Austin American-Statesman from Austin, Texas • 8

AO Austin American-Statesman This section is recyclable Monday, August 8, 1994 orld ignored genocide, say Tutsis, relief workers Ys, t- i Weakened by cholera and dysentery, a Rwandan orphan lies In the infirmary at the Lycee Amani orphanage in Goma, Zaire. The United Nations hopes to persuade the refugees to go home before more die of disease. Retaliation fears keep Rwandans in camps By John Balzar Los Angeles Times Service GOMA, Zaire Even as the stakes for hundreds of thousands of people are rising, even as crops are ripening and threatening to rot in the fields of Rwanda, the most important question for refugees cannot be answered. Are they safe going home to Rwanda? In the last three days, a swirl of fresh rumors has swept the refugee camps here: Ethnic Hutus face retaliatory attacks when they try to return home after their bitter civil war with the minority Tutsis. The reports are isolated but gaining credibility.

They came as Gen. John Shalikashvili, the chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, inspected the minimal U.S. military assistance effort here Sunday and said the United States remains committed to avoiding a peacekeeping role in Rwanda. "The U.S.

is not going to get involved," he said. Until recently, the stories of retaliation were largely dismissed as a cruel manipulation of politicians and militias from the defeated government who want to keep control over more than 2 million Rwandans who have fled their homes for refugee camps here and in the southwestern corner of Rwanda, where their security is temporarily guaranteed by French troops. in perspective, consider that'the Khmer Rouge is held responsible for the deaths of an estimated 1 million Cambodians between 1975 and the Vietnamese invasion of December 1978. Rwandans may have matched that grisly record in three months of killing. Throughout most of the massacres, the world watched, reluctant to intervene in yet another AM-; can tribal war.

The United Nations had about 500 troops in Rwanda on April 6 when the bloodletting began, but their mandate as peacekeepers didn't allow them to intervene. In June, France sent about 2,000 troops to Rwanda on a humanitarian mission. The earlier global inaction stands in contrast to the massive international effort being launched to help the Hutus who have crossed as refugees into Zaire. Many relief workers here say that the fear many Hutu refugees, have of returning home concern that the Rwandan Patriotic Front will kill them is partly tacit acknowledgment of the role many might have played in killings of their Tutsi neighbors. Those who have voluntarily gone home probably are not implicated in the mass slaughter, relief workers say.

After the voluntary repatriation is over, aid workers said, those who remain in the camps of Zaire will be mainly the hard-line Hutu element and those who participated in mob violence and fear returning to their villages. composed 14 percent of the nation's population and Hutus made up 85 percent Now the Tutsis are believed to be a much smaller fraction, although the lost population is being replaced by longtime exiles returning from abroad after the military victory of the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front In some areas, such as Kibuye, Josias Ntazinda's hometown, the entire Tutsi population is believed to have been slaughtered. Lt. Col. Eric de Stabenrath, a commander in the French "humanitarian safety zone," spent several weeks in Kibuye investigating the massacres.

He found 4,300 bodies stacked in Kibuye's church and 7,000 to 9,000 more in a sports stadium De Stabenrath said Tutsis packed into the stadium for shelter and were attacked by hundreds of armed Hutu militiamen and government soldiers who killed until they ran out of ammunition. Then they went away, returned and killed some more. "Between 80 and 95 percent of the Tutsi population has been destroyed in this area," said de Stabenrath, who commands the Gikongoro sector of the French security zone of southwestern He said in a village of 44,000 pie near Gikongoro, only 200 sis remain out of a pre-April Tutsi population of 13,400. French soldiers also have recently uncovered more mass graves in the Gikongoro area. To put the Rwandan genocide attacks against returning Hutus, the United Nations resumed its efforts to encourage Rwandan refugees to return home Sunday.

A convoy of 15 U.N. trucks took 500 refugees into Rwanda from the camps around Goma, said Panos Moumtzis, spokesman for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. The United Nations sent in one convoy last week, then suspended the operation for several days because aid agencies in the Rwandan capital of Kigali complained that medical facilities were insufficient to cope with a tide of sick refugees. Cholera, dysentery and malnutrition have killed tens of thousands of the approximately 1 million Rwandans who fled into the Goma region last month as rebel fighters solidified their control of the country.

This article includes material from The Associated Press. MKE MEN'S AND WOMEN'S CROSS TRAINERS, WALKING SHOES, COURT SHOES AND RUNNING SHOES But in the last few days, Western journalists have come to believe that there is more to the reports. Although their accounts are still second- and third-hand, refugees are increasingly being taken at their word when they say they know of a brother or an aunt who was attacked upon returning. On Sunday, John Shattuck, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for human rights, said after a visit to Rwanda and Zaire that there have been "some isolated attacks, and we're very concerned about this." Shattuck hastened to add that he has no solid evidence of renewed killing in Rwanda.

He was accompanying Shalikashvili, who flew from Goma to Kigali for talks with the new Rwandan government Shalikashvili said he would urge the Rwandan authorities to ensure security for returnees so a solution to the refugee crisis could be found. With a lack of solid evidence of 5V2-1 0. Reg. 49.99. CROSS Ethnic massacre called worst since Khmer Rouge 1 Continued from A1 ing throughout the country during the massacres, recently estimated that up to 1 million people may have been killed in Rwanda's bloodletting.

Previous estimates had put the toll at around 500,000. The Red Cross committee said it altered its estimates because hundreds of thousands unaccounted for in Rwanda were believed to be hiding, but it appears that they have been killed. Among the victims were moderate Hutus and those not belonging to the ruling party of slain President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu. In some cases, rampaging mobs forced Hutus who had married Tutsis to kill their wives before being slain themselves. But most of the victims were Tutsis, who have been decimated as an ethnic group in Rwanda.

Refugee Josias Ntazinda is a Tutsi who fled here from Kibuye in Rwanda. He said Hutus slaughtered his wife, brothers and parents during the frenzied bloodletting of April that wiped out the town's Tutsi population. "Everybody was killed," Nta-zuidasaid. Ask him about the death and suffering ravaging the Hutus who have sought exile here, and he replies, "In my opinion, I think it's God's punishment" Before April 6 the day Ha-byarimana's plane crash sparked Rwanda's nightmare Tutsis Xw CROSS TRAINER sale 59.99 Leathercanvas cross trainer. in effect after this event.

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