Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 10

IQAMonday, April 18, 1994 Tallahassee Democrat World A REPORTER'S NOTEBOOK ON RWANDA Apocalypse is now tor the innocent of Rwanda (UGANDA ZAIRE V- RWANDA Vjf jM I Kigali 4V of Vf Airport I Arthur Allen of the Associated Press was in Rwanda's capital until Wednesday, when he was evacuated by plane to Nairobi with other journalists. The following are vignettes from his coverage of Rwanda's terrifying tragedy. By Arthur Allen THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NAIROBI, Kenya Fitful sleep on airport luggage belts punctuated by hair-raising trips in hot RWANDA Second flight arrives amid renewed bout of savagery By Chega Mbltiru THE ASSOCIATED PRESS NAIROBI, Kenya More than 12,000 Rwandans who have gathered at sites guarded by the United Nations awaited food and medicine Sunday as fighting between rebels and soldiers flared again in their ravaged capital. The second relief flight arrived in as many days at Kigali's airport, which was under the control of the United Nations. U.N.

officials said they hoped to bring in more flights if the violence subsided. That seemed unlikely Sunday. Rebels and soldiers traded small-arms fire and mortar rounds. Dr. Abdul Kabia, director of the U.N.

peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, said efforts to arrange a cease-fire had stalled. i i if i 40km 5 if I Map area The Associated Press wired cars past machete-waving killers slugging down cane liquor. And the bodies, crumpled in bloody piles. That was the scene journalists took in during the ethnic slaughter VT-'V Allen KARSTEN THIELKERThe Associated Press evacuation. Anarchy has claimed the Central African nation following its president's mysterious death.

A Belgian, shot while trying to flee the Rwandan capital, is escorted by Belgian soldiers to the Kigali airport for and war in Kigali, possibly the most terrifying place on earth last week. Like everyone else trying to 450 French soldiers and about 30 journalists, the arrival lounge was strewn with cigarette butts and used ration cans. Kigali flight reminds some of Saigon's last days Soldiers, reporters and marauding gangs alike made free use of the cars that expatriates ditched at evacuation stations. Some had to be hot-wired. Others were left with the keys in the ignition.

On their way out, reporters parked the cars by the airport hangar where the Belgians were based. A Belgian in sunglasses and shorts, who identified himself as Guy Steimes, popped up wherever expatriates were to be found. He spoke perfect German and fluent Oxford English. Everyone seemed to know him. "It's a bit like Saigon here, don't drive about 4,000 foreigners to the airport past thousands of men with murder in their eyes.

The French reportedly sold arms to Rwanda's army in 1990, and friendly ties enabled the French to take over the airport April 7 and begin flying in 450 paratroopers for The fighting in Rwanda erupted after a mysterious plane crash on April 6 killed the presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi, who were returning from a meeting aimed at finding an end to the bloody feud between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. Kabia said the United Nations sent more convoys of armored vehicles to parts of Kigali to evacuate people fearing for their lives. Marauding gangs, many armed with machetes, have terrorized the city, randomly looting and hacking thousands of people to death. "These gangs are operating in mainly army-controlled areas and they do not seem to be under anybody's control," Kabia said. More than 12,000 people are believed under U.N.

protection at the national stadium, King Faisal hospital, Meridien Hotel and airport. About 2,100 Polish, Bangladeshi, Senegalese and Ghanaian peacekeepers are in Kigali. Among the bands of marauding Hutus leaving their carnage strewn about the capital, antipathy to the Belgians was clear. Two French photographers who ventured out without armed escort were stopped 100 yards from the airport by Hutus who put machetes to their necks and shouted, "You are Belgian! You are Belgian!" "They were savages," said a shaken Pascal Guyot, an Agence France-Presse photographer. The most remarkable feature of Gregoire Kayibanda Airport, named after Rwanda's first president and built in 1986, is a giant mountain gorilla carved in black soapstone in a display case in the arrival lounge.

Rwanda, a tiny, densely population nation of 7.3 million, is best known outside Africa for Dian Fos-sey and her gorillas, immortalized in the film "Gorillas in the Mist" Fos-sey was slain in 1986. No one really knows who killed her. After a week of occupation by er asked. "It's bad," said the flight chief. "But it's quiet at the airport, right?" "No, it's bad there, too." "After this I'm quitting the paratroops," said Cpl.

Alex Camerlynck, as the propeller plane took off with two jeeps and a military truck bouncing in the cargo bay, and passengers jiggling in their webbed seats. "My kids can't take these missions anymore," said Camerlynck, a veteran of the U.N. mission in Somalia "My 12-year-old especially, it hurts his heart." Arrival at 9:30 p.m., Kigali is silent flashing lights like heat lightning indicate a battle to the north. The Milky Way is bright and purplish. The Big Dipper and the Pleiades twinkle in the heavens above the airport tarmac.

The Belgians executed a complicated ballet with the French forces in Kigali, using armored convoys to keep from being killed in Rwanda, journalists depended on the protection of 1,150 Belgian and French paratroops who flew in to evacuate foreigners after the killing started April 6. The red-bereted French paratroops were icy, crew-cut and methodical. The green-bereted gians were bearded and friendly and nervous. Striking fear in hearts of hardened paratroopers The Belgian troops were afraid. Ten of their colleagues were tortured and murdered by the presidential guard on April 7.

The guards blamed the Belgians for the mysterious plane crash that killed Rwanda's president, Juvenal Habariyarama, the day before. Fear set in with sunset Monday night as the paratroopers got ready to board a C-130 transport from Nairobi, Kenya, to Kigali. "How is Kigali tonight?" a report- the operation. Each time Belgian planes tried to land, however, the Rwandan army parked trucks across the runway, said Lt. Col.

Marc Emonts-Gast Four days later, the Rwandans relented and let the Belgian troops fly in. On Wednesday, as a two-pronged rebel column entered Kigali from the north, the 400 French withdrew to the airport. They didn't want to be around when the rebels took power, a French officer said. They left the rest of the evacuation to the Belgians, whom the Hutu-dominated Rwandan government has accused of helping the Tutsi rebels. you think?" he asked, pointing to a group of Rwandan U.N.

workers pleading to be taken away. Steimes said he was a businessman and was just "helping out" the Belgian embassy officials who processed the departures, writing down names on a list "Do you like Thomas Pynchon?" he asked a reporter. "I wrote my master's thesis on Pynchon." "Po)r V. my. -J 1 iiiiui1 lbl 11 1 1 'iFw 1 1 ji 1 Pfl in e) If I cn is 1 iu II1WHI.IWI.UL Mortgage rates haven't been this low in years.

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