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The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 8

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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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A8 The Rwandan Nightmare The Philadelphia Inquirer Saturday, July 23, 1994 The dead and the missing outnumber the survivors in Kigali The challenge now is to restore a shattered capital city. Rwandan refugees are urged to trust the new leaders and return. But there will be killings and reprisals. U.N. officials and aid workers said the key to building confidence is to stop them quickly.

"When you have a traumatic situation like this, terrible things will happen when people react. Some local guy who has had his family wiped out is going to settle his scores," said Khan. Weeks after the fighting and the killing ended in Kigali there are still reminders of the horrors. At the campus of the College of St. Andre1, the skeletal remains of nameless victims lie amid the garbage of the 20,000 refugees once housed there.

"This war is a landmark in the life of every Rwandan. We cannot have another apocalyptic situation such as this one. This has to be a lesson," Twagiramungu said. "If you look at what has happened here you really wonder if it was done by human beings. The savagery is beyond what the mind can imagine." people and he wants to instill confidence by taking them where they want to go, even if that means Zaire.

He wants food aid distributed on the Rwandan side of the border to encourage people to come back. He also wants aid workers, U.N. peace-keepers and foreign troops to make a presence in Rwanda. The UNHCR yesterday began urging Rwandan refugees to go home, believing they would be safe. Even before the war, Twagiramungu said, Rwanda suffered a critical shortage of qualified people.

Since the fighting began in early April, it has lost more teachers, managers, engineers, technicians and others essential to running the country, who died in the massacres or fled the bloodshed. "We are not going to go into retribution. We can't do it. We will behave like civilized people. We don't have to kill because others have killed," said Twagiramungu.

and their automatic weapons are everywhere. A handful of shopkeepers have swept out their bullet-riddled shops and begun to sell their meager wares. Amid the ankle-deep rubbish of the central market, hawkers are working to set up stalls. But agriculture is the only engine of the Rwandan economy, and in the countryside the crops have been left to wither and die. In what had been the most densely populated country in Africa, there are no people to bring in the harvest.

Michele Moussalli, the special representative of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said that even across the long-pacified eastern border with Tanzania there are more people leaving than returning to Rwanda. Those coming back, he said, can be counted only in the hundreds. In the protection zone set up by French forces in southeastern Rwanda, he said, there are nearly two million displaced people poised to flee into Zaire. "The first priority is to stop the outflow of people, to assure the people they need not fear retribution and summary justice," said Shahar-yar Khan, the U.N.

special representative for Rwanda. The new government, led by moderate Hutus, is projecting itself as an all-embracing government, Khan said. He believes it is sincere in its desire to unite Rwanda and end a history written rife with Hutu-Tutsi ethnic slaughters. "They are telling the people to turn a new page and be Rwandans," Khan said. But he said the assurances offered by the new government must be matched by progress on the ground.

Twagiramungu, a moderate Hutu picked by the rebels to head the new government, is appealing for help. He wants trucks to help transport the ingly easy for the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front. Building the peace is a daunting challenge whose success will depend on the new government's ability to convince its people that it is safe to come home. "We have to react immediately. We cannot sit in Kigali and believe the people will come back just because they are hungry," Twagiramungu said.

"We have to go where they are. We must go and approach them, talk to them and insure our message is getting across." That message, for the most part, is falling on deaf ears. Hutu refugees still are streaming toward the border with Zaire, while the ones already there are dying by the thousands of cholera, hunger and exhaustion. Only tens of thousands now live in the capital, once home to more than a quarter of a million. The city is an armed camp.

Rebel soldiers By Terry Leonard ASSOCIATED PRESS KIGALI, Rwanda In Rwanda's bloodstained capital, the dead and the missing outnumber the living. Vast warrens of mud-and-stick hovels that once teemed with Kigali's poor stand nearly abandoned. The city is a mockery of itself houses without people, streets without cars, only the light of the moon to beat back the African night. After the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, after the fearful flight of millions more, there are precious few Rwandans left to pick up the pieces, to rebuild a nation shattered by three months of madness, war and genocide. "I am not interested in leading a country that is empty," newly appointed Prime Minister Faustin Twa-giramungu said yesterday.

"If you don't have the trust of the people, it is useless." Winning the war was surpris 111 Huge boost in aid to refugees in Zaire ordered by Clinton The Philadelphia Inquirer REJ3ECCA BARGER A foot sticks out of a mass grave near the airport in Goma, Zaire. The French military put lime on the bodies before covering them with dirt. Nearly two million Rwandans have fled across the border in recent days, and thousands have died of cholera. ets for oral rehydration will be delivered over the next two days to help those already infected. In a measure of the scale of the disaster, the Pentagon has no estimate of how much food or how many tons of medical supplies are needed.

A key goal of the relief effort is to get the refugees moving back to their homes in Rwanda. "If you can't get the Rwandans to move towards home, then nature's going to solve the problem for you," the senior Defense Department official said. "You saw the pictures of the backhoes burying people in trenches." At the Pentagon, spokeswoman Kathleen deLaski said the military has established 24-hour desks at the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the U.N. air operations center in Geneva. The center is in charge of directing the flow of aircraft flying to and from Coma, where most refugees are concentrated.

All the international relief efforts that picked up speed yesterday whether being led by governments or by aid organizations faced a host of logistical complications within Rwanda and Zaire, including the mining of a key road, an overtaxed airstrip and the chaos created by refugees living and dying on almost every open patch of earth in and around Goma. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali told a conference of donor nations that it would take $434 million to alleviate the suffering. In addition to the new U.S. funds, European and Japanese governments have committed millions more.

But so far, the aid making it into the hands of increasingly desperate refugees has not been enough. Workers in Goma gave out 200 tons of maize and high-protein biscuits yesterday, less than a third of the 660 tons needed daily. One ton of emergency food can sustain about 70 people for a month. Plans to bring in food trucks from Nairobi were canceled because a stretch of road from Gisenyi, Rwanda, to Goma was mined by retreating soldiers of the defeated Rwandan army, said Douglas Coutts of the World Food Program. Only eight of the 15 flights arriv- i -fV-i yfn Mill H'f hi i ra RWANDA from A1 cized the U.S.

response as inadequate, Clinton said, "From the beginning of this tragedy, the United States has been in the forefront of the international community's response." While the United States has pledged far more money than any other nation, France took a lead role by deploying 2,500 troops to Rwanda to prevent further massacres. The United States does not intend to assign soldiers to any U.N. peace-keeping force set up in Rwanda, relying on other nations to contribute. Nearly two million Rwandan Hutus have fled across the border into Zaire in recent days, and more than a million more are moving toward the frontier. They fear retaliation for the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi people by Hutu militias.

"The flow of refugees across Rwanda's borders has now created what could be the world's worst humanitarian crisis in a generation," the President said. Clinton stressed that a solution depends on the return of the refugees to their homes. To that end, the United States urged the United Nations to deploy peace-keepers to Rwanda immediately to provide security. The Rwandan government indicated yesterday that it would welcome such forces. "We are making clear to the new leaders of Rwanda that international acceptance, including American recognition, depends upon the establishment of a broad-based government, the rule of law and efforts at national reconciliation," the President said.

In terms of relief supplies, U.S. officials say a top priority is providing fresh water, since cholera is caused by bacteria in contaminated water. "Water and sanitation are critical to prevent further loss of life," Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch said. "To do a complete job on this will take a great deal of time. We are essentially talking about producing here a water system for at least 1.2 million people." However, he said, the United States will take immediate steps to purify existing water supplies with chlori-nation.

In addition, 20 million pack i rr i Til t--7 I ft Ate li ilS it ii 1 If lit, I i. ASSOCIATED PRESS Countries offering assistance to Rwandan refugees: Austria: It has committed $900,000. In cooperation with relief agencies, it will provide two water processing plants to Goma, the Zairian town overwhelmed by refugees. Denmark: It has pledged $488,000, bringing its total commitment to $5.2 million. Finland: It has increased its promised aid by $100,000, for a total this year of $1.7 million.

France: It deployed a intervention force in Rwanda last month to prevent further massacres of civilians. Germany: It has pledged $31 million two additional air force transport planes and 17 water purifiers to bring its total aid for refugees in Goma to $58.5 million. The German state of Rhineland-Palatinate will Habyarimana's By Michela Wrong REUTERS KINSHASA, Zaire Followers of Rwanda's late President Juvenal Ha-byarimana have brought his body to neighboring Zaire, where it is being kept for the day he can be buried on Rwandan soil. Sources at the Mount Ngaliema Clir.TC 5 rtrivntr hnonltnl ir thn ov. elusive Gombe suburb of this capital city, yesterday confirmed a newspaper report that the body had been stored in its mortuary since Sunday.

Access to the morgue was blocked yesterday by Zairian military police who said they were there to pay respects to a dead colleague. But the presence outside of a Mercedes driven by Rwanda's ambassador to Zaire, Etienne Sengegera, gave the game away. Asked to confirm the presence of Habyarimana's body, Sengegera said, "This is a subject I prefer not to talk about." Assistance becomes global I'll 3 5, 1 undertaking provide two drinking-water plants', as well as food supplies. Germany also is helping build two orphanages in Rwanda. Japan: It pledged $9 million last month.

Netherlands: It has approved sending 50 transport trucks, 25 off-road vehi cles, 15 generator units and 10 bile kitchens. Norway: It approved $1.4 million during the last week, for a total of $5.7 million. South Africa: It has promised 150 tons of humanitarian aid. The first 30-ton shipment, for refugees in Tanzania, was flown in earlier this month. Sweden: It has approved $19 million and is expected to approve $6.4 million more next week.

United States: President Clinton has ordered a round-the-clock military airlift. Washington has pledged an estimated $250 million since April 6. body is in Zaire Habyarimana was killed April 6, when a plane carrying him and Burundi's president was apparently shot down as it landed at the Rwandan capital, Kigali. His death, whose circumstances remain mysterious, triggered massacres of Tutsi tribe members by Hutu extremists and the invasion of Rwanda by the Tutsi- uu lunfc, i i ui.it. (RPF).

Before Kigali fell to the RPF, Rwandan soldiers took their president's body to Gisenyi, his home town and the heartland of Hutu extremism. When it became clear that Gisenyi, the base for the interim government, was about to fall, it was taken across the border into Zaire. Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko was an ally of Habyarimana's and until recently tried to mediate between the Interim goverment and RPF. ing in Goma each day are set aside for humanitarian relief, and three of those are for food, U.N. officials said.

Zairian authorities were blocking aid flights in order to allow commercial flights to continue using the airport, according to Fernando del Mundo, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva. "It's criminal to prevent these planes from coming in when you have a lot of people dying out there," del Mundo said. "You have a fullblown disaster on your hands and of course every minute counts." On average, one plane a day has brought supplies to French-based Doctors Without Borders. The group is trying to fly in intravenous fluid, sanitation equipment and isolation tents to treat an estimated 10,000 people for cholera, said Joelle Tanguy, head of the organization's New York office.

Cholera claimed the lives of 1,000 refugees on Thursday alone, the UNHCR said. Without clean water and latrines, the highly infectious intestinal disease will continue to spread rapidly. Other forms of dysentery, as well as dehydration, measles and starvation, were also taking their toll. Relief officials also were hampered by the sheer numbers of refugees. "We have to start loading the trucks at 4 in the morning.

Otherwise they can't get through," del Mundo said. "There haven't been any incidents so far, but the fears are there that one of these days the trucks are going to be looted." Given the logistical problems, the UNHCR tried yesterday to encourage the refugees to return home to Kwanda, wnere unharvested crops are rotting in fields. "UNHCR would like it to be a replay of what happened in reverse, i.e. a million people packing it up and making a mad dash back across the border," said spokesman Ray Wilkinson. But that was unlikely, at least in the short term.

The Hutu refugees fled in fear of Tutsi reprisals. And even if they believed the new government's promises that they will be safe, most are too hungry, sick and exhausted to contemplate the return trek. A partial list of aid agencies assisting Rwanda American Red Cross Rwanda Relief PO Box 37243 Washington, D.C. 20013 800-842-2200 CARE 151 Ellis St. Atlanta, GA 30303 800-521-CARE Adventist Development and Relief Agency PO Box 4289 Silver Spring, MD 20914 800-424-2372 Catholic Relief Services 209 W.

Fayette St. Baltimore, MD 21201 410-625-2220 Church World Service PO Box 968 Elkhart, Indiana 46515 212-870-3151 Doctors Without Borders USA Inc. 30 Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 5425 New York, NY 10112 212-649-5961 Oxf am America 26 West St. Boston, MA 021 11 617-482-1211 World Relief PO BOX WHG, Uept. 3 Wheaton, IL 60189 800-535-5433 World Vision PO Box 1131 Pasadena, CA91131 800-423-4200 InterAction, a coalition of U.S.

aid agencies, offers a longer list of private aid agencies involved with Rwanda. It is available by calling 202-667-8227. SOURCE: Associated Press The Philadelphia Inquirer Associated Press DOMINIC CUNNINGHAM REID A crowd of refugees stands by as a Zairian Tutsi woman lies fatally injured outside a hospital in Goma after she was beaten by Rwandan Hutu refugees. She was one of several Tutsis killed by refugees..

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