• by IPS Correspondents (london)
• Wednesday, December 28, 1994
• Inter Press Service

LONDON, Dic 28 (IPS) - Relief workers who have visited Rwandan refugee camps in Zaire warn that the army of the deposed Hutu led government is preparing to launch an attack on the new government formed by the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).

Earlier this year, the army had killed hundreds of thousands of minority Tutsis before the RPF overpowered the Hutu government, and this in turn triggered a massive exodus of Hutus across the Rwandan borders into neighbouring regions.

The massacres had erupted soon after Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, was killed in an April 6 plane crash.

Now, Aid agency workers returning from camps for refugees and the displaced in Zaire, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda report that thousands of soldiers of the exiled army have regrouped and are engaging in vigorous training regimes and manoeuvres in readiness for a planned invasion.

"In all of the camps it is possible to see military training going on, usually early in the mornings," said John Magrath of London-based aid group Oxfam.

"During the mornings they don't use weapons, they just do exercises, but at night time they train with weapons. This is alarming. These guys are serious. It would be tragic if there is a resumption of the war," he said.

According to Magrath, thousands of troops have been moved by the military leadership from the camps in Goma to a military base in Kivu (both in Zaire) to await orders to begin their offensive.

In other camps, relief workers report that thousands of teenaged boys have been recruited and are undergoing military instruction. Sources say they are dispatched to the military base once they become battle-ready. The base is some 80 kms from Zaire's border with south-west Rwanda.

Said Juliet Sober, a worker with the British Red Cross: "We are keeping a close watch on these alarming developments. If war breaks out again it could destabilise the whole region."

Analysts here say that the only way to avert another bloody war in Rwanda would be the immediate dispatch by the United Nations or the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) of a peacekeeping force into both Rwanda and Zaire.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

Where next?

Advertisement