A Warning About Iraq's Nuclear Ambitions from the First President Bush

To close out this series (and begin a vacation break from posting), I want to go back to Thanksgiving Day, November 1990, when I was a White House correspondent covering the first President Bush. On that day, the elder Mr. Bush was in Saudi Arabia, visiting US troops deployed in the desert adjacent to the Iraqi border prior to the first US military action against Saddam Hussein, triggered by his invasion and seizure of Kuwait. You’ll see Iraq’s nuclear ambitions figured in the President’s concerns, just as they did again in 2003 in his son’s Presidency.

It was an emotional day for President Bush as he spent the American Thanksgiving holiday with US troops in the Persian Gulf -- troops he may one day have to order into battle. I accompanied Mr. Bush from bases in the Saudi desert to an amphibious assault ship in the Gulf and filed this report.

For George Bush, this was no ordinary Thanksgiving -- just as it was no special holiday for the thousands of US military personnel on alert in the Persian Gulf since Iraq invaded Kuwait.

But for the President it was the personal highlight of his latest foreign trip -- the chance to spend time with some of the young men and women deployed in the region since August.

Throughout the day, from dusty camouflaged bases in the desolate Saudi desert to the cluttered flight-deck of a ship anchored in the waters of the Gulf, Mr. Bush brushed aside obvious fatigue and seemed to revel in his one-on-one contacts as he mingled with the troops -- signing autographs, shaking hands, and posing for pictures.

The President reflected on his feelings about the troops during an impromptu news conference after touring a bunker at a spartan, sand-blown Marine base just 80 kilometers from the Kuwaiti border.

"I learned they're just like my kids. Probably wish they were home. It's Thanksgiving Day in the United States. And I learned that they're willing to be apart from their own loved ones because they feel it is their duty and the their obligation and they're strong and they're tough and I am very moved by today, I'll tell you."

For their part, the troops seemed to relish the attention of a Presidential visit. And most seemed moved with genuine enthusiasm when their commander-in-chief reminded them why they are so far from home.

"There are three key reasons why we're here with our UN allies making a stand in defense of peace and freedom. We're here to protect freedom, we're here to protect our future and we're here to protect innocent life.”

Mr. Bush again criticized what he called the brutality inflicted by Iraq on the people of Kuwait and said it could not be rewarded. As he put it, a bully unchecked today is a bully unleashed for tomorrow.

But Mr. Bush had another reason too for confronting the Baghdad government -- stressing for the first time the threat he said is posed by Iraq's nuclear potential.

"And every day that passes brings Saddam Hussein one step closer to realizing his goal of a nuclear weapons arsenal. And that's another reason, frankly, why more and more our mission is marked by a real sense of urgency."

Throughout the day, the President noted the irony of talking about the threat of conflict on Thanksgiving, a day of peace. And the irony of this particular day of peace was evident everywhere -- in the tanks and guns ringing the sites where Mr. Bush talked and ate and laughed with the troops-- and in the protective gas masks slung from the hips, not only of the soldiers facing the threat of an Iraqi chemical weapons attack ,but also carried by White House aides and reporters.

Mr. Bush -- a Second World War veteran -- repeatedly stressed his personal pride in the servicemen and women enduring hardships in the Gulf and emphasized the deep feelings of support for the troops from the American people.

Yet for all the emotion and the personal pain he will surely feel if he must order them into battle, the President said he remains determined to see this mission through to the end. While continuing to emphasize his desire for a peaceful settlement, Mr. Bush warned Saddam Hussein that he will be making what the President called the mistake of his life if he confuses the world community's current restraint with a lack of resolve.

No Evidence of New Nuclear Material From Africa Found in Iraq

After the Iraq war began friends in various places with access to C-SPAN who watched Pentagon briefings noted a pattern in my questions, specifically my frequent request for updates on whether any WMD had yet been found. Here are a couple of excerpts from Defense Department transcripts (photo of Tuwaitha nuclear complex in Iraq):

March 24, 2003

Clarke: Alex? Last question.
Q: General, you mentioned earlier that you had indications or evidence of commanders being given orders that they then did not carry out. To your knowledge, were any of the orders in question that were not obeyed orders to use chemical or biological weapons?
McChrystal: No, sir.
Q: Have you found any chemical or biological weapons to date?
McChrystal: We have not.

March 31, 2003
Q: General, for the record, have you -- have any coalition forces to date located any chemical weapons or biological weapons in Iraq? If not, more broadly, do you think you have an idea of where they are?
McChrystal: We are -- we have not located any chemical or biological weapons to date. We still believe very strongly that the regime has the capability and potentially the intent to employ those weapons.

As for nuclear materials and an African connection, well, I also asked about them and on 7/21/03, I filed a report after defense and intelligence officials told me no evidence had been found in Iraq to support allegations the regime of Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa for its nuclear weapons program. Here is my report:

The original charges about Iraq's purported efforts to acquire uranium in Africa for its nuclear program were based in part on what have since been discredited as fabricated documents provided by foreign intelligence sources.

But some US and British officials, including Prime Minister Tony Blair and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have indicated they still believe the allegations are true.

Now, though, defense and intelligence officials say ongoing efforts to uncover corroborating evidence inside Iraq itself have so far proven fruitless.

One intelligence source, speaking on condition of anonymity, answers with a blunt "none whatsoever" when asked if any Iraqi documents have been found or information provided by Iraqi officials or scientists confirming a uranium procurement attempt by Baghdad, either in Niger or any other African country.

The disclosure comes as Democrats have expressed concern that the Bush administration may have deliberately created a "false impression" about the seriousness of the threat from Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program.

The White House last week released part of an intelligence report compiled last year on that program. The report included a dissenting view from analysts at the U-S State Department who labeled as "highly dubious" claims that Iraq was seeking naturaluranium in Africa. Defense intelligence officials have since indicated they shared that view.

The UN nuclear agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, estimates Iraq already had some one-point-eight metric tons of low-enriched uranium and 500 tons of natural uranium, called yellowcake. Some of it had been legally acquired in West Africa more than two decades ago and was under IAEA seal.

Following this year's Iraq war, looters are reported to have entered the country's main nuclear site at Tuwaitha and some of the uranium was reported missing. The IAEA estimates that at worst, only some 10 kilograms of uranium compounds went missing --- an amount the UN nuclear agency says is not sensitive from a proliferation point of view.

Nevertheless, the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei has been pressing for stepped up measures to protect the remaining nuclear inventory. US defense sources now tell me preparations are under way to move the material out of Iraq. There is no word on where the uranium will be taken or whether UN inspectors will oversee the transfer operation.

On 8/20/03, I produced a final piece related to this saga, this one about another high-level US military visit to Niger, whose leaders, I reported, had been voicing fresh complaints over the now-discredited US and British claims linking the West African country to a uranium deal with Iraq.

Four-star Air Force General Charles Wald flew into Niger last week for brief stop en route to Central Africa.

The previously undisclosed visit by the deputy commander of the US European Command was described by a military spokesman as a refueling stop.

(Photo of Niger Uranium Mine)

But the spokesman tells me General Wald met officials from Niger's ministry of defense. However, the spokesman says their talks did not cover any possible new US security assistance programs or military training proposals.

The stopover by the senior US commander follows complaints by Niger's president, Mamadou Tandja, that his country has been dragged unfairly into the news because of controversial American and British government claims that it had secret uranium dealings with Iraq.

The president's complaints were voiced following a visit to Niger by another prominent US figure, former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Herman Cohen.

Mr. Cohen now has a private consulting firm which represents several African governments in dealings in the United States. Among them is the government of Niger.

Responding to my inquiry, Mr. Cohen confirmed the visit.

But he denied going there to transmit any message on behalf of the United States government --- an allegation made recently by a British newspaper.
The London Sunday Telegraph quoted senior officials in Niger as claiming the message was intended to get the country's leaders to stop complaining about the uranium sales allegations made by Britain and the United States linking Niger to Saddam Hussein's now-deposed regime.

In the lead-up to the war with Iraq, both President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair cited evidence purporting to show Baghdad was seeking uranium from Niger in order to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program.

But the primary evidence, documents allegedly spelling out the terms of a sales agreement, was eventually determined to be fabricated. US intelligence officials subsequently said they had doubts about the evidence but the Bush administration still used it in making its case for war against Iraq.

In his message to me, Mr. Cohen did not discuss the purpose of his visit to Niger but stressed he is a private businessman. The State Department had no comment on his activities.

A Senior General’s Secret Mission to Niger Revealed While Another Top Commander Asserts No Effort Was Made To Manipulate Intelligence

On 7/14/03, Robert Novak’s now-famous column “Mission to Niger” appeared in the Washington Post. This is the column in which he disclosed former Ambassador Joseph Wilson went to Niger to probe the uranium ore to Iraq sales allegations and found them highly unlikely. He went on in the column to identify Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative. The column appeared just days after Wilson’s own op-ed piece on what he did not find in Africa during his February 2002 trip was published in the New York Times. I filed the following report on 7/15/03 disclosing for the first time yet another 2002 mission to Niger that also found nothing amiss. Yet despite these trips, the claims about an alleged deal went ahead by top US officials in early 2003.

The previously-undisclosed mission to Niger in February 2002 was carried out by General Carlton Fulford, then deputy commander of the U-S European Command, the headquarters responsible for military relations with most of sub-Saharan Africa.

According to defense officials, General Fulford was asked by the US Ambassador to Niger to meet with the country's president and to emphasize the importance of tight controls over its uranium ore deposits. Niger had previously sold uranium ore, known as yellowcake, to Iraq two decades earlier.

But the officials say General Fulford received assurances uranium mining operations in Niger were under control. There is no indication why General Fulford was asked to undertake the mission nor whether he was aware of allegations by intelligence sources that Iraq had launched a new effort to procure yellowcake in Africa.

But the officials say the general's report on his mission was passed on to European Command Commander, General Joseph Ralston. They say General Ralston in turn passed the information along to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers. A spokesman for General Myers says the general, America's senior uniformed officer, has no recollection of the information but does not dispute that it was passed on to him. However the spokesman tells me there was no reason for General Myers to pass the information on to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Mr. Rumsfeld has said he was not aware that intelligence documents purporting to show a new effort by Iraq to purchase uranium in Africa were fabricated until March of this year. That is when the UN nuclear agency reported the information was fake.

President Bush referred to Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium in Africa in his State of the Union address in late January. A controversy has since arisen over whether he should have made the reference because some intelligence officials had doubts about the claim months before --- including a former official (Joseph Wilson) who, like General Fulford, also traveled to Niger early last year to assess the validity of an alleged new contract to sell yellowcake to Iraq.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has downplayed the controversy. He recently told the Senate Armed Services Committee that intelligence is regularly corrected. "The fact that the facts change from time to time," Mr. Rumsfeld said, "does not surpriseme or shock me at all."

While Mr. Rumsfeld was asserting that intelligence was corrected all the time, a top military commander was defending the overall quality of US intelligence and denying the intelligence about Iraq’s nuclear program was intentionally misleading. I had this report on 7/162003.

The new commander of US forces in Iraq, General John Abizaid, says he does not believe the intelligence gathered on Baghdad's nuclear program was misleading.

"I don't believe professionally that any of the intelligence I saw was exaggerated, hyped or otherwise manipulated.”

But the new commander of the US Central Command declines to say whether political leaders within the Bush administration may have exaggerated the threat posed by Baghdad's purported efforts to obtain uranium from Niger and other African countries.

The General met reporters at the Pentagon as an official of the Defense Intelligence Agency told me that all the information on Iraq's alleged efforts to purchase African uranium came from what he characterizes as suspect foreign sources.

The official, speaking condition on condition of anonymity, says that is one of the main reasons why intelligence specialists, in his words, "were shying away from" that claim.

He also says intelligence officials were concerned there were no other indicators to support the notion of a fresh Iraqi uranium deal with Niger in particular - that is, no evidence of any transaction taking place or money changing hands or other clues.

President Bush has come under fire for including a reference to Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address in January, before the war with Iraq.

The White House now admits the information was wrong and should not have been included in the speech. Central Intelligence Director George Tenet has accepted responsibility for the mistake.
But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is still signaling his belief that the intelligence might be accurate.

Last Sunday, Mr. Rumsfeld told reporters British authorities who first publicized the claim, still believe it is accurate and he added, quoting now, "that may very well be the case."

Some of the intelligence about Iraq's efforts to procure uranium from Niger was based on what eventually turned out to be fabricated documents.
But even before the forgery was unmasked, a classified intelligence assessment was circulated within the Bush administration last October - well before the State of the Union address. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, the document stated clearly US officials could not verify foreign allegations of a possible sale by Niger to Iraq. It also said intelligence officials could not confirm reports Iraq sought uranium from other African countries. The classified assessment included a sentence stating that claims of Iraq's pursuit of uranium in Africa were, quoting now, "highly dubious."

Niger-Iraq Yellowcake: The IAEA Investigations; The Skeptics Surface

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed it is actively investigating allegations that Iraq, in recent years, attempted to import uranium from Niger. My second report was filed on on 3/4/03:

An IAEA spokesman describes the investigation as ongoing and confirms the probe of Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium in Africa does focus on Niger.

But the spokesman will not provide any details and will not tell this reporter, for example, whether the government of Niger is cooperating or whether the UN nuclear agency has sent any investigators to the African country.

However Iraq's Foreign Ministry has said IAEA officials in Baghdad have questioned Iraqi officials about the Niger connection. On February 12th, IAEA investigators interviewed a retired Iraqi ambassador. The official was not identified but the Iraqi Foreign Ministry says the interview concerned allegations that Iraq imported uranium from Niger after 1998. Last month I reported Niger supplied Iraq with a key ingredient for its nuclear program two decades ago and more recently agreed to resume those shipments. US officials said that Niger signed an agreement in 2000 to sell Iraq 500 metric tons of a concentrated form of uranium known as yellowcake.

However, Niger's former minister of Mining and Energy [Yhaya Barre] later responded by saying the charges were "lies." The official said in an interview that it is the Niger government's practice to check any potential buyers of uranium against the so-called "red list" of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- adding if any nation is on the list, there would be no deal.

In addition, he said any such deal could not be made without the knowledge of the French-owned company Cogema, which operates uranium mining in Niger.

UN officials have confirmed Niger made two separate shipments of the concentrated uranium to Iraq -- one in 1981 and a second the following year. US officials say there is no evidence of new uranium shipments despite the more recent agreement. Niger denied the earlier shipments as well. It is the world's third largest uranium producer, after Canada and Australia.

Soon the documents on which the alleged new Niger-Iraq deal were based were revealed to be fraudulent. On 3/14/03, I filed a report noting the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the FBI, may take up the case of forged documents cited by the Bush administration as evidence of Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Note the sources in this item who now claimed the documents were always suspect. Why hadn’t they spoken up before? Or did they and were their complaints ignored by political appointees? If so, why didn’t they resort to the time honored technique of leaking their concerns to the news media?

Secretary of State Colin Powell says US officials received in good faith from foreign sources the evidence purporting to show a recent attempt by Iraq to buy uranium from the African nation of Niger.

He told Congress this past week that evidence was then passed on to the United Nations in good faith.

“It was provided in good faith to the inspectors and our agency received it in good faith.”

But a State Department official tells this reporter the UN's eventual determination that the evidence was fabricated "did not come as a surprise." The official says there was, in his words, "a fair bit of skepticism" about the authenticity of the charges when they first surfaced.

The official was authorized to speak to me by the State Department but on condition of anonymity. He did not explain why the State Department went ahead and cited the charge publicly, even naming Niger.

He now acknowledges that the StateDepartment "could have been more circumspect" in pinpointing a possible African source of uranium for Iraq.

However the official denies that political motives prompted the Bush administration to make the charge public anyway.

For his part, Secretary Powell has denied any US role in the falsification of the evidence.

A spokesman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, indicates the FBI may now look into the forgery of the documents. But the spokesman suggests there will not be a formal investigation but rather just laboratory analysis of the phony evidence. He tells me the falsification -- especially sinc it was apparently carried out abroad -- was probably not a violation of any criminal statutes in this country.

Intelligence sources say the fake evidence purported to show the existence of a secret agreement three years ago under which Niger would sell Iraq 500 tons of yellowcake, a colorful form of concentrated uranium ore.

President Bush, in his State of the Union address, noted what he termed Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain significant quantities of uranium in Africa, an apparent reference to the charge. Niger has strongly denied any illicit uranium deals with Iraq. US intelligence officials have said there was never any proof of recent uranium shipments to Baghdad despite sales two decades ago.

Niger and the Yellowcake-to-Iraq Saga

In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President George Bush outlined the case for military action against Iraq. Among other alleged threats, he claimed Iraq under Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons. As part of this alleged nuclear pursuit, Mr. Bush said:

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

He went on to say:

“Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

The reference to Africa naturally triggered my curiosity. Where? What country? How did he hope to pull it off? I began asking my sources, first at the Pentagon, where I was based as a military affairs correspondent.

This took on added urgency after the next day, January 29, 2003, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a news briefing at the Pentagon in which he repeated the claim:

“As the President pointed out, the Iraqi regime ... has the design for a nuclear weapon; it was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

My sources in the Africa section of the Pentagon were of no help. But one of my sources in the intelligence business subsequently came to me, saying that because of my known interest in Africa, he had something for me. He said the country in question was Niger and that documents now in the hands of US intelligence spelled out a new deal to sell uranium oxide, known as “yellowcake”, to Iraq. He made clear in response to my questions that there was no indication any yellowcake had in fact been transferred from Niger to Iraq.

Let me be clear, this source came to me after I asked about the Africa connection. He did not, I firmly believe, seek me out to plant what we later learned was fake intelligence. He acted in good faith. Of this, I am confident as he and other Pentagon sources had been quite forthcoming to me on African matters. (I have long believed this was because no one had ever asked questions about sub-Saharan Africa at the Pentagon until I got there and because, as I learned and appreciated, one very nice thing about military personnel is that when asked a question, they answer it to the extent security restrictions allow. They can also make clear in subtle ways if they are under any restrictions imposed on them by political appointees.)

In the meantime, I discovered a State Department Fact Sheet issued on December 19, 2002 which, as best as I can determine, first fingered Niger but which had never been picked up by any news organization and reported on until I noticed.

This document purported to show what it termed “Illustrative Examples of Omissions From the Iraqi Declaration to the United Nations Security Council,” Iraq’s lengthy reply to US and other allegations about its weapons of mass destruction program. Under the heading “Nuclear Weapons”, the so-called fact sheet charged:

“The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger. Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?”

As we later learned, the charges about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa were false and based on fake documents, probably created by Italian operatives out to make a fast buck. I hold no sympathy for Saddam, but how do you prove an untruth?

My intelligence source did not show me the actual documents and may not have seen them himself, possibly enabling me to see the obvious and now-known flaws that made clear they were fake.

Nonetheless, this source and the others I cross-checked his claims with were highly credible. With careful caveats, I and my editors felt a story could be done as the identification of the country of Niger was news at the time since it had not been publicly identified before.
So several days after the President’s State of the Union address, after completing my initial research, I filed my first story.

In the coming days I will post all my reports on this subject.

One final note: after the Niger connection documents were revealed to be phoney, my main intelligence source at the Pentagon came to me to say there was more evidence besides the fakes now widely called “the Italian Letter” that made the original charge credible or at least the suspicion of a deal plausible. He declined to give me any more information. And I chose to do nothing more on the topic. It was a closed matter as far as I was concerned. We now know there were other cases where false or faulty intelligence was used by the Bush administration to justify military action against Iraq. One cannot help but wonder whether similar activity is now under way vis-à-vis Iran or al-Qaida in Iraq. Fortunately, I believe (and hope) journalists will be much more skeptical this time around.

Here is my first report, dated 2/21/03, less than a month after the President’s State of the Union address. I believe it was the first comprehensive report on the Niger connection. Please note that it includes the observation that there was no evidence that the alleged new transaction was completed.

US and UN officials say the African country of Niger supplied Iraq with a key ingredient for its nuclear program two decades ago and recently agreed secretly to resume those shipments. More in this exclusive report:

Last year, the British government released a dossier linking the African continent to Iraq's efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction. It accused Baghdad of trying to obtain what were termed "significant quantities of uranium from Africa" for its covert nuclear weapons program.

The British document did not identify any African countries. But in December, the US State Department issued a fact sheet of its own, outlining critical omissions in Iraq's latest declaration to the United Nations on its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs.

That fact sheet singled out Niger as a country where Baghdad had tried to procure uranium.

The US statement prompted authorities in Niger to acknowledge Iraq did try to purchase uranium in the 1980s. But they said the country's President at the time (Seyni Kountche) turned down Baghdad's request.

However, US officials say that Iraq did obtain uranium from Niger two decades ago and that three years ago the two countries signed a secret agreement to resume the shipments. The original sales are documented in a 1997 United Nations report submitted to the Security Council by Hans Blix, then Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency and currently chief UN weapons inspector for Iraq.

That report, obtained by this reporter, says Iraq received two large shipments from Niger of "yellowcake," a term describing a colorful, concentrated form of uranium ore used in nuclear programs, either for fuel or weapons. One shipment, received inFebruary of 1981, consisted of nearly 140 metric tons of "yellowcake." The second shipment, received in March of 1982, consisted of a nearly identical amount.

The UN report notes that Iraq notified the International Atomic Energy Agency of the first shipment but not the second.

Independently, US officials say Iraq and Niger signed an agreement in the summer of 2000 to resume shipments for an additional 500 tons of "yellowcake."

However these officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say they have never seen any evidence that the transaction was completed.

Niger is a poor, land-locked sub-Saharan country, but it is the world's third-largest uranium producer, after Canada and Australia. Its main uranium mining areas are operated by a French company called Cogema.

US officials say they believe the French operator has good production controls and doubt any uranium materials have disappeared.

But one senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity, says it is possible that someone involved in the mining operation in Niger, possibly corrupt government officials, may have been trying to make some money "on the side" or outsidenormal business transactions.

The current Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, recently told the Security Council his agency has received additional information about Iraq's imports of uranium. He says the IAEA is pursuing the matter and hopes for assistance from what he terms "the African country reported to have been involved." But he did not identify the country nor offer any other details.

Time for a Break: the Niger-Iraq "Yellowcake" Saga

In his State of the Union address on January 28, 2003, President George Bush outlined the case for immiment military action against Iraq. Among other alleged threats, he claimed Iraq under Saddam Hussein was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

As part of this alleged nuclear pursuit, Mr. Bush said:

“The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

He went on to say:

“Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.”

The reference to Africa naturally triggered my curiosity. Where? What country? How did he hope to pull it off?

In the days ahead, I will post the stories of what I found out.

Kibeho, the Final Chapter: UN Sharply Lowers Death Toll, Says Many Were Victims of Hutu Extremists, Not the RPF

In November 1995, UN officials and experts significantly revised downward their estimate of the number of Rwandan refugees killed earlier that year when government troops began shooting at the Kibeho displaced camp in the southwest of the country. They now suggest the death toll was closer to the government's original estimate of several hundred than the figure of several thousand still cited by some foreign officials, aid workers and Rwandan exiles opposed to the new leadership in Kigali. For the record, this revision of the death toll received far less media publicity than the original inflated estimates disputed by Rwandan authorities.

In a recent statement to Kenya's parliament, Foreign Minister Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka took Rwanda's current Tutsi-installed government to task about a slaughter of ethnic Hutu at the Kibeho displaced persons camp last April.

Mr. Musyoka quoted unnamed independent observers as saying more than eight thousand people were massacred at the camp by troops of the mainly Tutsi Rwandese Patriotic Army.

Mr. Musyoka is not alone in citing estimates of a high death toll at Kibeho, an incident which provoked an international outcry at the time and which is widely perceived as a major blemish on the record of the new leadership in Kigali.

The international medical relief group Medicins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders still contends that "thousands" were killed at Kibeho.

Hutu extremists regularly cite Kibeho as an example of what they describe as a massacre by bloodthirsty Tutsi troops.

The United Nations, which had military observers at the camp, last April put the toll at four thousand -- an estimate which was almost immediately cut in half, to two thousand.

But now, after several months of quiet study, senior UN officials and investigators have again significantly lowered their figure of the number of actual fatalities at Kibeho. They say they now believe the death toll from last April's shooting was between 800 and 12 hundred.

That is a figure far closer to the number of several hundred dead issued by Rwandan authorities than the original estimates of several thousand cited by aid workers and UN military sources and still referred to by officials like Kenya's Foreign Minister.

These UN officials and investigators also say many of the mainly Hutu refugees who died at Kibeho were killed not by Rwandan soldiers but by fellow refugees -- either deliberately hacked to death with machetes or crushed to death in what turned into a stampede.

Shaharyar Khan is the UN’s Special Representative to Rwanda. In a recent interview in his Kigali office he made clear his support for a revised, lower death toll.

“I talked to people who had been there -- you know, the Zambians, Australians and others. There was a lot of emotion that night when the counting took place. There's also feeling that people might have felt that they had seen bodies when in fact bodies were not there. And there were bodies who pretended to be dead.”

Investigators now agree many of the alleged corpses initially counted by UN troops and aid workers were in fact burlap bundles abandoned by refugees in the mad scramble that took place that fateful day last April.

In other cases, alleged corpses did indeed stand up and walk away after being counted among the dead. An American reporter who was there recalls watching as UN soldiers grabbed the arms and legs of what appeared to be a dead man. The man suddenly jumped up as if shocked out of a deep sleep and ran off, leaving behind several equally shocked soldiers and onlookers.

Rwandan authorities do not deny that their men shot refugees at Kibeho and acknowledge soldiers may have used excessive force in dealing with the situation. But they continue to maintain the troops were provoked by extremists within the camp and acted in self-defense.

The incident occurred after Rwandan authorities cordoned off the camp and announced it would be closed. They called Kibeho a haven for Hutu militia responsible for the 1994 slaughter of a half million or more ethnic Tutsi. They claim relief agencies had turned a blind eye to the activities of extremists in the camp.

Whatever the cause, senior Rwandan officials acknowledge the killings at Kibeho severely damaged the new government's image and interests. But they adamantly reject suggestions that what happened there was what critics have charged is a deliberate policy of ethnic revenge-taking by the country's new Tutsi-installed leadership.

Kibeho Fallout: Cabinet Shake-Up

The resignation and simultaneous dismissal of Rwanda's Prime Minister and the subsequent replacement of three other key cabinet ministers also regarded as moderate representatives of the country's ethnic Hutu community has stunned diplomats and other foreign observers. I filed this report on the late August 1995 shake-up, triggered in large part by the Kibeho controversy.

One disappointed diplomat in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, calls the departure of Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu and three key associates from the Interior, Justice, and Information ministries a crippling blow to the hopes of all moderates and ethnic Hutu in the country.

This diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, says the purge of the four best-known ethnic Hutu in the cabinet definitely means so-called hardline ethnic Tutsi elements in the government formed last year have gained the upper hand.

That government was always thought to have been dominated by its ethnic Tutsi members, principally the powerful Vice President and Defense Minister, Paul Kagame. But officials from President Pasteur Bizimungu on down always pointed proudly to the fact that most members of the cabinet were neither Tutsi nor members of the Rwandese Patriotic Front, the one-time rebel group led by General Kagame that seized power after last year's genocide.

Sources in Kigali say there were always tensions in the government -- especially between the Prime Minister and Mr. Kagame. But Mr. Twagiramungu was regarded as the only member of the moderate wing who stood up regularly to the hardline forces. There were frequent acrimonious exchanges between the Prime Minister and his opponents, often aired publicly over Radio Rwanda.

But sources say their differences apparently came to a head earlier this year after the killings of displaced hutus at the Kibeho camp in southwestern Rwanda. Mr. Twagiramungu pointedly began distancing himself from other officials of the government, particularly those in the defense ministry.

Two of the other ministers relieved this week -- Seth Sendashonga of Interior and Justice Minister Alphonse-Marie Nkubito -- were also described by eyewitnesses as livid with anger over the alleged massacre of refugees by RPF soldiers at Kibeho.

The situation in Kigali following the apparent government purge was said by residents to be calm, with no extra roadblocks or troops evident in the streets. However, efforts to determine the whereabouts of Mr. Twagiramungu and the other dismissed ministers were unsuccessful. Some reports indicated their phone lines had been cut.

Some aid workers expressed alarm over the change in the Rwandan government, especially at a time when UN officials are seeking to promote the voluntary repatriation of hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees in camps in Zaire and Tanzania. These aid workers claimed the departure of the Prime Minister will cause many Hutu refugees considering a return home to rethink their decisions.

But other relief officials said many of the extremist refugee leaders would seize on any reason to justify remaining in camps.

Sources in Kigali say it is uncertain whether the shake-up in the Rwandan government marks the final move in a political chess game or whether there will be a ripple effect throughout the country. Whatever the case, one diplomat says Rwanda's Tutsi power brokers appear to have once again harmed their own image in the eyes of the international community.

Independent Panel Sidesteps Issue of Death Toll At Kibeho

An independent commission of inquiry said in mid-May 1995 Rwandan troops did not plan last month's killings of Hutu refugees at the Kibeho camp in southwestern Rwanda. But, as I reported at the time, the panel did say the troops used excessive force in moving to close down the facility.

The critical question still lingering after last month's eruption of violence at the Kibeho camp in southwestern Rwanda is how many refugees were killed.

UN officials and relief workers say the number of Hutu refugees who died exceeded two-thousand. Rwandan authorities put the death toll at just under 400.

In its report, the independent commission sidesteps the controversy. It gives no figure at all, saying only that it was probably more than the figure reported by the government.

Instead, the panel focuses in broad, general terms on the violence, which broke out after Rwandan authorities ordered Kibeho and other displaced camps in the southwest closed. The report says Rwandan officials had, what it terms, a legitimate interest in ordering the camp shut down, both for security reasons and to remove an obstacle to the country's efforts to recover from last year's genocide, in which half a million or more members of the Tutsi ethnic minority were slaughtered by Hutu extremists.

But the commission says there is sufficient reliable evidence to establish that the refugees were subjected to what the report calls arbitrary deprivation of life and serious bodily harm by Rwandan troops. It says this was in violation of recognized standards of human rights and humanitarian law.

At the same time, the commission says there is also evidence showing the refugees were subject to similar violations by other refugees -- an apparent reference to armed Hutu extremist elements known to have been in Kibeho who killed other Hutu refugees to prevent them from leaving.

And it also criticizes relief agencies for failing to contribute to a speedier evacuation of refugees from the camps.

The panel, convened by the Rwandan government, makes several recommendations, including a call on Rwandan authorities to bring to justice those among the armed forces who may have been responsible for illegal actions. It also calls on UN officials to review their procedures for dealing with crises such as the one that occurred at Kibeho and it calls on the international community to offer more support to the Rwandan government to speed reconstruction and reconciliation efforts.

A Rwandan military spokesman describes the report as generally fair. But the spokesman insists the troops acted in self-defense at Kibeho after coming under attack from what he describes as criminals among the refugees.

Leaving Kibeho, Going Home

Tens of thousands of Hutu refugees are slowly returning to their homes after being forced out of displaced camps in southwestern Rwanda by government authorities. In late April 1995, I toured a transit camp for the returnees at Ndera, near the Rwandan capital, Kigali. Many of the seven-thousand people there had come from Kibeho, where violence erupted between government troops and armed extremists in the camp, claiming hundreds of lives.

Just off a truck, a young girl, a blood-stained bandage on her forehead and one arm in a filthy sling, stands in a long line with other ragged-looking Rwandans, all clutching arrival chits entitling them to food, water, blankets and other relief items.

There is a hollow, vacant look in the girl's eyes, as if she can no longer cope with the suffering.

But others among those who have arrived at the Ndera camp with her seem more animated, more alive.

Most are destitute, having lost almost everything except the clothes they are wearing in the chaos of Kibeho's closure.

But they are excited. Soon, they believe, they will be going back to the homes they fled last year as Rwanda exploded with ethnic and political violence.

Senior UN refugee official Killian Kleinschmidt says it seems people are genuinely tired of living in camps.

“We had people trying to rush onto trucks which were leaving. People want to go, that's clear, they want to go home at least to the communes to see what is happening there. That's for sure. They do not want to stay in camps anymore. I think they are tired a bit of that.”

Speaking through an interpreter, this 36-year-old man confirms the UN assessment.

“They are tired of camps, they want to go home.”

The man, who has a wife and four children and has just left Kibeho, acknowledges that until now, as an ethnic Hutu, he feared possible reprisals from ethnic Tutsi still incensed over last year's massacres -- massacres in which Hutu extremists slaughtered a half million or more Tutsi. But the man shows no fear. He says he is ready to return.

“They thought it was unsafe to go there but now they are ready to go (home).”

It is an astonishing turnabout. For months, Hutu like this man have remained in the squalid camps, where they lived in total dependence off handouts from aid agencies, where they had to cope with intimidation from extremist elements who wanted them to stay -- elements who, as at the Kibeho camp, effectively held them hostage, threatening them, even killing those who signaled a defiant interest in returning home.

The refugees had also heard rumors of reprisal killings of returnees, stories of returnees who were denounced and arrested, tales of returnees who found strangers or even former Tutsi neighbors living in their homes. Now there are new stories -- stories of attacks on returnees in transit, Hutu returnees who were stoned or made to walk a gauntlet of stick-wielding Tutsi youth.

At Ndera, though, there are no such problems and no such fears. The refugees just want to go home -- and put the misery of the camps behind them.

Kibeho: Hutu Extremists Under Orders Not To Surrender

UN authorities are still hoping for a peaceful resolution of a stand-off between a group of armed Hutu extremists and Rwandan troops at a camp for displaced people in southwestern Rwanda. But I reported from Kigali on April 25, 1995, there was new information suggesting the last 200 hold-outs were ready to die rather than give up.

Western diplomats and Rwandan government sources in Kigali say there is credible evidence suggesting that the extremists still holed up in a debris-and-body-littered compound at the Kibeho camp are under orders not to surrender.

These sources say a former Rwandan army major is believed to have arrived at Kibeho from Zaire recently, and brought with him the no-surrender orders from Hutu leaders of Rwanda's ousted government now living in exile.

The UN Special Envoy to Rwanda, Shaharyar Khan, says the hold-outs, mainly men, have allowed 300 other refugees, including women and children, to leave the compound. Relief workers said those who left had effectively been held hostage by what they describe as the hard-core, who are armed with guns and grenades. Rwandan troops have surrounded the encampment.

But Mr. Khan says heavy weapons directed against the compound been withdrawn and he still hopes for a peaceful resolution.

“The RPA (Rwandan government army) is there and the 200 people who remain are mainly men, although there are one or two family members, and we are hoping still to induce a peaceful settlement and we are doing our best to encourage it.”

The stand-off follows the Rwandan government's decision to order the closure of Kibeho and other displaced camps in the southwest of the country. Rwandan officials had called the facilities havens for the extremist elements blamed for last year's massacres of more than half a million ethnic Tutsis.

Over the weekend, panicky refugees at Kibeho, fearful of reprisals if they went home, attempted to burst through a military cordon, provoking troops into firing. UN officials say some two thousand people died, either from gunshot wounds or trampled in a stampede. The Rwandan government disputes the UN death toll and says far fewer people were killed.

However, one top official, Interior Minister Seth Sendashonga, says he is recommending the government accept an offer by Amnesty International to probe the bloodshed at Kibeho "so that the truth is established."

"As of now, we are not sure of the facts," he says.

UN and relief agency sources initially put the death toll as high as five-thousand, a figure which special envoy Khan now acknowledges was a mistake. Western diplomats also are now disputing news media accounts suggesting Rwandan troops carried out an intentional massacre at Kibeho. But they say serious damage has been done to Rwanda's image, nonetheless.

Interior Minister Sendashonga acknowledges the slaughter has become a public relations disaster. He says he has heard at least one western donor nation (the Netherlands) has decided to suspend further financial aid because of the incident.

Meanwhile, efforts are continuing to resettle some 200-thousand refugees forced out of Kibeho and the other camps. UN officials say some 80-thousand have already been returned to their home areas. Mr. Khan says relief agencies are mounting a massive effort to provide the returnees with both assistance and security.

“What we have done is to provide food and water and medical care in these communes so that when people get there they are able to have minimal humanitarian assistance. Secondly, we all know when people flooded out of (or left) the IDP internally displaced camps and headed toward these communes, they were given a hostile reception. In order to alleviate the hostile reception and to improve conditions for these people, improved conditions of security, we have asked the human rights monitors to be there.”

Mr. Khan says in addition, UN military observers are being deployed in the home areas of returnees.

Kagame on Kibeho: A Rush To Judgment By Western Governments After Media Irresponsibility

Rwanda's powerful Defense Minister and Vice President Paul Kagame says his troops acted in self-defense last weekend when they opened fire on refugees at the Kibeho refugee camp in the southwest of the country. I was among three American reporters who interviewed General Kagame on 4/25/95 when he made his first public comments on the bloodshed.

General Kagame says his soldiers were justified in opening fire in response to what he says was an assault by an organized group that included armed extremists at the Kibeho displaced persons camp.

General Kagame concedes his troops may have panicked and overreacted. But he says the government is investigating the incident in cooperation with UN officials.

In an interview with myself and reporters from the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times, he also says Rwandan authorities would not be opposed to exhuming the bodies of the dead. The purpose would be to establish an accurate count of the number of fatalities that resulted from the shooting and the ensuing stampede that erupted among the refugees packed into Kibeho.

Senior UN officials have said close to two thousand people were killed. But Rwandan President Pasteur Bizimungu claims the actual count of the dead is only 300. General Kagame says he believes the President's number, which he says is already a generous one.

Asked why some relief organizations and UN officials initially put out much higher estimates, the General charges they did so deliberately and out of self interest. He also criticizes some western governments for rushing to judgment on what happened at Kibeho based on what he describes as inaccurate and irresponsible reports in the news media.

General Kagame acknowledges the incident has damaged Rwandan interests, especially at a time when it is still awaiting millions of dollars in international assistance to help rebuild the country in the wake of last year's devastating ethnic and political massacres.

But the Rwandan leader says the international community must take a share of the blame for the situation. He criticizes the continued humanitarian aid being given to exiled elements loyal to the ousted government. He also charges that the international community has turned a blind eye to the activities of armed groups in the Kibeho camp itself. He says these extremists had been conducting raids in the surrounding countryside and killing and threatening innocent refugees.

Misinformation About Kibeho: How It Started

According to Wikipedia: “The camp at Kibeho, which held between 165,000 to 200,000 persons, was one of the more gruesome sights of the genocide, where 4000 to 8000 people were killed. The worst of the killings took place over the weekend of April 22, 1995.”

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kibeho

First of all, what happened at Kibeho was not part of what is generally accepted to be THE Rwandan genocide: the mass murder of ethnic Tutsi and politically moderate Hutu in 1994. What happened at Kibeho involved displaced Hutu whose camp was ordered closed by (Tutsi) Rwandan authorities a year AFTER the genocide.

While Rwandan troops did fire on the displaced within the camp, there was resistance to the closure from WITHIN the camp itself by Hutu extremists armed with guns, grenades, machetes and spears. Many innocent victims among the displaced were killed by these extremists, not by Rwandan troops.

Now, about that 8,000 death toll. I know what happened because I spoke to the key individuals involved (and I was there). Among the reporters at Kibeho there was one for a major news agency known in Africa at the time for its proclivity to sensational leads, who was advised by the press spokesperson for a major NGO (also his girlfriend) that aid workers had counted 4,000 bodies but had only toured HALF the Kibeho camp. So the reporter doubled the count, leading to the wire report of “8,000” massacred at Kibeho.

Aside from the flawed methodology, many of what were counted as bodies proved to be burlap bundles discarded by the displaced inside the camp as they attempted to flee. These were barely distinguishable from actual corpses. However, some of the bundles WERE bodies, just not dead ones. I know this because of an incident that took place as aid workers, UN officials and reporters toured Kibeho. One of the touring party stepped on a presumed “corpse.” The “corpse” got up and walked away, to the shock and amusement of the group. Between the discarded bags counted as bodies and the bodies that were still alive, the initial estimate of 8,000 dead was clearly indefensible.

Even the UN commander in Rwanda, in an interview with me (mentioned in the post for 7/5/07) cut the estimate of dead from 4,000 to 2,000 --- DURING the course of our interview. He had mentioned the 4,000 figure when an aide leaned over and whispered in his ear. He then restarted the same sentence but changed 4,000 to 2,000.

A UN military forensic specialist later lowered the number of dead even further --- to several hundred. Rwanda’s government estimated the number of dead as 300 or so.

Human Rights Watch, in its 1995 annual report on Rwanda, mentions the 8,000 death toll but also reduces it to 2,000 and notes the Rwandan lower estimate. It said the following:

"On April 18, the soldiers fired in the air to herd the residents into the center of the Kibeho camp. Thousands of persons panicked and stampeded, causing the deaths of nine persons. In a series of incidents between April 20 and 22, the troops fired directly into the crowd, using machine guns as well as rock-propelled grenades, killing thousands of people.

"On April 23, they chased and shot at unarmed civilians, including children, who were attempting to flee the carnage. During the nights of April 20 and 21, unidentified assailants killed and wounded dozens of camp residents in attacks with machetes. Rwandan authorities cited these attacks and the wounding and death of several RPA soldiers on April 22 as evidence that troops faced a serious threat and were justified in firing. Several hundred troops of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), the U.N. peacekeeping force, were present at Kibeho during the massacre but failed to execute their mandate to protect the displaced.

"On April 23, UNAMIR soldiers assisted RPA soldiers in burying some of the dead, who were estimated by U.N. officers to number 8,000. Other victims were not buried but rather were thrown in latrines or were removed from the camp in trucks for disposal elsewhere. The Rwandan government sharply contested the U.N. figures and announced that fewer than 400 had been killed. Later, U.N. officials lowered the estimate of those killed to about 2,000."

Source: http://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/WR96/Africa-08.htm#P599_141723

Kibeho: An Inside Look At An Ugly Scene

On Monday, April 24, 1995, I reached Kibeho where about 500 Hutu refugees, some of them armed, remain holed up in a compound inside the displaced camp in southwestern Rwanda. I called it the “site of a weekend bloodbath in which some two thousand other refugees were killed.” As for the holdouts, I reported they were defying efforts by UN officials and relief workers to persuade them to leave and threats by Rwandan troops to force them out in the wake of the government's decision to close the facility. The situation I found at Kibeho was grim and desperate.

Throughout the day, Zambian soldiers of the UN peacekeeping force in Rwanda used bullhorns to urge the refugees to leave. UN civilian personnel and Red Cross aid workers also tried repeatedly to convince the estimated 500 hutus to go. But aside from a few ailing or aging people who made their way out, most would not listen.

Benedicta Giaver of the UN Rwanda Emergency Office says an armed group among the displaced is the main obstacle.

“There's a very hard core inside the buildings with weapons and grenades, and they're trying to persuade the other people not to leave, also saying to the children you're not allowed to leave. It's a very difficult situation now for us.”

Conditions in the compound are revolting. The open area between the buildings is piled high with debris. There is excrement everywhere. And there are corpses. Eleven bodies were lined up in front of an abandoned medical station. UN military observers said they were all hacked to death with machetes during the night, apparently by that hard core element determined to hold out.

A UN military observer who walked through the area with a small group of reporters (including myself) discussed the refugees' reluctance to leave.

“Maybe some of them do not want to go because they are guilty of something. Others, they want to go, but they are afraid to be killed.”

The refugees have been given assurances they will be escorted out by UN troops and driven to their original homes aboard UN vehicles. They have been purposely denied food and water in a further effort to get them to abandon the Kibeho compound. Still, they refuse to go.

One UN soldier threw up his hands in frustration.

“Since morning, we've persuaded these guys, can you go, ‘here is security, we'll give you vehicles, you'll be escorted by UN personnel.' They still insist they would rather remain here and die so what is there for us to do now? We've exhausted all the avenues.”

The soldier says they are suffering needlessly. But the fear of death is a powerful hold.

Benedicta Giaver of the UN Rwanda Emergency Office says she, too, fears more killing.

“It's just a very desperate situation. I mean, you see them there, they're killing each other and you know what I think will happen tonight, I think they will kill even more of each other in there and this is the reality.”

As night fell, UN and relief personnel pulled back out of the compound and took up positions at a nearby UN military outpost. A small contingent of heavily-armed Rwandan soldiers stayed behind, just outside the main entrance. Many more troops were posted out of sight. It was not clear just how much more time they would give the refugees to leave.

Kibeho: The Death Toll Debate

The next day, Sunday, April 23, 1995, I reached Kigali where UN officials sharply revised downward their estimate of the number and injured in an outburst of violence at the Kibeho camp for displaced ethnic Hutu in the southwest of the country. But I noted Rwandan authorities were even disputing the lower UN number.

The UN military commander in Rwanda, Canadian Major-General Guy Tousignant says his soldiers now report the number of confirmed dead from Saturday’s violence at the Kibeho displaced camp is around two thousand with some 650 injured.

That count is in sharp contrast to earlier UN and relief agency estimates, which put the death toll at between four to five thousand.

There are some even higher estimates, but Rwandan President, Pasteur Bizimungu, who toured Kibeho Sunday, is disputing all those counts. He says only three hundred died.

Mr. Bizimungu says it is a pity there were any casualties. But he also says some of the displaced in the camp had weapons and were violent, suggesting they brought the bloodshed on themselves.

UN authorities have acknowledged there were armed elements in the camp where tens of thousands of ethnic Hutu had taken shelter since fleeing to the southwest last year. But General Tousignant says Rwandan troops fired on the crowd indiscriminately after a group of several thousand tried to break through the Rwandan military cordon thrown up around Kibeho after the government ordered its closure.

The UN Special Envoy to Rwanda, Shaharyar Khan, suggests some of those who tried to flee feared they would be detained on suspicion of involvement in last years massacre of ethnic Tutsi. Mr. Khan says it is not clear how many of the dead were shot and how many were trampled in the stampede that erupted Saturday. He says some of the fatalities also had machete cuts and General Tousignant reported seeing at least one victim with a spear wound.

Rwandan troops early Sunday began burying the bodies and were being assisted by UN forces. By days end, most of the dead had been put in hastily dug graves. Only several hundred refugees remained in the camp, some of them under Rwandan military guard. A UN spokesman says he was told, those under detention were suspected of instigating violence.

Most of the camp's original population, estimated at some 80 thousand, has now moved out, both on foot and in vehicles. Mr. Khan says some have sought shelter in near by villages, where he says they have met with a generally hostile reception. He says there have been incidents in which the displaced have been stoned and physically attacked.

The violence is the worst since the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front took power last year after the former Hutu led government and Hutu extremist militia launched a series of massacres that claimed between a half million and one million lives, most of them ethnic Tutsi.

Kibeho: The Storm Explodes As Hutu Extremists With Guns And Machetes Emerge

On Saturday, April 22, 1995, the situation was no longer being minimized as aid workers and UN officials said they believed hundreds and possibly as many as one thousand people may have been killed in an outbreak of violence at Kibeho, the displaced camp for ethnic Hutu in southwestern Rwanda that had been ordered closed by the government. I reported the latest from Nairobi as I made hasty preparations to head for Rwanda.

Ismael Diallo, the chief UN spokesman in Rwanda, will only say that there have been a large number of casualties at the Kibeho camp, where conditions are described as chaotic and confused.

However UN and relief agency sources now confirm the trouble erupted when a crowd of several thousand refugees tried to break through a Rwandan army cordon thrown up around the facility since its closure was announced.

Eyewitnesses say that among the refugees were suspected Hutu extremists armed with guns and machetes who attacked the soldiers. The troops responded by firing on the crowd. Grenade explosions could also be heard but it was not clear who was responsible for the blasts.

Rwandan authorities have called Kibeho a haven for militiamen responsible for last year's massacres of a half million or more ethnic Tutsi. Many of the displaced Hutu have been reluctant to leave, however, fearing possible reprisals.

I filed that report after filing the following the day before. As you can see the casualty toll was small with officials saying only that at least 13 people had been killed and 24 wounded --- this after Rwandan troops allegedly opened fire at Kibeho. Although troubling, the incident appeared unextraordinary and rather than leave for Rwanda, I again filed from my base in Nairobi on Friday, April 21, 1995 after conducting interviews by phone.

A UN spokesman in Kigali says the casualties occurred late Thursday (4/20) at the Kibeho camp. Ismael Diallo quotes Rwandan military authorities as saying they were forced to open fire after several of the displaced people attempted to seize a weapon from a soldier.

In a telephone interview, spokesman Diallo says despite the shooting incident, the situation at Kibeho and other southwestern camps is calm. He acknowledges conditions at the overcrowded facilities are -- in his words -- really difficult.

But, the UN spokesman rejects suggestions by some relief agencies a humanitarian disaster is in the making. Mr. Diallo says food, water, and medicine are reaching the refugees and conditions are improving.

The Rwandan government ordered the camps closed this week, calling them havens for extremists involved in last year's ethnic and political massacres. Tens-of-thousands of displaced are awaiting transportation home. UN spokesman Diallo says at least 70 vehicles are currently involved in the return operation, which officials estimate will take several days.

Mr. Diallo says some of the refugees, all members of the Hutu ethnic community, are still reluctant to leave the camps. He says they fear possible reprisals from the Tutsi-dominated army. But, the UN spokesman says extremist Hutu elements may be intentionally stirring such fears by spreading rumors and precipitating incidents.

Kibeho: The Situation Isn't As Trouble-free As First Described

The next day, April 19, 1995, I remained in Nairobi. But in Rwanda, UN authorities were scrambling to help relocate some 100 thousand displaced Rwandans after troops ordered their camp in southwestern Rwanda closed. The effort, though, was endangered by new allegations that Rwandan troops had shot and killed civilians in the same part of the country in retaliation for a recent guerrilla attack. Suddenly things no longer seemed as trouble-free as UN officials originally claimed.

The UN Special Representative to Rwanda, Shaharyar Khan, says a massive operation is being mounted by UN forces and relief workers in conjunction with Rwandan authorities to transfer the displaced to their homes elsewhere in the country.

The action comes after government troops surrounded the sprawling Kibeho camp in southwestern Rwanda early Tuesday (4/18/1995), firing shots in the air and triggering a panic in which a UN spokesman says 10 people were trampled to death.

But spokesman Ismael Diallo says in a telephone interview from Kigali that no violence was directed against the refugees, all of them members of the Hutu ethnic community. He also says Rwandan military officials assured them their security would be ensured during their return journeys and that transportation and relief supplies would be provided.

UN sources say the operation will take many days and is likely to be followed by similar transfers of refugees from other camps in southwestern Rwanda. The government wants all the camps closed because it considers them havens for Hutu extremists responsible for last year's massacres of ethnic Tutsi. Government authorities also suspect the camps are hiding places for weapons used in extremist attacks on troops and civilians.

UN spokesman Dillo says Rwandan troops are alleged to have killed 16 civilians in retaliation for one such guerrilla attack near the southwestern town of Cyangugu last Friday (4/14/1995).

“The killings apparently took place after eight unknown persons are said to have attacked two RPA soldiers at about 11 AM the same morning, killing one RPA soldier and wounding the other. Between one PM and three PM that day approximately 20 RPA soldiers reportedly came to the area and rounded up 17 men, all local civilians. The men were brought to the banks of the Rubyiro river where they were shot. All of the men died with the exception of one who feigned death and later made his way to the nearby hospital for treatment of his injuries.”

Mr. Diallo says UN authorities view the incident with great concern and have taken up the matter with Rwandan officials. So far there has been no response. A Rwandan military spokesman, asked about the incident, said he knew nothing about the alleged civilian killings, but confirmed one soldier was killed and another wounded by attackers.

The government has in the past acknowledged some of the country's predominantly Tutsi troops have engaged in reprisal killings of Hutu. But officials have called such incidents isolated and say those soldiers involved have been disciplined.

The Kibeho Chronicles: How It Began

Rwandan government troops carried out a cordon and search operation at a camp for displaced Rwandans in the southwest of the country on April 18, 1995. A UN military spokesman I reached by phone from my office in Nairobi told me there was no trouble and he denied tens of thousands of the refugees had fled in panic. In fact, there was trouble, big trouble and the situation was about to explode. This is the beginning of what I call the Kibeho chronicles.

UN military spokesman Lieutenant Kent Page says there was no panic and no violence as Rwandan government troops entered the sprawling Kibeho camp for the search operation.

Lieutenant Page says in a telephone interview from Kigali most of the 100 thousand refugees left their crude shelters and congregated at the center of the facility.

He said many took their plastic sheeting and other belongings with them, leaving behind only the bare frames of their huts and smoldering cooking fires. He suggests this might explain why a reporter (Reuter) who flew over the camp in a helicopter thought he had seen huts destroyed or burning.

The spokesman says a senior UN commander has flown to Kibeho to evaluate the situation. But for the moment, Lieutenant Page says things appear relatively peaceful and calm. He says he has no reason to believe the refugees will not return to their huts. He also says he is not aware of any fresh decision by Rwandan authorities to shut down Kibeho or other camps for the displaced.

The Rwandan government has long sought the closure of camps in the southwest of the country. Officials say the facilities are breeding grounds for discontent and violence. They say the refugees, members of the Hutu ethnic majority, should return to their homes and have nothing to fear unless they were involved in last year's massacres of ethnic Tutsi.

UN officials have been sponsoring a return home program. But relief workers say it has virtually ground to a halt in recent weeks following a new series of rumors about alleged reprisal attacks against Hutu returnees. Diplomats say those rumors may have been intentionally planted by exiled officials of the ousted government and extremist militia responsible for last year's bloodbath.

Expelling Rwandan Refugees: Controversial But Perhaps A Silver Lining?

I have to apologize. In the version of the following as originally posted, I got my dates wrong and ran the item out of sequence. Instead of the expulsions being in early April 1995, and thus immediately after the first anniversary ceremonies marking the Rwandan genocide, the expulsions were in fact in late August 1995 --- after some other tumultuous events. Rather than delete the posting, I will correct it now and let it stand.

Zairean troops in August 1995 expelled hundreds of Rwandan refugees from camps in eastern Zaire back across the border despite international protests. I went again to Goma, where the largest camps were and found that there might be a positive aspect to the controversial operation.

One relief worker calls the Zairean military operation a break in the refugee deadlock -- a break in which Zairean troops appear to have broken the grip of extremist Hutu leaders in the camps. Those leaders had been repeatedly accused of using violence and other forms of intimidation in the past to keep some of the more than one million refugees in Zaire from returning home.

Now, even UN officials admit refugees are stepping forward and offering to board trucks and buses commandeered by Zairean troops to be taken to the border. They say the camp leaders are rarely seen these days.

At the crossing point in Goma on this day, truckloads of refugees -- men, women and children -- were offloading on the Zairean side and lining up to board waiting vehicles on the Rwandan side. Most had but a few meager possessions. But there was no sense of fear or panic. There were even a few smiles.

One refugee said: now we can go home without intimidation.

Still the operation has not been without incident. Aid workers say Zairean forces were initially quite rough with the refugees and many were separated from their families. Two or three refugees are said to have suffered gunshot wounds when the Zairean round-up began.

UN officials say the behavior of the Zairean soldiers has now improved -- especially after a small group was disciplined for excessive looting.

Fear of the Zaireans appears to be a factor in the decisions of many refugees to go back to Rwanda. Some say that, when they fled to Zaire last year, they thought it was a safe place. Now, they say it is not.

Despite uncertainties about the reception they will receive back in Rwanda, they prefer to take their chances there rather than risk staying on in Zaire any longer.

Many refugees -- especially men thought to be linked to last year's genocide -- have however chosen to flee the Zairean camps and seek shelter in the countryside beyond the reach of the Zairean soldiers who might force them back home. The United Nations estimates about 80 thousand have fled so far, many of them Burundians from the Uvira camp to the south. Aid workers are worried about the fate of these refugees, but overall they say there is no sense of emergency.

Instead, UN officials say they are trying to turn what one of them called a haphazard and often-unpleasant forced military operation into a measured and voluntary one in which humanitarian principles are observed. After all, said one senior relief official, the goal has always been to get the refugees home.