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.