The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 15

THE OBSERVER WORLD NEWS15 Yemen's civil war forces prepare for a fight to the finish at gates of Aden Brian Whitaker Salih, were withdrawing. Later it appeared that they had fallen into a trap as southern Socialist forces, controlled by dismissed Vice-President Ali Salim al-Baid, attacked from the rear. A highly placed official in the Socialist party claimed that huge numbers of southern troops previously held in reserve had been called in from Shabwa and Wadi Hadramawt for the onslaught, and had pinned down the northern army near Zinjibar, 30 miles east of Aden. Sixty per cent of the northern forces are currently in the south. If the Socialist claim proves true, they cannot escape which could mean disaster for President Salih, who had been counting on a quick victory.

It emerged yesterday that the northern Amaliqa brigade had also suffered a setback on Friday after southern troops attacked it by land, sea and air. A northern statement said the brigade had repelled the attack. Anti-aircraft guns in Sana'a, the capital in the north, opened fire early yesterday but the city fell quiet around dawn and there was no repeat of Scud missile attacks. It is thought that the south now has only six Scuds left. Meanwhile four American aircraft, escorted by fighters, evacuated US citizens and some Brit ons from Sana'a.

France, Germany, Russia and India were also working to evacuate their nationals, although the Foreign Office has simply advised Britons to 'stay indoors and listen to the BBC. Sixty-four Britons picked up by a French ship from Aden, arrived in Djibouti yesterday. President Salih is seeking to re-impose national unity. Following Yemen's first multi-party elections last year, the Socialists joined the President's General People's Congress and the conservative-Islamic Reform party in a three-way coalition. But since August the Socialists' tactics of disruption have paralysed the government.

Northern leaders feel they have been held to ransom by the Socialists, pointing out that the south contains no more than one-sixth of Yemen's population. The Socialists, in turn, resent at tempts to 'northernise' them with a system they regard as archaic and, above all, corrupt. As fighting closed in around Aden, ceasefire efforts by the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council gained pace. Some of the Arab interest in a ceasefire is motivated less by humanitarian concerns than by regional politics. The Saudis and Kuwaitis have both encouraged the Socialists.

They were widely reported to have been financing the south's arms-buying spree, estimated at $200 million-worth of weapons during the last few months, only to find that the wrong side until yesterday appeared to be winning. President Salih yesterday rejected a ceasefire. But if fighting continues beyond the next few days he may be forced to change his mind. THE CIVIL war in Yemen took a dramatic and possibly cataclysmic turn yesterday as rival northern and southern forces prepared for a final showdown. Northern troops besieging Aden resumed their attack at dawn, but after an hour fighting on the city's outskirts stopped amid reports that the northerners, under President Ali Abdullah SUNDAY 8 MAY 1994 Survivors mamme heimcfoinrieini of Rwanda genocide Mark Huband Rwamagana, central Rwanda trols at least half the country.

A ceasefire looked unlikely yesterday with reports of continued shooting in Kigali. As there is extensive evidence that the killings have been highly organised, any attempt by the United Nations to step in and stop them would mean confronting the Hutu politicians, army top brass and extremists from the youth wing who are all that remain of political authority outside the area held by the rebels. 'During the massacres we saw people who were visibly under the orders of said Frederick Rubwejanga, the Roman Catholic bishop of Rwamagana. He had visited the barracks close to hisdiocese's headquarters to ask for military protection for himself arid the priests after the killings had started. 'When I went into the office I found the commanding officer, Col Anselme Mkuriyekubona, talking about tactics with the local head of the MRND and "Cyasa" who was known as the interahamwe chief.

He was the one who killed a priest, Michael Nsengiyumra, as he was taking an injured man to the the bishop said. 'A lieutenant, Mihigo, came to our church and said he would protect myself and seven priests. He left, leaving in command one of his men who immediately said to me that he could only guard two of the priests and asked me which ones should be allowed to live. 'I said all of them must be allowed to live. Then he shot Father Elisee Mpongano.

Mpoh-gano had had a gun and he had shot some of the militia when they tried to attack his church a few days beforehand. I think he killed one of Civilians who managed to flee the heavy fighting between the rebels and government troops, which raged for five days last week at the village of Kabunga, 30 miles from Rwamagana, said the government and its militia supporters attacked civilians in a nearby church at Ruhanga with rockets from aircraft as violence first erupted. 'There were about 3,000 people who had taken refuge inside and outside tjie Protestant church at Ruhanga. When the militiamen attacked, we resisted them with spears and said Faustin Nsengimana, one of the few survivors still in the area. 'But then the government sent in an airplane, and the plane used machine-gun fire and threw bomb's down on the church.

The people who died were the ones inside. There were about 2,000 in the compound who had a chance to run Apart from three men, the only survivors from Kabunga left are a group of 25 women and children in a house a few yards from where the rebels had rigged up two mortars with which they were pounding the town centre less than half a mile away. 'We knew who some of the militia were when they attacked us in the town and at Ruhanga said survivor Fromina Mukamuyezi. 'We' knew them, and they were organised by the village chief, Leonard Mwonger-eza. He had a list of the people who were to be killed.

And the militia came and killed them as soon as we heard the president was In defiance of worldwide disgust, Rwanda's self-styled interim government lias pursued a highly, public policy of ethnic cleansing. In -a broadcast on Radio Rwanda last Thursday, Prime Minister Jean Kambanda DAZED patients wander around the yard of the President Fon-tanas hospital in Rwamagana in central Rwanda, where the smell of the dead, the dying and the injured wafts from the wards. 'We had taken refuge on a hill with hundreds of other people near said Agnes Nyamahore, whose hand and left leg are wrapped in dirty, blood-soaked bandages. 'When the militia came, many people put up resistance using bows, arrows and stones. They attacked us for three days.

Then they sent for assistance from the army, and the army came with guns and grenades and killed many people. "The attacks were all organised by the chief of the district, Juvenal Rugambarara. And he was with Karakezi and Kahano said Nyamahore, a Tutsi referring to her Hutu neighbours. She says she -saw them, along with the army, under the direction of the chief, kill her other neighbours. Most survivors are able to identify by name at least some of the interahamwe death squads, drawn from the youth Wing of the former ruling party, the Rwandese National Democratic Movement or MRND.

They have been leading the genocide in Rwanda that erupted after the president died in a mysterious plane crash on 6 April. The death toll'is now estimated at 200,000, and hundreds of thousands of Rwandans have fled to neighbouring countries. Most of the dead and fleeing are Tutsis, the minority tribe that also makes up most of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, which now con Faces of fear: Members of Rwanda's Tutsi minority scrabble for aid at a UN camp in Burundi after fleeing for their lives.Photograph by Frank Fournier. said every Rwandan should be armed, and urged thousands of people who had fled to return to join the battles. 'We have men, munitions, a united government, a united army, and we have to win.

Weapons are the main priority of government. Sources in the eastern Zairean town of Goma confirmed on Friday that a large consignment of arms, mostly machine-guns, arrived there on board two Russian-leased Ilyiisljin transport aircraft. The we ap oris are thought to have been purchased through Serbian arms dealers. The build-up of arms in Rwanda started last year after a French bank loaned the govern-- ment funds to buy weapons from South Africa and Egypt, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, the arms were bought at the same time as the MRND youth leaguers began military training, and followed a peace accord signed with the rebels to end three years of civil war. 'Recusations by the self-appointed Rwandan government last week jhat Uganda has supplied arms to the RPF have been rejected by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni.

The RPF is largely drawn from Rwandan refugees in Uganda and ties' remain strong, but Museveni has taken the view that continuing to supply arms will Wellington boots and smart uniforms which always seem to be neatly pressed. There are said to be as many as 400 PhDs within the rebels' ranks. Along with candour, the leadership combines a frosty coldness with a disarming honesty which appears all the more naive against the background of the horrors, the country is experiencing. Journalists are barely let out of the sight of rebel minders and strict discipline prevails. There is no diverging from the 'tours' of the Rwandan countryside.

Passing an abandoned truck by the roadside, our driver said he wanted: to take off a wheel to not have a major impact on the crisis. 'Most people are not using Serbian guns. They are using he said last week. 'The arms may be a catalyst, but they are not the generators of this conflict. And they will not decide the conflict.

The conflict will be decided by the better quality of organisation and Rwanda's disciplined diaspora has lived on the edge of other countries' wars and politics since the 1959 expulsion of thousands of Tutsis. It has evolved into the RPF a collection of bespecta- cled intellectuals leading a force of quietly confident foot-soldiers who wear standard-issue shiny replace bur punctured spare tyre. 'No, you can't just take said our minder, Anthony Kabano. 'You have to seek We drove to a nearby rebel checkpoint where the' driver talked for, some time with the checkpoint commander, who eventually gave his- assent. We men drove back tOjthe bus.

'Now, we have permission, and you take the said Anthony, pompously but correctly concerned about righteousness and, discipline as, the stink of corpses along the roadside lingered in the air. The corpses had not been there the day before. Who killed them? Anthony would not say. of St Petersburg or Moscow there are seven days to absorb the tranquil and timeless quality of the countryside as the river vessel passes through a rolling landscape of farms, silver birch woods, villages and towns, their rooftops often dominated by beautiful churches, leaving one in little doubt that here saw the flowering of holy Russia from its 10th century origins in Kiev. MS LENIN AND MS ANDROPOV he MS Lenin and MS Andropov are modern purpose built river vessels, built to identical specifications in Germany.

There is accommodation for up to 260 passengers in 'outside' cabins, all with shower and toilet on three passenger decks. 'J'he vessels are air-conditioned throughout and public areas include lounges, bars, dining room, sauna, hairdresser, shop, clinic and large deck areas for observation and relaxing. JJow better to explore the beautiful Russian countryside than from aboard a comfortable river vessel as she plies the intricate pattern of connecting rivers, canals and lakes that link two of Russia's greatest cities, Moscow and St Petersburg. The recent opening of the waterways allows us to navigate at a leisurely pace the Moscow and Volga canals, the Volga River, the White Lake, Baltic Canal, the vast lakes of Ladoga and Onega and the Svir and Neva rivers. believe this to be the ideal way to explore Russia not only its most famous landmarks but also the enchanting countryside.

Having explored the glories SLIMLINE DISHWASHERS MODEL NUMBERS: DW1 5TCR. DW20TCR. DS1 5. DS20 DiSOTCR DISHWASHERS MODELS 'DISHWASHER EIGHT 78788 'ONYX' 810 Owners of the above Models must act on this notice. Our Quality Control Programme has revealed a risk that, in isolated circumstances, overheating of wiring may result in a fire 'within the door of these models.

These Dishwashers require attention and this wiil be provided, free of charge, by our engineers. It is important that until our engineer has called, YOUR DISHWASHER SHOULD ALWAYS BE ATTENDED WHEN IN USE. in addition, it must be UNPLUGGED or SWITCHED OFF at the electrical socket as soon as the programme has finished. mSTRHHt The Dishwashers that require attention can be identified by numbers on the silver label fixed to them, and the Model number. The silver label is at the top of the stainless steel front of the dishwasher, visible when you open the door.

The model number for Zanussi Dishwashers is on the control panel on the upper part of the door and the Model number for Bendix Dishwashers is on the front of the top cover edge above the door. Take-this notice to your dishwasher and follow the Instructions for Completion of the Coupon below. Complete and return the coupon or telephone us free on: 0800 33 43 53 any day 8 00am to 6.00pm. Please complete the coupon before you telephone as you will be asked to give the details. No other Zanussi or Bendix products are affected by this notice.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your co-operation. Instructions for Completion of Coupon FLIGHTS WITH BRITISH AIRWAYS OR SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES 15 DAYS FROM 995 THE ITINERARY PRICES PER PERSON 1. Copy the numbers off the silver label, onto this illustration of the label, against the same prefix letters. rr -fT DAY I Fly London Heathrow to St Petersburg and drive to the vessel Ji I "I mfjored on the ieva (fiver. D90 ProdPJ9117F.Nr Category 2 beds Lower deck 995' Category 2 beds Main deck 1095 Category 2 beds Upper deck 1 180 Category A 2 beds Boat deck 1350 Suites Boat deck 1595 Single Boat deck 1375 Pricus subject surcharge DAY 2 Morning drive around St Petersburg, seeing many of its imperial and aristocratic palaces including the great baroque complex of Smolny Hunvcnt and Institute.

Visit ihr Pelcrand Paul Fortress Cathedral and the great church of St Isaac. DAY 3 A morning visit to Pushkin flsarskoe Sclo). the great Rococo-Iblace built for the Empress Elizabeth by Rastrelli. Later visit the Palace of Pavlosk. which was designed by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron.

In the alternoon see part of the magnificent collection of European Art in the Htrrmilage. DAY 'J- Morning cruising across Lake l.odoga. Afternoon visit to Valaam Island. The island is a wonderfully untouched area, walk through uords to the Iron housed in a rhurch. DAY 5 arrival at (he Island of Klsthi in Lake Onega.

Visit the 22-dmned Church of The Transfiguration, a marvel of Ifjfli eenlury Russian uooden archrleelure. Also sec some rvntorri Hlh rrnlurv buildings. 2. Now, check the number you have entered into the shaded area to see if it begins with any of the following number sequences. Beginning with F.Nr F.Nr7 F.Nr 001 F.Nr 8- F.Nr 002 F.Nr 9 F.Nr 003 F.Nr 004 If it does, your dishwasher is one that needs attention and you must complete the rest of the coupon, see paragraphs 3, 4 5.

If the numbers in the shaded area start in some other way you may discard this notice now and continue to use your dishwasher as usual. 3. Copy the model number into the box provided 4. Add details of your name, address and, very important, your postcode to the coupon together with your daytime telephone number. 5.

Cut along the dotted line and put the coupon in an envelope. Seal it and post it to us, right away, at the address shown. No stamp is necessary. DAY 13 Visit the Kremlin to sec the Cathedrals of Annunciation, the Assumption and the Archangel Michael and the fine collection of imperial regalia, arms and carriages in the Armoury Museum. Optional theatre visit.

DAY 14 Drive to Zagorsk, seal of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Monastery Complex of the Trinity of St Scrgius. DAY 15 Day free until departure to London. Model number: Category cabins also have two upper berths. Third person rate is 795, fourth person 695. High season air supplement of 49 per person applies to all departures in July and August.

Price includes: Return scheduled air travel, 14 nights' cruise on full board, excursions, entrance fees, transportation, local guides. Guest Lecturer and Cruise Director. Nol included: Travel insurance from 32, visa 20 (visa fee may vary fur non-BritishEI'X passport holders), airport tux. tips to ship's crew. HOW TO BOOK For reservations and further information, please telephone 071-491 4752 DAY 8 Irma Much of today will be spent cruising with a short stop at the village of Irma.

DAY 9 Today wc visit the historic Yaroslavl, a well-preserved 'Golden city. In the centre of the city, see the lovely church of Klijat, the frescoes on the walls and vaulting inside the church which are magnificent. DAY 10 Kostroma is one of the loveliest cities of the Golden King. Visit the I4th century Ipalyevskv Monastery, now a museum. DAY Approaching the town of Uglich along tin- Volga, one is suddenly confronted with a delightful view id the Church of St John and the ('allied ral of the Resurrection, its blue cupulas dolled ith gulden stars making a magical sighl.

DAY 12 Moscow Cruising through Moscow canal and a series of locks en route to Moscow. Arrive in llie evening and moor for a 3 nighl Slav. TICK A BOX: ZANUSSI BENDIX TO: Careline, Freepost, Swan Court, Mansel Road, Wimbledon SW19 4BR. DAY 6 Here a visit will 1m' matli" In the lrir.il marki-l. 1994 DEPARTURE DATES FROM MOSCOW TO ST PETERSBURG 9.16 July; 6,13 August; 3,10 September FROM ST PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW 2,23.30 July; 20.27 August Name: Address: DAY 7 fjiiitinue the Baltic canal anil White Lake tn the luwn if Visit the Kirill-Helnserk Monastery.

11 CHARIES STREET, MAYFAIR, LONDON W1X7HB TlEPHONE071-i9 4752 FACSIMILE 071-U) OKM 24 HOUR BROCHURE ANSMRFHONE 071-353 1424 AKX3I0B ABTAC9756 Postcode Daytime Tel. Number:.