The Ottawa Citizen from Ottawa, Ontario, Canada • 49

The Ottawa Citizen, Saturday, May 14, 1994 E11 WORLD RWANDA Plaone ciraslh) that set offff Dimassacires ireoDDaiinis a DUDysteiry ANALYSIS Promise gives of Africa way History of Rwanda and Burundi Lake Edward Zaire Uganda Tribal conflict Approximate figures, both countries: HiNs: Former ruling tribe trying to regain control Hutus: Traoitinnally oppressed; currently ruling Lake laka Victoria Kigali0 i Tanzania to nsi ot Peter Maser covered the recent all-race elections In South Africa for the Citizen. By Peter Maser Citizen Africa correspondent JOHANNESBURG As this decade opened and about the time Nelson Mandela was getting out of prison the promise of democracy was sweeping across Africa. Elections were pledged and tyrants deposed; the people would be supreme, to say nothing of healthier, happier and more prosperous or so it was hoped. But four years on, the continent might be charitably described as a mess. It is poorer, hungrier and most experiments in democratization have ended in disappointment if not disaster.

The 1992 elections in Angola, for example, gave way to a resumption of the murderous civil war. As well, the military in Nigeria annulled a presidential vote last year, when it appeared the wrong man was going to win. Burundi also held its first free elections last year but soon after, the new president and several of his cabinet ministers were assassinated. Thousands died in the ensuing unrest and last month the carnage spread to neighboring Rwanda. The question is whether this otherwise dismal equation has been altered by events in South Africa.

In two weeks, the country moved from minority to majority rule, held its first democratic elections and emerged with a sense a cohesion and goodwill. Out of this has come the hope that Africa, or at least a part of it can make a fresh start. i Little chance of fresh start Regrettably, the chances of this happening are slim, though there are grounds for optimism. After all, one of Africa's strongest and wealthiest countries has made the switch to multi-party democracy, a fact others will find hard to ignore. Moreover, by virtue of its read-mission to the world community, South Africa will be able to export the democratic ideal through forums from which it was previously excluded: the United Nations, the Commonwealth, the Organization of African Unity, in which it's expected to play a leading role.

The same is true of bilateral relations as South Africa renews diplomatic ties with other African countries. And it will be able to provide badly needed skills and assistance in areas ranging from disease control to geological surveys and meteorological research. "Many of these can be put at the service of other countries," says Erich Leistner, research fellow at the Pretoria-based African Institute of South Africa. Most important, perhaps, for those countries contemplating democracy, the South African experience provides some valuable insights on how to proceed. One is to move slowly.

The elections here were the last step in a process that began even before Mandela was released from prison in March 1990. Even today, the transition is incomplete. South Africa will be run by a coalition until 1999, when it will move to a full democracy. "In this kind of transition, from authoritarian to democratic governments, the longer they take, the more likely they are to stabilize," says Tom Lodge, political scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand. The second lesson is to share power among as many groups as possible.

South Africa has a government of national unity, which allots cabinet positions to the major political parties. "A power-sharing government in South Africa sets a standard for others," says Patricia Keefer, Southern Africa director for the National Democratic Institute, the international wing of the of the the rebels have said that they condemn the killings and that their aim is to carry out the peace agreement. Rwanda is a tiny, densely populated mountain nation, half the size of Switzerland. It is Idyllically beautiful, a fertile land of sharply defined hills, steep slopes and deep valleys, a quilted carpet of different shades of green. Even though Tutsis and Hutus share the same language and culture, Rwandan history has been marked by ethnic massacres, most of them against Tutsis, who fled Rwanda by the tens of thousands.

In 1973, after increasing anti-Tutsi attacks probably organized by the military, Habyarimana, who was minister of defence at the time, took over in a military coup pledging to restore stability. Originally hailed as a popular and honest leader, Habyarimana lost support after years of increasingly repressive rule and economic stagnation. An ip'-fision by 10,000 Tutsi guerrillas of tl.t Rwanda Patriotic Front in 1990 and pressure from international donors served as a catalyst for an agreement aimed at transforming a one-party dictatorship into a multi-party system. Despite a fragile ceasefire and the signing of the peace accord in August ethnic violence, in particular against the Tutsis, continued as the governing party felt its exclusive control threatened. The human "rights groups Amnesty International and Africa Watch have said Habyarimana bore special responsibility for the violence in recent years.

His party, the Republican Move ment for Democracy and Development armed and mobilized its supporters, especially the party youth militia, to kill known rebel sympathizers. The president continued the use of identity cards that stated a person's ethnic group. "In the early 1980s Habyarimana's popularity started to slip and he felt threatened," said Alison DesForges of Africa Watch. "He became bitterly anti-Tutsi after 1990. It was a scapegoat kind of mentality to focus all your hatred on these people." On the one hand, Habyarimana cooperated with the international community, complying with economic structural adjustment programs, forming a coalition government with the opposition and agreeing to take part in the peace talks.

But his government delayed carrying out of the accord. At the same time, military and government authorities stepped up the arming of militias and the distribution of guns. In January, Human Rights Watch said that in the last three years arms worth millions of dollars had been sold to the Rwandan government by Egypt, France and South Africa. France, the major military backer of the Rwandan government trained and provided combat aid to an army that had been increasingly criticized for its human rights abuses, human rights officials say. Tensions within the Hutu-dominated government increased significantly after a failed coup last October in neighboring Burundi, a country that shares the same ethnic division.

The Tutsi-dominated Burundi army killed the first democratically elected Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye. More than 80,000 people were killed in two months of massacres and hundreds of thousands of Hutus fled to Rwanda. In Rwanda, the military stepped up the arming of Hutu militias and Habyarimana consolidated his Hutu support. By December, political infighting had divided the opposition Hutu parties into moderates and hardliners. "Habyarimana used Burundi to persuade his people that the Tutsi threat was real," Ms.

DesForges said. "It was a pretext for the hardline Hutus in Rwanda. There was plenty of paranoia and fear. This is not a tribal conflict but a coldblooded, ruthless, cynical plot" By Donatella Lorch The New York Times NAIROBI More than a month after a plane crash killed the presidents of Rwanda and Burundi and unleashed weeks of massacres, the cause of the crash and the precise origin of the violence remain matters of sharp dispute. The Rwanda military, which put together a new government three days after the crash, refuses to allow United Nations experts near the site to find out how it happened.

The massacres, government officials claim, were a "popular uprising" against the country's Tutsi ethnic minority, whose leaders were singled out as being behind the crash. But Western diplomats, human rights groups and Rwandan refugees describe a methodical, organized violence carried out by the Rwandan military, which is dominated by members of the Hutu ethnic group. They say the president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was probably killed by hard-liners in his own govern-ment worried that he was yielding to international pressure to carry out a 1993 accord bringing Tutsis into the government. Both presidents were returning from Tanzania, where they had attended a conference with other Af-'. rican leaders on ethnic violence in Rwanda and Burundi.

Some of the violence after the crash was aimed at those Hutus, described as moderates, who favored reaching agreement with the Tutsis to form a new government. One of the first targets was the I interim prime minister, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, a symbol of the 'moderate Hutu opposition, who was Killed Dy soiaiers ot ine presidential guard along with 10 Belgian UN peacekeepers guarding her. A pile of crumpled, charred metal in a green field near the eastern edge of the airstrip of the capital, Kigali, is all that remains of Habyarimana's plane, which was downed April 6 either as a result of being fired upon or by an explosion. Besides barring crash investigators from the site, the Rwandan military has turned down an American offer for technical aid in the investigation. Officials say they have found the plane's black box but are too busy fighting a civil war to mount their own investigation.

Few doubt that the target was Habyarimana, a member of the Hutu ethnic majority in Rwanda who has long been accused by moderates and human rights officials of manipulating ethnic tensions and delaying a peace agreement Tensions between the Hutus and the Tutsis have periodically exploded in violence, especially since Rwanda gained independence In 1962. The Tutsis were favored by the Beligans, who administered the country as a colonial protectorate. Relief officials estimate that since Habyarimana's death more than 200,000 people and perhaps as many as 500,000 people have been killed, mainly Tutsis. Heavy fighting continues between the Tutsi rebels of the Rwanda Patriotic Front and the Hutu-dominated Rwandan army. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the country.

Since the crash, Radio Milles Collines, a private station, has been broadcasting venomous statements about the Tutsis and urging Hutus to exterminate them. The hastily created new Hutu government insists that only the Tutsi rebels could have benefited from the president's death and that most of the massacres have been by the Tutsi-dominated Patriotic Front But Tutsi rebels say it was Hutu extremists in the president's party who killed their leader as part of a plot to undermine recent peace agreements. They say their forces are fighting to end the chaos and bloodshed. i There are also minor theories, disasters Update The issue: As the 1990s dawned, hopes werehigh for Africa. Apartheid was dying in South Africa.

Tyrants were giving way to democrats. There were hopes for a healtheir and better-fed future for average Africans. What's new: Things haven't work out for many countries. Numerous civil wars have killed nad displaced millions. Africans are poorer and hungrier and tyrants remains firmly in control in most countries.

What's next: While the election of a all-race South African government was good news, the wave of foreign aid and investment expected to pour into that country is sure to cause strain with less-lucky neighbors. U.S. Democratic Party. For those trying to achieve democracy, she adds, South Africa provides a model for compromise and the accommodation of differing political interests. The problem with the South African experience is that it will not be easily replicated.

A reasonably strong state and a reasonably sound economy are essential for democracy, and that excludes a healthy proportion of Africa. More often that not, African countries opt for democracy because of economic ruin and the fear of widespread civil disorder, Mandela, however, is inheriting an economy that's still functioning, albeit lethargically, and a state machine that's still effective. But while much is made of South Africa becoming an engine for economic growth, this will take time, and it may not happen at all. South Africa's priority is develop its own economy and is competing with its neighbors for aid and foreign investment. Zambia is already complaining of unfair competition from South Africa, while Zimbabwe fears its best talent will be lured south by job prospects.

Possibility of backlash As more pledges of support arrive in South Africa, so grows the possibility of a backlash from its neighbors. South Africa's transition was also made easier by its symbolic importance to the international community, which poured tens of millions of dollars into training programs, voter education and the election itself. It's doubtful the same sort of investment would be made in, say, Angola or Zaire. It's also true that however successful the launch, democracy in South Africa remains fragile. Overlooked in the election euphoria was the fact that ballots were cast strongly along racial lines whites for white parties and blacks for black parties.

Violence, while down, is still a problem. Nor is there much tolerance for political dissent or minority rights. Before South Africa democracy becomes a credible export, it will have to work at home. Lodge believes it would be wrong to read too much into what the elections mean for the rest of the continent. "I'm not sure there are many lessons that other countries can learn," he says, though he readily acknowledges something positive happened.

"Africa is certainly a better place to be this week than it was two weeks ago, Rwanda notwithstanding." Southam News day, but the refugees supplement this with polluted water from a nearby lake, so dysentery and diarrhea are common. "If things don't improve we'll see cholera," said Morrison, who expects to work at the camp for about three months. She said there are few injured people amongst the refugees because anyone injured likely died before reaching the camp. But there are many orphans and motherless and fatherless families. Morrison said the exhilarating part of the job is seeing how people manage to cope in the midst of such deprivation.

"They are lovely people and very grateful for all this help from the international community," she said. Vancouver Sun Size comparison 1966: Military rule establishes Tutsi control. 1972: Violence kills 100,000 Hutus. June 1993: Country's first Hutu president. Oct.

1993: President killed by Tutsi troops. Murder unleashes wave of Hutu-Tutsi slaughter; 100,000 killed, one million flee. Jan. 1994: Cyprien Ntaryamira (Hutu) elected president Knight-RidderTribuneRON CODDINGTON Juvenal Habyarimana Manipulated ethnic tensions Conflicts between the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic communities are a relatively new phenomenon. In the pre-colonial era, Tutsis and Hutus were on an equal footing and intermarriage was common.

Under Belgian administration tension between the Hutus and Tutsis began to rise as Belgians put Tutsis in positions of authority over Hutus. "There was very, very intensive competition for political power," said David Rawson, the U.S. ambassador to Rwanda, who was evacuated along with all other Americans last month. "The ethnic dilemma was used by different sides as a shield behind which the play for power was being done," he added. "Quite clearly there was a real system to the political assassinations.

There must be some system to the mass killings as well. Its not just mayhem." Representatives of the new Hutu government are touring European and African capitals calling for peace and diplomatic recognition. This government does not include any Tutsis. "We did not see any Tutsis to put in the government" said Matthew Ngirumpatse, the chairman of the governing party. He said that the killing of Tutsis was carried out by "popular anger" and added, "It is a civic duty for people to join themselves to the army when their country is attacked." Both the new government and who usually works in the special care nursery at Children's Hospital in Vancouver.

She has also worked at outpost nursing stations in northern Canada. Morrison has been at the camp for eight days and the journey to Tanzania took 7h days, ending with small plane ride. "We live here in a sparse little house with kerosene lamps and go from there to the camp every day, starting about 6 am," she said. "It's very very hot in the day and cold at night because the elevation of the town and the camp is 5,000 feet" Already recovered from a bout of malaria, Morrison said her daily commute includes gravel roads and then a hand-pulled ferry across a river filled with crocodiles. "The camp looks at first like a million people, thatched round HArrica Maine Burundi y.

niitiimkiipa Lake langanyika 100 3 1959-1973: Hutu-Tutsi fighting kills more than 1 00,000. 1973: Coup brings Juvenal Habyarimana (Hutu) to power; treaty between Habyarimana and Tutsi-dominated Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF). 1990: RPF invades from Uganda to unseat Habyarimana; 2,000 killed, one million fled during civil war. SOURCE: News reports 051394 Facts The Land: The Central African country Rwanda covers 26,336 square kilometres, smaller than New Brunswick. Surrounded by Zaire, Uganda, Tanzania and Burundi.

It is densely populated and mountainous. Nearly all cultivatable land is in use, with farmers planting small plots on terraced mountainsides and ridges. The People: Rwanda's population of 7.5 million is 90 per cent Hutu, nine per cent Tutsi and one per cent Twa (pygmies). About 60 per cent are Christian; most of the remainder practise native African religions. French and Kinyarwanda are official languages.

The Economy: About 93 per cent of Rwanda's labor force works in agriculture. The main crops are coffee, sweet potatoes, bananas, beans. History: Rwanda was a German protectorate from 1899 until 1916. In 1919 Rwanda and Burundi became Ruanda-Urundi, administered by Belgium, first as a teague of Nations mandate and then as a UN trust territory. Burundi and Rwanda both became independent in 1962.

widely circulated in Rwanda, about who downed the plane, including allegations on the government radio that Belgian troops at the airport fired at it. Witnesses say that on the day the plane crashed they saw a huge explosion and fireball at about 830 p.m. Belgian officers have told British journalists that they saw two rockets fired from the vicinity of a camp belonging to the Rwandan presidential guard and army commandos. Within hours of the crash, soldiers from the hard-line Hutu presidential guard began killing all moderate members of the interim government both Hutu and Tutsis, virtually eliminating all opposition. The political atmosphere before the crash and the violence afterward reflect a country torn apart by political turmoil and ethnic hatred.

Although a peace agreement signed with the rebels in August called for an ethnically integrated interim government and military, little progress had been made toward political stability. "Our biggest problem is an outbreak of measles, which could be devastating. CARRIE MORRISON Canadian nurse struggle to cope with disease, food and fuel shortages, polluted water, cold, and rain. "Just imagine taking a small town in B.C. like Kamloops, maybe, telling all the people they only have a few minutes to leave, and then they walk to Queen Elizabeth Park and sit down," said Morrison, Km a Canadian nurse battles disease and hunder in huge refugee camp By Moira Farrow SouthamStar Network VANCOUVER Carrie Morri-son's commute to work used to involve no worse hazards than a Vancouver traffic jam.

Now she faces hours of jolting along gravel African roads and a ferry trip across a river infested with crocodiles. "It's overwhelming but it's also exhilarating," the 34-year-old nurse said Friday in a telephone interview from Tanzania. She's volunteered her services to the international medical aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and has been assigned to the Benaco camp about 18 kilometres from the Rwanda border. It's a camp of about 250,000 refugees from Rwanda that grows bigger every day. Aid agency staff huts, cooking fires and a hillside completely denuded of vegetation," she said.

"There's a continual roar of sound from all these people and the children crying. People never stop moving because they're always searching for branches to burn and plastic to put on their huts to keep out the raia" Morrison said the camp is growing by between 1,500 to 2,000 new arrivals every day and her top priority is a mass vaccination program for children. "Our biggest problem is an outbreak of measles, which could be devastating, so our target population is 96.000 children. So far we've done 17,000," she said. Morrison said there is a severe food shortage at the camp, in spite of the efforts of 23 non-government agencies now working there, and she's already starting to see moderately to severely malnourished children.

"Food is a problem for us, too," she said. "Our breakfast is bread and tea and, if we're lucky, some fruit and dinner is rice and beans, but there's nothing in between. We forage like everyone else. "I'm working mostly with a Dutch team so I'm learning some Dutch. I have to work in French, because that's what the Rwandese speak.

And I'm even picking up a bit of Swahili. I'm the only Canadian here." Morrison said it's near the end of the rainy season so showers are still heavy and the camp is very muddy, with a continual blue haze hanging over it from cooking fires. She said the ration of disinfected water is half a litre a person per.