans to send members of a civilian administration into the area.

Bagamoyo Interlude: Performing Arts Overcoming Ethnic Hatred

As most of the blog entries so far make clear, all too often during my years in East Africa, I found myself reporting on stories that involve conflict. And all too often that conflict had been spawned by ethnic hatred. That kind of hatred has ripped apart many countries across the continent, leaving behind hundreds of thousands of dead, wounded and homeless. That kind of violence has usually bred even more ethnic turmoil, as the losing side seeks revenge. The Hutu-versus-Tutsi conflicts in Burundi and Rwanda are perhaps the best examples of what I am talking about. But ethnic strife has also affected Ethiopia, Kenya, Zaire (Congo) and several other countries. Against this backdrop, Tanzania has stood almost alone as a model of stability and ethnic harmony -- this despite its 120 or so different ethnic groups and scores of different languages. It was in Tanzania, right on the Indian Ccean coast, that I visited a special school in 1996 that celebrated the country's and the continent's ethnic diversity.

Under the shade of a huge mango tree, the second year class of the Bagamoyo School of the Performing Arts was having music practice. The students, a dozen strong, were seated on stone blocks or rickety stools, beating drums, hammering marimbas or plucking at handmade string instruments.

The celebratory song they played originated with a central coastal ethnic group, the Zaramo. But their teacher was from Tanzania's southern region, near Mtwara on the border with Mozambique. The students, men and women in their mid-20's, came from the capital, Dar Es Salaam, from the western lake area, from all over the country.

I talked with one of the students, 26-year-old Victor Mtalemwa Kazinja. But he is also a teacher. When he graduates, he told me, he intends to go back to the school where he taught before coming to Bagamoyo and introduce a younger generation to this kind of music.

“When I'm playing traditional music, I'm much enjoying it...because all of us, we are Tanzanian."

27-year-old Joyce Hagu, another student in the same class, joined us. She told me that she, too, intends to teach after getting her diploma. She thinks it is important to study and learn the traditional arts.

“When I'm here, I learn different traditional things. Our country is too big and I'm from Tanga region. The aim of (being) here is to get something new from other traditions."

The Bagamoyo school, just north along the coast from Dar Es Salaam, is thought to be the only one of its kind in sub-Saharan Africa. It was opened in 1981, largely inspired by a government policy of support for the arts launched under Tanzania's founder-leader, Julius Nyerere.

In addition to music, students are also taught dance, theater, acrobatics, costume design and lighting techniques.

I talked with Rashid Masimbi, the school's principal in his modest, cluttered office about Bagamoyo's guiding philosophy.

Reporter: “What is the philosophy of the school? Why are these things taught? What is your hope?”

Masimbi: “We have a philosophy and what we say is that in the first instance, we would like to develop a performance technique or tradition that is most suited to our own people in Tanzania. How we do that is that we base everything that we learn on what it is like in our (own) tradition."

But Mr. Masimbi told me the school also makes an effort to upgrade old styles of dance and music to meet the demands of contemporary audiences.

“You begin with a traditional dance and even this traditional dance, so you say, 'okay this was a dance which was operating say a hundred years back'. Now we are still continuing with the traditional dance but then things have changed so in contemporary terms how would we develop it so that it can continue to be attractive to modern, contemporary audiences? But also you take, you create new things from say for instance in dance we have had American choreographers who have come here and they have worked with us so that means they have brought in some American traditions in dance choreography, some of which we have said 'okay this we think we can fit with our own dancing traditions', so you apply that one."

The school has recently begun taking in students from abroad. Many come from other African countries -- including Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

But students have also come from as far away as Canada, Japan and New Zealand to take advantage of the occasional short-term classes offered at Bagamoyo.

It's a way the school can reach out -- and also finance operations at a time when Tanzania has broken with its socialist past and the government can no longer afford to provide as much funding as it did before.

Mr. Masimbi said it's impossible to teach all the different kinds of music or all the different kinds of ethnic dances performed in Tanzania alone -- never mind in other African countries. As he explained how he focuses on general dance techniques, he stood up to demonstrate:

“So what we do is we just train them to become dancers. Okay, African dance, what does it use mostly? The feet, how is it with the feet, here how is it with that, then you have this side here, what happens to the head, that sort of thing in terms of the techniques, the body use, the body parts' use. That, we think it would still be possible even if we didn't take a Zambian dance strictly, it would still be possible for a Zambian to benefit from this."

Mr. Masimbi only teaches theory courses now but as we talked in his office, he danced, recalling he had once been a dancer himself.

“You know Southern Africa, you have the dancing, if you have seen it, they use the small step here while with us here, in West Africa it's very fast dancers. Here it’s more graceful for this sort of thing."

As I left the Bagamoyo School of the Performing Arts, I thought about what Mr. Masimbi and others had told me: about how in Tanzania, the arts, especially dance and music, were initially used as tools for political mobilization in the country's struggle for independence.

After independence, they were put to work in the struggle to propagate socialism and to cultivate a sense of Tanzanian nationhood. Tanzania's socialist experiment failed. But it was clear to me that the decision to tap the country's different traditional cultural resources in the quest for a national cultural identity has succeeded.

One leading academic at the University of Dar Es Salaam told me, “nowadays people don't give a second thought about the fact that a certain dance or song is not their particular tribal dance or song. They simply accept it as part of Tanzania's heritage.”

I thought it was a lesson that other African countries might well learn.

When Will the Killers Be Put on Trial?

Rwanda's new President says the trial of those involved in the mass slaughter of ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus earlier this year, should begin as soon as possible or else he warns there is a risk of a surge in revenge attacks throughout the country. I reported in late August 1994 on remarks by Pasteur Bizimungu at a news conference.

President Bizimungu says he has no idea how much longer it will take before planned international war crimes tribunal is organized by the United Nations. But he tells reporters there is mounting popular dissatisfaction in Rwanda over the apparent slow pace.

“We have to start those trials as soon as possible because already when we are traveling in the country people are complaining, saying that the criminals are free and there are some people in the population who will attempt to have revenge themselves, thinking we are doing nothing.”

Already, Mr. Bizimungu says Rwanda's new authorities have detained some 60 people accused of carrying out reprisal attacks. He says even when fighting was still raging in Rwanda, the then rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front publicly executed two men for revenge activities.

Government officials say that so far the reprisal attacks have all involved individual acts of vengeance. They deny there has been any systematic program of reprisals.

Meanwhile, the UN Special envoy to Rwanda admitted there have been delays and other shortcomings in establishing an international war crimes tribunal to hear charges against people linked to massacres of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. But I reported from Kigali that the UN envoy, Shaharyar Khan, announced new plans designed to speed the pace of activity. Ultimately he was far too optimistic.

Mr. Khan told reporters three UN appointed experts are to arrive in Kigali next week to begin their investigation of the carnage in Rwanda and to set up procedures for the prosecution of those responsible. The UN Special Envoy also says he expects an additional 25 UN human rights observers will be coming to Rwanda shortly. These will help the three experts gather evidence against suspected war criminals, most of whom are extremists from the Hutu ethnic group.

Mr. Khan says the observers will also have another important role to play in bringing about reconciliation in Rwanda.

“They would help in bringing visible reassurance to the people, let's say, who are displaced persons or even refugees. And the very presence of these human rights observers would perhaps reassure them and give them that degree of confidence and security to come home.”

Many of Rwanda's displaced Hutus are concerned about possible reprisals from the country's new Tutsi-installed government, even though officials in Kigali have said repeatedly they have nothing to fear if they had no role in the mass slaughter of Tutsis during the civil war.

But Rwandan officials have also expressed concern about a possible surge in individual acts of revenge because of the slow pace of the international community in prosecuting the country's war criminals.

Mr. Khan acknowledges that until now, only three UN human rights monitors have been in Rwanda, a number he says is far too few. What's more, he says their activities have been restricted by a lack of transportation and communication.

He also admits the current monitors and those who are coming do not at the moment have a mandate to operate in Rwandan refugee camps in neighboring countries, where many suspected war criminals are believed to hiding. But overall, the UN envoy is expressing satisfaction at the impact of UN activities in Rwanda, and he maintains these are helping promote a return to normalcy.

The French Leave, Snubbing the UN Military Commander

Hours ahead of a midnight deadline, without fanfare or ceremony, French forces moved out of the controversial southwestern Rwandan “humanitarian protection zone” on Sunday, August 21st, 1994. I was the only reporter there, having flown down to the southwestern border town of Cyangugu by helicopter with the UN military commander in Rwanda. I filed this report:

The French commander accompanied by the last contingent of French soldiers in Rwanda left the border town of Cyangugu by plane without making any sort of parting statement. In fact, General Jean-Claude Lafourcade and the last French unit departed before the commander of UN military forces in Rwanda arrived for what was to have been a low key but nonetheless official change of command ceremony.

The UN commander, Canadian Major-General Guy Tousignant at first appeared stunned to find no French soldiers on hand for his arrival. But he later professed there was no slight, merely a timing mix up.

Ethiopian forces have now taken over security responsibilities around Cyangugu where as late as Saturday evening armed and uniformed soldiers of the ousted Hutu-led Rwandan government moved about freely.

The Ethiopian commander said the departing French took with them an estimated three hundred members of the former government’s security forces --- fresh evidence of the close collaboration between French authorities and the forces responsible for the genocide in Rwanda.

As the French left, several thousand Rwandans congregated at the main border crossing point from Cyangugu to Bukavu in Zaire (Congo). Zairean authorities have closed the frontier there and fired into the air to persuade the refugees to move back further into Rwanda.

The gunfire forced the helicopter that carried the UN military commander (and this reporter) to Cyangugu to climb to a higher altitude to get out of the possible range of Zairean bullets.

Despite the closure of the main crossing point from southwestern Rwanda into Zaire (Congo), there was no mass panic among the estimated ten thousand or so mainly Hutu refugees still congregated at the bridge over Lake Kivu marking the frontier on Sunday.

But one aid worker said some of the Rwandans were so apparently desperate to escape, they even tried to swim across the southern tip of the lake.

Later Sunday, the Zaireans (Congolese) opened another nearby border crossing point just south of the town of Cyangugu. UN officials said they apparently were trying to avoid further refugee congestion in Bukavu itself.

Back in Kigali the next day (Monday, April 22, 1994), UN military officials declined comment on France's decision to take along some 300 security personnel of the ousted Hutu-led Rwandan government when French forces withdrew from the southwest of the country:

UN military spokesman Major Jean-Guy Plante says French actions during their controversial two-month so-called humanitarian mission in Rwanda are none of the UN’s business and he refuses to comment on their decision to withdraw from the southwest with members of the ousted Rwandan government’s security forces.

“It is their decision, their problem. This is not for the UN to comment on that at all.”

Those defeated Rwandan forces in uniform and carrying weapons had been visible in the southwestern French zone as late as Saturday evening, even manning a road-block in the town of Cyangugu. Major Plante says since the French departure and the start of patrols by replacement UN peacekeepers from Ethiopia, no one has been spotted with guns roaming about the area.

Nevertheless UN observers in the region say there is still continued bandit activity by some of those linked to Hutu extremists and the UN military spokesman makes clear the UN will not permit the movement of armed individuals in the zones.

“We will not tolerate people walking around or driving around with weapons.”

For the time being, senior officials of Rwanda's new Tutsi-installed government say they are prepared to leave security in the southwest in the hands of the United Nations and keep their own soldiers out.

But influential Rwandan Defense Minister and Vice President Paul Kagame, in an interview with several journalists, says that restraint will only last as long as the UN troops in the former French zone are able to suppress any activities by former government forces.

So far the departure of the French has not triggered any reported major security problems. Major Plante describes the overall situation in the southwest as calm and says he is optimistic.

But he says UN authorities aren't taking anything for granted and will be monitoring the situation closely.

More than one million Hutu refugees fearful of reprisals at the hands of Rwanda's new government flooded the southwest during the French intervention. Thousands fled into neighboring Zaire (Congo) ahead of the French pullout, claiming they did not trust the United Nations to protect them. But aid workers say the overall number involved in the exodus has not been as great as that in earlier Rwandan refugee surges.

The Scene in Cyangugu

With the French soldiers regarded by Rwanda's new Tutsi installed government as allies of the ousted regime poised to complete their withdrawal from southwestern Rwanda, I decided in mid-August 1994 to travel again into the security zone they created to check on the situation there. I ended up in the southwestern Rwandan border town of Cyangugu.

Like a trickle of water that becomes a stream and then a river, Hutu refugees are surging by the thousands toward the Zairean border at Bukavu, just across from the Rwandan town of Cyangugu.

This latest procession of human misery starts along a winding road that passes through the mist-shrouded hills of the Nyungwe forest in southwestern Rwanda. It builds in size and momentum over a distance of more than 50 kilometers until the refugees reach the frontier.

Most are on foot, some on bicycle, and a few crammed in heavily laden vehicles. They carry their mattresses, their machetes, their bags, blankets, and their babies.

All are trying to get out of Rwanda before UN peacekeepers take over from the French soldiers who have been patrolling this so-called safe haven humanitarian aid zone in the southwest.

The Tutsi-led forces who now control Rwanda have promised not to enter the southwest zone for the time being and to leave security to the UN. Officials of the new government in Kigali have also told the masses of Hutu refugees they have nothing to fear if they played no part in the bloody ethnic and political slaughter of Rwanda's civil war.

But while many have decided to stay in Rwanda and take their chances, many more have decided not to run the risk. Their fears have been fueled by rumors of Tutsi reprisals, rumors spread by Hutu extremists linked to the ousted government.

Aid workers have been doing their best to try and cope with this latest humanitarian nightmare, telling the moving throngs conditions are better and relief supplies more plentiful in Rwanda. That, too, appears to have cut into the numbers fleeing to Zaire.

But many remain unconvinced, and French soldiers say the UN troops now at the Rwandan border town of Cyangugu should brace for trouble. That is because Zairean officials have closed the main crossing point. The refugees are being told to try to cross further south.

But as one French soldier said, they are not happy.

Another potential source of trouble for the UN soldiers now taking up posts in the southwest could come from troops of the ousted Hutu-led Rwandan government.

On the night before the French pullout, armed and uniformed members of the defeated army were still visible in Cyangugu. They even manned a roadblock on the main road through town. The new Tutsi-installed government in Kigali hopes the United Nations will disarm these soldiers.

As French Troops prepare to Pull Out, The UN Prepares to Take Over But General Dallaire Has A Final Warning

The UN special envoy to Rwanda said in mid-August 1994 that he had assurances from the country's new Tutsi dominated government that it would not dispatch its forces into the southwest of the country when French forces guarding Hutu refugees there pulled out. UN replacement forces, mainly African, were instead promising to protect the refugees who were fleeing into Zaire (Congo) ahead of the French pullout in fear of Tutsi reprisals.

UN special envoy Shaharyar Kahn says he has what he describes as a very clear understanding from Rwanda's new prime minister: an understanding that Rwanda's armed forces will not move into the southwestern French security zone to ensure law and order after the French leave.

Instead the UN diplomat says Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu has promised to temporarily leave security matters to the UN peacekeeping troops now taking up positions in the southwest. Mr. Kahn says the new government will dispatch representatives to establish a new civil administration in the zone.

But he insists the Prime Minister will await the UN's go ahead before sending any soldiers of the victorious Tutsi-led Rwandese Patriotic Front.

“He has assured me that the military elements of the RPF will not move in to the French area protection zone and that they would wait for the green light that we would provide before they move in, and that their insistence all along have been that their civilian representatives (administrators) should move into the zone to be able to take over the administration.”

In a joint appearance before reporters in Kigali, Mr. Kahn and the new UN military commander in Rwanda, Canadian Major General Guy Tousignant acknowledged there are ongoing security problems in the zone, problems such as looting and attacks by members of extremist groups tied to the ousted Hutu led government. They say such inflammatory activities have fueled what they characterize as a climate of uncertainty in the zone and contributed to the steady flow of Hutu refugees crossing into neighboring Zaire.

Still, envoy Kahn says the numbers of those fleeing, while significant, do not yet amount to a catastrophe.

“I think that today we may be with a problem, perhaps with a crisis, but it is not yet of catastrophic proportions of an exodus, and there seems to be for the present a movement which you may call critical but perhaps not, hopefully not, catastrophic.”

In an effort to restore order and create a climate of confidence in the southwest, top UN officials in Rwanda say they will do everything possible, even if that means carrying out disarmament operations.

Meanwhile, the outgoing commander of UN military forces in Rwanda told reporters that extremists linked to the ousted Hutu-led government were hampering a return to normalcy in the country and he predicted they would become a serious destabilizing threat if something was not done quickly to halt their activities. In mid-August 1994 I reported on the farewell news conference of Canadian Major-General Romeo Dallaire who said the international community should address the problem of the Hutu extremists promptly.

General Dallaire says it's no secret that what he calls subversive elements are now sitting in refugee camps in Tanzania and Zaire (Congo), receiving food, water, and medical assistance while plotting how to return power in Rwanda.

The outgoing UN force commander tells reporters in Kigali these elements tied to the former Hutu-led Rwandan government aren't yet ready to mount a full-scale assault on the country and its new leaders, installed last month by the mainly-Tutsi rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front.

But at a farewell news conference he says they will become a serious threat if the international community does not act quickly. He believes every day they are allowed to remain at large, they make a return to normalcy in Rwanda more complicated.

“It doesn't take many fanatics or extremists to destabilize and so I think the international community has got to get in there.”

The Canadian Major-General suggests an effort to remove the extremists from the camps may also relieve the enormous burden posed by the more than one million Hutu refugees now languishing in countries neighboring Rwanda. He says most of these refugees are innocent of any involvement in the ethnic and political bloodbath that occurred in Rwanda but are now being used as pawns.

“I think enormous amounts of those Rwandans were forced out of their country and I think there are still a lot of people among them who are forcing them to stay out and we got to get at those people.”

General Dallaire says he believes most of the refugees want to return to their homes and will do so -- but not until they can make a decision free from interference by the extremists. He says that could be a job for the UN forces now deployed in Rwanda and without offering any elaboration he indicates there are contingency plans for such an operation.

He says UN officials have already discussed the problem with Zairean (Congolese) authorities, and further talks are being held. He says neither the Zaireans (Congolese) nor the Tanzanians are happy about the presence of subversive Rwandan elements among the refugees, and are looking for the UN to help find a solution.

Rwanda’s new government has also accused Hutu extremists of effectively holding the vast majority of the refugee population hostage. Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu has said he would welcome foreign action to remove subversives from the camp, but has questioned whether the international community is up to the task.

Genocide and Golf

I'm heading off for a golf weekend so I thought this story would be an appropriate pause in my recollections of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda:

In a country perhaps best known for its dead and dying, its diseased and displaced, it might seem frivolous to speak about a golf course. But in August 1994, when I came upon the Kigali Golf Club while traveling around the Rwandan capital, what I saw and learned made it as good a place as any to review the tumult that tore apart a land and the lives of its residents: the rich, the poor, the Rwandans and Europeans.

The chalk written message on the tournament scoreboard at the Source of the Nile Golf Club in Kigali is faded. But the words are nonetheless still quite legible – “congratulations to Mr. Theo Pas for a hole in one on hole number four, April third, 1994." That was three days before the death of Rwanda's president plunged the country into an explosion of ethnic and political blood-letting; three days before the Golf Club of Kigali, like so many sites in Rwanda, became what is now an overgrown, deserted and deadly place -- a place where the only good things are memories.

The blackboard highlighting Mr. Pas' triumph, for example, stands on a veranda strewn with bits of broken glass, pieces of a shattered African sculpture, and faded receipts for past rounds of golf: 15-hundred Rwandan Francs, or about five dollars, on a weekday, a bit more on Saturdays and Sundays.

There is no one there now, but it requires little imagination to visualize golfers sitting on the terrace just a few months ago. They would be enjoying a cool drink, and what a club brochure describes as privileged views of Kigali and the Rwandan hills.

Privileged is probably the word that best describes the club's more than 100 dues-paying members representing 18 different nationalities. As documents among the debris that litters the clubhouse made clear, that membership was predominately European. The founders back in 1987 included two Belgians, two Germans, an Italian and a Frenchman. By profession, they were civil engineers, bankers, travel agents and an economist.

Any of them in Kigali just before the slaughter began this past year were certainly looking ahead to the annual club members' tournament, scheduled for April 10th. Instead, that was the day Belgian paratroopers arrived to evacuate some 15-hundred foreign nationals, among them undoubtedly some whose names were on the club's membership roster.

The state of the Rwandans who frequented the club, like so many others who saw their lives disrupted back in April, is less certain. The hand-written time cards of those employed at the course, showing hours worked and vacations taken in the months before the eruption of violence, now lie randomly on the ground near the parking lot.

It is likely some of the half million or more Rwandans killed in the civil war died at the golf course. Located in a suburb ten kilometers from the city center, it is close to the parliament building where heavy fighting raged for weeks between government forces and rebels of the Rwandese Patriotic Front. The faint, but unmistakable odor of death lingers near a cargo container where the groundskeeper once kept his tools.

There had been plans to expand the course from nine holes to a full 18, and to build a new clubhouse. But it is apparent today those projects will have to be shelved for a long, long time, perhaps forever. There are other priorities in a society trying to rebuild from the devastation of war, other needs in a land where so many suffer deprivation.

And there is yet another, perhaps even more compelling reason for people to stay away from the fairways, greens and tees at the Nile course these days. While the only obstacles in the past were golf's traditional water hazards and sand traps, it is believed land mines have now been added -- land mines cloaked by the vegetation, threatening to kill or maim anyone who to dares trespass on what was once a well manicured playground for Kigali's elite.

PS: the course now has 18 holes.

The Hutus Start to Flee As The French Pull Out of the Rwandan Safe Zone for Killers

In August 1994, UN and other international relief agencies were preparing for a possible new crushing flow of refugees along the southwestern Rwandan border with Zaire (Congo). From Kigali, I reported that aid officials said they had a plan to minimize a catastrophe while helping the government keep Rwandans inside their own country.

Relief workers say there is no sense of panic yet, but they report thousands of displaced Rwandans -- mainly members of the Hutu ethnic community -- are on the move in southwestern Rwanda, heading toward the Zairean (Congolese) border town of Bukavu.

It is a scene like the one played out a month ago in the northwest of the country, when hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled over the frontier to the Zairean town of Goma. This time though, aid workers, like Sybella Wilkes of the UN Rwanda emergency office, say the exodus could have even more tragic consequences.

“It will be far more horrific than ever, because basically Bukavu doesn't have the infrastructure (resources) to support the huge influx of refugees in this area. And anyway the people that are actually leaving and are on the move are much weaker. A lot of people have been displaced for a significant amount of time. They've been displaced for up to three months. The area is traditionally one of drought and it will take a long time to get there.”

The southwest of Rwanda is a security zone controlled by French military forces, but those forces are pulling out and are scheduled to be withdrawn completely by next week. The United Nations is rushing in replacement peacekeepers from other nations to guarantee the safety of the more than one million displaced now in the zone.

But there is still a sense of fear among many of these Rwandans -- fear that they may face reprisals from the Tutsi dominated security forces of the new government in Kigali once the French are gone.

In part, their fear stems from what UN officials, aid workers and diplomatic sources describe as propaganda put out by Hutu extremists linked to Rwanda's toppled government. These agitators claim the new government intends to carry out mass revenge killings for the massacres of Tutsis by Hutus during the civil war earlier this year.

Some aid workers say there is evidence that not all displaced Hutus in the southwest are ready to believe their leaders so for now the numbers moving toward the Zairean border are not alarming. One American aid official, who has just toured the zone, says it appears they don't want to flee into Zaire (Congo), but do want to be close to the border just in case.

To encourage the displaced to remain in Rwanda where they receive enough food, medicine and other essential supplies to survive, relief agencies have devised a three-point strategy.

First, they are bolstering their own presence in the southwest and marshalling aid in the zone. Second, they are preparing to follow the displaced with those supplies if -- as they expect -- the displaced keep heading toward the border. Finally, near the frontier, they are preparing to offer the refugees transportation to new camps -- camps near the border, but still inside Rwanda.

Relief workers say if their efforts fail, then as many as half a million Rwandans could end up in the area of Bukavu in Zaire (Congo), joining about 300 thousand refugees already there. If they leave, the relief officials say they probably won't return for a long time and the lack of good roads and a high capacity airport at Bukavu, along with growing resentment among Zaireans (Congolese) could mean new misery for the refugees.

Rwanda’s New Leaders Urge Refugees to Come Home But The Killers Maintain Their Death Grip on the Camps

Efforts were underway in Rwanda in August 1994 to prevent another mass exodus of refugees in the battle-scared country into neighboring Zaire (Congo). I met in the Rwandan capital Kigali with the country’s new Prime Minister, installed by the victorious Rwandese Patriotic Front, to discuss those efforts.

Rwandan Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu calls the return to their homes of the country’s displaced population the top priority of the new government. He says that is why ministers in his cabinet have launched a series of urgent missions into southwestern Rwanda, where more than a million displaced members of the country's majority Hutu ethnic group -- fearful of their future under the new Tutsi dominated regime -- are sheltering under the protection of French military forces.

Those French forces are to withdraw next week and aid workers and UN officials are concerned most of the Hutus could flee into neighboring Zaire (Congo). Their exodus is being urged by extremists of the ousted Hutu led government who contend they will share in the blame for the massacres of Tutsis carried out during the civil war .

But Mr. Twagiramungu says the message his ministers are carrying to the displaced Hutus this week in public appearances throughout the southwest is clear: the country's new leaders have not taken power to carry out even more killing.

“We are not here to kill, to avenge or have any reprisal or retribution for that matter. We are here to govern and we want to govern, we have to make sure that the security for the population is assured. This is a political message.”

At the same time as Rwanda's new leaders try to persuade people to stay the United Nations is attempting to deploy a replacement force of peacekeepers from other nations to take over from the French in the southwest. UN military spokesman Jean-Guy Plante tells reporters the United Nations is also seeking approval for a plan to turn the southwest into a demilitarized zone as an additional measure to build confidence among the displaced Hutus and to keep them in Rwanda. Major Plante says high level discussions on the DMZ proposal are currently underway between UN officials and representatives of the new Rwandan government.

But Prime Minister Twagiramungu says the idea is unacceptable and that his government’s sovereignty over its own territory cannot be compromised.

“It is an idea which is going nowhere. It is completely false. And I think it can only go to what we call a ‘cul-de-sac’ (dead end). So we do not understand why the demilitarized zone should exist. We have the government. We believe this government is going to be stable.”

UN military officials and relief workers now say the number of Rwandans fleeing into Zaire (Congo) from the southwest are not as large nor as alarming as some initial reports that suggest it. But they say they are continuing to monitor the situation closely as the date of the French withdrawal draws ever closer. A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says aid workers are preparing additional sites for new refugee camps in Zaire (Congo) in the event a mass exodus does take place.

Uganda's President Calls for the Quick Detention of Rwanda's Genocidal War Criminals

In August 1994, after a holiday with my family back in the US, I returned to Rwanda, traveling overland via Uganda where I had a chance to stop and interview Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, a strong supporter of the new RPF-led government in Rwanda. In my interview, President Museveni called for swift international action to detain those war criminals responsible for the slaughter in Rwanda, criminals he said were now preventing refugees from going home.

The Ugandan leader says the new government installed in Kigali by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic Front faces a difficult task in its efforts to re-build Rwanda following a bloody civil war.

But Mr. Museveni says the challenge is made more difficult by the activities of exiled extremists tied to the ousted Hutu leadership. He says those responsible for most of the bloodshed in Rwanda are now interfering with the newly-proclaimed government's efforts to lure back ethnic Hutu refugees sheltering in neighboring countries such as Tanzania and Zaire (Congo).

In an interview, the Ugandan leader says the international community should act quickly to end such interference.

“The international community should remove those criminals from the camps because I hear they are misinforming the population, they are intimidating them. So they should remove them so the people can decide freely whether they want to go back or they want to stay where they are. I think that would be the one move that could help the process.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Museveni makes clear the RPF must remain a disciplined force, refraining from vigilante style reprisal attacks against Hutu returnees. Otherwise, he says the refugees will be too scared to return to their homes.

Reports of alleged violence and harassment against returning Hutus by members of the rebel army have slowed the flow of refugees heading back into Rwanda.

In his interview, conducted at his Kampala office, Mr. Museveni hails the on-going efforts by the United States and other western governments to provide humanitarian assistance to Rwanda. But, he also says -- what he calls -- excessive interference by un-specified European powers stopped initiatives by Rwandan and African leaders that might have helped resolve ethnic and political differences leading to the bloodshed.

It was clear he was referring to France. Right after that interview, I traveled to Kigali, where I met with Rwanda's new Prime Minister who told me war criminals from the ousted Hutu-led government were effectively holding the vast majority of the country's refugee population hostage by spreading false stories of reprisal executions if they returned home. I filed this report on my discussion with Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu.

Mr. Twagiramungu welcomes the suggestion by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni that the international community remove war criminals from refugee camps in Zaire (Congo) and elsewhere so the refugees they have been intimidating can decide freely whether they want to go home.

But the new Rwandese Prime Minister questions whether the idea is a feasible one.

“Unless the international community arranges for the killers to be taken out of the camps and brings them to Rwanda, I do not know how they will proceed.”

Mr. Twagiramungu indicates his government installed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic Front is putting its hopes on another plan, one under which Zaire (Congo) has agreed to disarm troops of the ousted regime and bar Hutu extremists from further political activity. He believes that plan could be implemented soon but says diplomatic follow up talks are necessary.

The Rebels in Rwanda say They are now the Government, but the Killers Remain on the Loose

By early July 1994, the Hutu extremists and their political backers were largely on the run, leaving behind them a trail of blood. The predominantly Tutsi rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front, the RPF, was preparing to organize what it said would be a broad-based, representative government to run the war-torn country. I had this report:

It was three months ago that fighting erupted in Rwanda after the death of President Juvenal Habyarimana in a suspicious plane crash on the outskirts of Kigali.

During those three months, anywhere from a half-million to a million people may have been killed -- most of them members of the Tutsi ethnic minority, but also many political moderates from the majority Hutu group.

In those three months of fighting, troops of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandese Patriotic Front managed to take control of about two-thirds of the country as they moved to halt further ethnic and political massacres. In the past week, they finally seized the capital, Kigali, and the strategic southern city of Butare.

The surviving elements of the self-appointed Hutu-led interim government formed after Mr. Habyarimana's death, along with troops of the Rwandan government army and members of extremist Hutu militia groups blamed for most of the killings, are now largely confined to northwestern and southwestern areas of the country, along Rwanda's border with Zaire (Congo).

Against that backdrop of shifting fortunes and in an effort to fill what they now see as a power vacuum, RPF leaders have claimed the right to form a new government for Rwanda. They say they should no longer be considered rebels -- a description they believe now applies more appropriately to the remaining supporters of the old interim administration.

Still, the RPF is going out of its way to stress that it wants the new government to be more than just an exclusive club for the former rebels and the minority Tutsis. Officials like RPF Secretary General Theogene Rudasingwa characterize what has happened in Rwanda during the past three months as a popular victory over evil.

“What is really important is to recognize that there has been a murderous regime and that people, ordinary Rwandan people, men and women, organized and defeated this murderous regime.”

And that is why Mr. Rudasingwa stresses the new government must be broad-based and representative.

“It's very important that we move to establish the kind of authority that is broadly representative and which should be able to begin in a very deliberate manner to tackle the question of national unity, the question of democratization, the question of the kind of institutional reforms we need to guarantee the safety of our people and respect for the fundamental rights of the people and I think these are the basic premises upon which we must proceed."

It is not yet clear who will be included in the new government, whose formation the RPF suggests will be guided by the principles of last year's Arusha peace-and-power sharing accord. Many prominent Hutu moderate leaders involved in the efforts to implement that agreement were killed in the mass bloodshed that swept across Rwanda beginning in April.

But a number did manage to flee the country to safety and some who were trapped in Rwanda survived after being rescued by RPF soldiers.

One thing does seem certain: anyone associated with the ethnic and political butchery of the past three months -- especially the leaders of extremist groups blamed for most of the killings -- will be excluded from participation in a future administration. The RPF says those responsible for what they regard as genocide must be brought to justice and punished for their crimes.

But the leaders of ethnic Hutu extremist militia groups blamed for most of the ethnic and political killings are still at large. Some of them are in the remaining pockets of territory held by the Hutu-declared interim government along Lake Kivu on Rwanda's western border with Zaire (Congo), areas where French troops have taken up positions as part of their controversial humanitarian mission. Others have fled abroad -- some to France; others to countries much closer to Rwanda, including neighboring Tanzania, Burundi and Zaire (Congo).

UN authorities and aid workers have recently expressed distress over the activities of some of these exiled extremists. At one refugee camp in northwestern Tanzania, supporters of a local Rwandan government official dubbed "the Hutu super-killer" by one UN agency threatened relief officials who sought to have him thrown out of the camp.

A similar incident occurred at another refugee facility in eastern Zaire (Congo), where aid workers also reported Hutu militias were openly arming and training themselves.

In addition, at both sites, officials have reported recurring security problems -- including attacks by Hutus against refugees from the Tutsi ethnic minority. One aid worker referred specifically to cases of murder and torture.

Rwandan Hutu extremists are also continuing to broadcast ethnic hate messages over a clandestine radio that remains under their control. And in a disturbing new development, there is growing suspicion the same mobile transmitter used by the Rwandan extremists is now being used to stir up ethnic tensions in Burundi.

Burundi's interim President (Sylvestre Ntibantunganya) has condemned the pirate radio broadcasts. Opposition political parties say the radio -- in their words -- wants to start a war in Burundi, just like the conflict in Rwanda.

Political leaders in Burundi have specifically asked the French intervention troops in southwestern Rwanda to search out and confiscate the transmitter, which is widely thought to be operating from a forested area along the Rwanda-Burundi border.

A Tale from Somalia for Mother's Day

In Somalia, a harsh land where anarchy has reigned and death from famine and fighting have been commonplace, care and compassion might seem to the rest of the world to be foreign concepts. But there are countless stories of Somalis who have made sacrifices and shown generosity in attempts to salvage their country and its people. During a September 1993 trip, I found one such case in the small village of Awdinlie, outside of Baidoa. Consider this my Mother’s Day special:

Meet Musulima Abdullahi Ahmed -- a short, stocky woman with four children of her own, a small plot of farmland, 70 chickens, and an incredible story to tell about how she took in not one, not two, but seven orphans.

Speaking through an interpreter, she says that “when the starvation was going on people were coming from other villages so she just met these children starving on the streets.”

At first she took them to the feeding center in Awdinlie where she worked, a center run by one of the international humanitarian organizations providing relief supplies in Somalia. When the center shut down earlier this year, she took them into her own home where she continues to care for them.

Speaking through an interpreter, she says she is able to provide for the children from her own farm plot and by selling the eggs laid by her chickens. She says “she had her own farm but the harvest she said was not good but at least what I got from my farm I cook for them. I also sell the eggs and also buy them other foods.”

One of her new charges is 10-year-old Abderahman Derow, who along with one of his brothers walked two days from their village of Dolol until they reached Awdinlie. He says their mother died before Somalia's civil war and their father was killed by bandits who took his livestock. He has two other brothers but does not know where they are or what happened to them.

He says they were scared by the fighting that went on around them, but they reached Awdinlie and along came a miracle.

“When we were crying and sitting together in the village, this mother saw us and then she collected us.”

That was a year ago. Now Abderahman wants to go to school. He says he wants to study English so he can get a good job in the future. But he begins to cry as he talks with visitors about the past.

Visitor: Are you okay here?
Boy (through interpreter): Yes
Visitor: Do you have any problems?
Boy (through interpreter): They don't have any problems. He says she give us good food.

There are other such stories of caring and compassion -- the elementary principal whose own wife and children were killed in Somalia's civil war but who now has 12-hundred children to care for in his rebuilt school; the health worker who was the lone survivor of famine and fighting in her family and who now fights the diseases that threaten the babies of other survivors. They too are part of the story of somalia.

Awdinlie is in the Bay [pronounced 'bai'] region of Somalia and is considered the country’s breadbasket. Rehabilitation of its farm villages is considered crucial to the country's future. I visited the village outside the regional capital of Baidoa and reported on how the inhabitants were getting along one year after the start of what became an international effort to end famine and fighting in Somalia.

Awdinlie is about a 45-minute car ride from Baidoa over a badly rutted road that goes past open fields that have been turned into mass burial grounds for the victims of last year's famine and fighting. It is a dry, dusty and flat place with scores of mud and thatch huts whose population has surged to about seven-thousand as those displaced by the hunger and violence have come back to rejoin family members who stayed and somehow survived.

It is a village where humanitarian relief organizations set up feeding centers and a health clinic and later distributed seeds and agricultural tools to help farmers get back to work. Now, one harvest later, the distribution of free food has stopped and the residents of Awdinlie are learning how to rely on themselves once again. It is a lesson which is apparently a hard one for them to cope with.

Village elder Issak Moalim Mohamed, speaking with visitors through an interpreter, says their first harvest of sorghum and cowpeas was not good and he is still looking to international relief agencies for assistance, especially to meet the demands of the new returnees.

Interpreter: He says the harvest is not good. He said there is insects and birds destroyed the crops so he said the harvest was not good.
Visitor: What will they do with the harvest that they had, will they keep it, sell it or store it? Interpreter: He says it was not enough to take to the market so he said we shall keep it and eat it.
Visitor: Will there be enough for all of the people in the village to eat?
Interpreter: No.
Visitor: What will they do?
Interpreter: He said maybe we expect from the NGO’s (non-governmental organizations) otherwise he said we don't have any other solution.

Foreign aid workers in Awdinlie say there are differing opinions about the size of the harvest and the village's real needs and that is why a post-harvest assessment is being planned. They say the crop may indeed have been less than a complete success, but voice suspicions that the village's leaders, having grown dependent on outside help, are having a hard time being weaned away from free food and aid.

They say attendance at Awdinlie's feeding stations dropped off steadily and prompted their closing. They also point out there are no further signs of malnutrition among the village's residents.

Caroline Abla, a nutrionist with the International Medical Corps, says negotiations go on constantly to get the elders to agree to shoulder some of the responsibilities for their community's future. She says, for example, that the elders agreed to provide food to support a Somali health worker living in Awdinlie but only if they were given free food. Similarly she says the elders try to use efforts by relief agencies to set up communal latrines and specified trash dumps as bargaining chips to get more aid.

“Anytime you ask them how are things, oh they're not good, you have to give me this, you have to give me that and it's really, it's really very hard when you don't have anything to give them except education and medicine and they don't understand how important that is until you do something drastic like say okay we're not going to support you if you're, the community is not going to be involved then they will know how important it was to have a health post and someone who knows how to dispense medication.”

Still, there is no doubt Awdinlie has come a long way during the past year. Twenty Somali police now patrol the village and even though they do not all have weapons, they report no serious crime problems. There is a jail -- a converted shipping container ringed with barbed wire -- but it is empty. Its last occupant, an alleged looter, was taken to Baidoa by French troops to stand trial.

And the village market, while not teeming with activity, is nonetheless stocked with a variety of products -- from camel meat and beef, to vegetables and cleaning powder, batteries and cloth. The vendors say business is not good, but even they acknowledge it is much, much better than before.

France Prepares to Intervene in Rwanda --- To Protect the Killers, the Rebels Charge

As the genocidal slaughter continued in Rwanda in 1994 and rebel forces advanced in an effort to halt the bloodshed, there was no indication that any country was willing to intervene to prevent further killings. Then, suddenly, there was talk of possible French military intervention. Although then UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros Ghali said the idea should be taken seriously, other UN officials involved with the situation in Rwanda privately expressed deep reservations and rebels of the Rwandese Patriotic Front voiced strong opposition to any French operation.

One UN military official calls the prospect of French military intervention in Rwanda "frightening."

Another official, this one a civilian involved in humanitarian affairs, fears the presence of French troops will only make matters worse.

These officials are joined by private relief workers in expressing firm, although anonymous, opposition to the idea of a French operation in Rwanda. One scared relief worker says he wants to be on the next plane out of the country, if French troops do come in.

Among the chief reasons cited by these officials for their concern is the adamant opposition to French intervention voiced repeatedly by the rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front, or RPF. The comments of senior rebel officials, as well as the broadcasts of rebel radio, make clear the RPF stands ready to fight French soldiers who show up in Rwanda.

The rebels' opposition is based on their accusation that the government in Paris -- in the words of one recent rebel broadcast -- "is directly responsible for the massacres and genocide which took place, and are still taking place" in the country. The rebels argue this is the case because France has intervened in the past to prevent the Rwandan government from being overwhelmed by RPF forces.

The rebels also accuse France of providing millions of dollars worth of arms and ammunition to Rwandan government forces -- and helping train militia from the majority Hutu ethnic community who have been accused of mass killings of members of the minority Tutsi group.

Since the latest violence erupted in Rwanda, the rebels have also criticized France for providing visas to senior Rwandan officials allegedly responsible for ordering the massacres.

The predominantly Tutsi rebels claim that after hundreds of thousands of civilian lives have been lost in Rwanda, the only reason why France would want to intervene is clear -- to protect the murderers.

UN officials admit they have been able to do little to prevent the killings in Rwanda. But they argue that they have had success in reaching agreements with both the government and rebel sides to evacuate civilians to safety. Those lives might otherwise have been lost in the bloodshed. They suggest a French presence could upset that effort and could, in the end, lead to a higher casualty toll.

France did later intervene, setting up a “protected” zone in southwestern Rwanda. In future postings, we’ll see exactly what happened when they did.

They Believed in What They Were Doing --- That Killing Was Good

A special UN report released in the summer of 1994 said the massacres of ethnic Tutsis and Hutu moderates carried out in Rwanda were premeditated and systematically coordinated -- not the result some sort of spontaneous explosion triggered by the April sixth death of the country's President. While in Rwanda, I met a former top Rwandan government official who confirmed the killings were indeed planned far in advance.

Ismael Amrisued was an aide and advisor to President Juvenal Habyarimana as well as a former Rwandan ambassador. He says it was no secret that as early as 1992, young people from the ethnic Hutu majority were being recruited and trained at special camps to join extremist militia groups like the Interahamwe.

“It was public. They used to recruit young people, put them in buses, take them to Gabirow areas, Gabco, Gisenyi side and those guys were staying there one month or more and they were coming back quite proud, telling their stories how they are going to get us one day, how they are going to kill us. Just showing you the gun they are carrying."

Mr. Amrisued is himself a Hutu. But he says he was marked for death because he was regarded as a political moderate who favored reconciliation with the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandese Patriotic Front, the RPF. He says he personally received threats several times -- even before the death of President Habyarimana in early April.

He says there had also been several political killings by then -- killings that had prompted him to send his wife and children abroad before the mass slaughter began.

Mr. Habyarimana's death when his plane was apparently shot down on the evening of April sixth still remains the critical focal point in the wave of killings that subsequently swept across Rwanda. But Mr. Amrisued says the killing that began that night could hardly have been spontaneous.

By the morning of April seventh, just hours after the plane went down on the outskirts of Kigali, he says even in such distant parts of the country as the southwestern town of Cyangugu, hundreds had already been killed.

“In Cyangugu, on Thursday morning, they had already, I mean around eight (AM), more than 500 people were already killed and it's quite far from Kigali."

He says that since people in Rwanda tend to go to bed early, and given that the Presidential plane went down late at night, few could have heard the news on the radio.

“But at two in the morning, they had already started killing, which means, instruction or some phone exchange had been circulating in the country and then they started killing those who were already targeted or listed to be killed and of course Tutsi were there to be killed."

Mr. Amrisued is among those who believe Mr. Habyarimana was killed by former political allies who feared he was prepared to implement a peace and power-sharing agreement with the rebel RPF. But he still holds the late President responsible for the massacres since he says Mr. Habyarimana spurned repeated appeals from moderates to halt the mass arming of civilians.

The former envoy says that in addition to guns, machetes were being handed out to the extremists starting in 1992. He does not know for certain but believes they were bought by Interahamwe leaders and distributed for free.

“You have seen those small machetes. You'll see a small, small machete which are used in some Asian countries. Those machetes are just for killings and we don't know who has imported them but all Interahamwe used to have them on their belts."

Mr. Amrisued hints at possible drug use by those involved in carrying out the massacres. But he dismisses suggestions most of the killers had to be forced to participate in the bloodshed.

“They were believing in what they are doing. I can't say all of them, but most of them were doing it willingly because they had been taught to do so. Once you believe that killing is good, killing a Tutsi is good, then you go and kill him. They have learned very well their lesson."

Go back and read the April 6th post:
http://reporterregrets.blogspot.com/2007/04/anniversary-to-remember.html
You'll see it was also the international community that knew what was coming in Rwanda and failed to act.

A Trip to the Border

During the 1994 exodus of thousands of Rwandans into Tanzania, UN officials and relief workers said at one point that many of the latest refugees were accusing Rwandan rebel soldiers of carrying out massacres of innocent civilians, including women and children. I went to the remote Tanzanian border area villege of Ntobeye in May 1994 and filed this report:

The Tanzanian border village of Ntobeye is a four-hour walk from the nearest dirt road. Relief workers who made their way into the village for the first time this past week were stunned to discover an estimated 15-thousand newly-arrived Rwandan refugees there.

Unlike the quarter million or so Rwandans who fled into Tanzania with many of their possessions in late April, these refugees have little or no food; many are without warm clothing or blankets to protect them from the heavy rains that drench the lush, hilly countryside at this time of year, shrouding the valleys in a cold cloudy mist.

What all too many of these new arrivals do have are shocking stories of alleged atrocities committed by the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF. Its forces only seized control of the border area around the Rusumo Falls crossing point with Tanzania during the past month. The rebels claim that crossing point is open -- and that Rwandans on both sides of the frontier are free to come and go as they wish.

Yet the 15-thousand refugees gathered in Ntobeye -- and thousands more who have arrived in Tanzania in the latest exodus -- have all purposely skirted the bridge built over the waterfalls there.

Instead, they have waded through swampland and used crude log canoes to cross the swollen Akagera river that marks the border. They say they took the hard way out to avoid the rebels, who they claim have begun killing civilians, including women and children, who are members of the majority Hutu ethnic group.

Until now, most reports of massacres have come from government-controlled areas in Rwanda and have been carried out by Hutu extremists against members of the minority Tutsi group. The rebel movement, largely dominated by Tutsis, has been credited with showing remarkable restraint in not engaging in revenge killings.

But UN officials and relief workers say the stories brought out by the latest refugees of rebel-orchestrated killings are credible and disturbing. They include accounts of Hutus being gathering in a single place such as a school and then murdered. There are tales of families being thrown into pit latrines and buried alive. There are stories of would-be refugees being shot by rebels within sight of the border.

Panos Moumtzis is a spokesman for the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. He expresses the frustration of relief workers over what now seems to be an unending spiral of violence.

“There is nothing changing in Rwanda. The situation is getting worse and worse every day. More and more people are killed every minute. Thousands of refugees are crossing the borders every day. The relief workers in the border feel very desperate. Something has to be done, I don't know what this would be, but something has to be done and has to be done immediately so at least some lives could be saved in Rwanda.”

The latest atrocity accounts by Hutu refugees coincide with reports from relief workers themselves of seeing piles of fresh corpses on the Rwandan side of the frontier as well as smoke and flames rising from burning villages. Moreover, journalists recently granted permission by rebel officials to visit the eastern Rwanda area have suddenly been denied access on the grounds that rebel escorts are unavailable.

One observation: during our trip to the border area, we noticed suspicious young men, usually wearing long trench coats and wrap-around sunglasses amongst the refugees, listening intently as we asked questions. In one such “monitored” gathering, a young man, apparently a farmer, claimed he had watched the rebels kill several family members, including his mother. An older woman was standing next to him. We asked who she was. He said, “this is my mother” --- which most observers will agree destroyed the credibility of his claim. We were later told the shady looking young men in their trench coats and shades were extremist Hutu leaders who were even then exercising their terror control over the refugee camps. As the months went on we learned they would even resort to murder to control refugee statements to the press and aid workers and to prevent Hutus from leaving the camps to return to Rwanda, something the RPF was encouraging.

Rebel Atrocities Reported

During this early May 1994 visit to the Rwanda-Tanzanian border area, we heard for the first time from refugees shocking new stories of atrocities allegedly committed by the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front. There was no confirmation from any independent sources of such claims and there was good reason to doubt the stories as the sources were ethnic Hutus, the group which started the Rwandan genocide and which was responsible for confirmed atrocities. It was thought Hutu extremist leaders probably disseminated the claims of RPF atrocities among Hutu refugees with instructions to spread the rumors.

The little girl with the raw machete gash in the back of her head is just two years old and an orphan. Her guardian -- a former teacher and now a refugee -- says he found her in a pile of corpses in a schoolroom in Rwanda.

The story is an appallingly familiar one, just another example of the carnage that has turned Rwanda into a huge slaughterhouse. Yet there is a difference.

This girl -- and those massacred victims near where she was found -- are all Hutus. And this particular atrocity is attributed to the Tutsi-dominated rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front or RPF.

It is one of a number of alarming new allegations about rebel activities in eastern Rwanda, an area only recently seized by RPF fighters. These accounts are being told to UN officials, relief workers and journalists by some of the 25 to 30-thousand Rwandan refugees who have poured into a remote area in northwestern Tanzania over the past week.

Panos Moumtzis is a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees who has been working in the area.

“Up until now, the majority of refugees who have crossed, actually all of them, they told us stories about running away because they were scared of the RPF. But none of them had eyewitnessed killings. In the last two days we see for the first time refugees who come and tell us they saw RPF killing people.”

Mr. Moumtzis relates some of the stories.

“There was a specific account of a family who saw the seven members of their neighbor's family being put into a latrine and buried alive. There were several accounts from several border points. We got a lot of people in different locations who told us the same story -- that while they were in their village they were called over by the RPF who arrived in the village and told them they were going to have a peace and reconciliation meeting in the school. Once all the men were brought to the school, several of them were killed and some of them managed to escape and these are the ones who told us the story they eyewitnessed.”

The rebels have denied carrying out any indiscriminate killings of civilians. They also say the main border crossing point in this area, a bridge over the Akagera river at a place called Rusumo Falls, is open and that Rwandans, Hutu or Tutsi, are free to cross in either direction.

Yet journalists this past week were denied access into Rwanda at the Falls. Aside from a handful of rebels, the only people at the bridge were aid officials and other foreigners who came to see the bloated bodies, victims of the genocide tossed into the river, that still float by.

The latest Rwandan arrivals in Tanzania -- all of them Hutus -- intentionally skirted the bridge, choosing instead to struggle through swamplands and use crude dugout canoes to make their way across the river elsewhere to avoid the RPF.

Yet even some of these refugees report a perilous journey. They say they saw rebel soldiers shooting men, women and children trying to flee through these unofficial routes.

One group of some 15-thousand Rwandans has just been found in a village that is a four-hour walk from the nearest dirt road. Relief workers are now attempting to get them to move to a huge refugee camp near the town of Ngara where more than a quarter million other Rwandans who fled late last month are now assembled and are beginning to receive food, plastic sheeting and other relief supplies.