Citation
BRUSSELS, April 8 (Reuter) - Belgium said on Friday it was planning
ways to protect its nationals in Rwanda after 10 Belgian U.N.
peacekeeping troops were killed in an eruption of violence in the
central African country.
A Defence Ministry statement said the 10 peacekeepers had been in
charge of the security of Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana,
also killed in Thursday's violence.
The statement said the Belgians were apprehended
as the prime
minister tried to flee Rwandan soldiers who had surrounded her
residence.
The Belgian soldiers were disarmed, then taken to a military camp in
Kigali where they were executed,
it said.
A U.N. official in Rwanda had earlier reported the deaths of 11
Belgians serving with United Nations forces there.
The Belgian government announced after a late night cabinet meeting
that it was following events in Rwanda very closely and had contacted
other governments and the United Nations about action to protect
Belgian citizens in its former colony.
A statement said the cabinet had analysed the present dramatic
situation in Rwanda, particularly with a view to taking appropriate
measures for the protection of our compatriots
.
Prime Minister Jean-Luc Dehaene and Foreign Minister Willy Claes, who
both missed the cabinet meeting because they were out of the country,
had decided to return immediately to Belgium, the statement said.
A Foreign Affairs ministry spokesman would not comment when asked
whether the government was planning to evacuate its citizens from
Rwanda in view of the deteriorating situation.
Asked by reporters at the United Nations in New York whether Brussels
would mount a rescue operation, Belgian ambassador Paul Noterdaeme
said: We will see, everthing is possible.
We have to think of our role as far as the security of our own
civilian people are concerned.
Belgium has about 1,500 civilian nationals in Rwanda and 1,200 in
Burundi.
Defence Minister Leo Delcroix said before the cabinet meeting that an
evacuation could not be ruled out.
Violence swept the Rwandan capital Kigali following the deaths of
presidents Juvenal Habyarimana of Rwanda and Cyprien Ntaryamira of
Burundi in a rocket attack on their plane as it flew into the city on
Wednesday night.
Belgium has 428 troops with the 2,500-strong, 23-nation U.N. Assistance
Mission in Rwanda.
Foreign Minister Claes, in a television interview on a visit to
Romania, said an aircraft of the Belgian airline Sabena was on standby
in the Burundian capital Bujumbura for use in evacuations if the
situation got worse.
There was also a C-130 transport plane available in Kenya, and fleets
of cars could be called on for a road evaucation.
Belgium expressed outrage at the deaths of the presidents and warned
that it could seriously put into question the precarious balance in the
two countries which have been bedevilled by violent tribal rivalries
for decades.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
