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.
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.
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