Citation
THE United Nations Security Council's resolution to increase the number
of blue helmets
in Rwanda to 5,500 men will commit the international
force to a mission that is doomed before the first troops land in
Kigali.
Their objective will be to establish humanitarian corridors
where
civilians can be protected. But unless they are prepared to parachute
into government-held parts to protect the remaining Tutsi population,
gathered in concentration camps by the Rwandan government, the
humanitarian mission will be nothing more than an impotent gesture. The
UN soldiers will have a Chapter Six
mandate, meaning not
peace-making, but peace-enforcing.
Despite the vast number of civilian deaths in a few weeks, the sizes of
the opposing forces in the Rwandan civil war are a fraction of the huge
numbers of troops battling in Angola, where the Unita guerrilla
movement, with 50,000 men, is fighting the Marxist government of the
Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola, which has 150,000
personnel. Yet the UN has never considered sending a military mission
of any size to Angola, the world's bloodiest full-scale war, with a
daily death toll of 1,000, according to the UN.
The issue in Rwanda is whether and how it is possible to stop the
genocide of Tutsi and Hutu moderates, and the Twa (pygmies). In
government-held territory around Gitarama, Tutsi are gathered into
filthy concentration camps behind barbed wire. At the Kabgayi seminary,
40,000 people are crammed into a few acres. A dozen a day die from
disease and malnutrition, while scores are murdered by militiamen and
soldiers.
The question is whether the UN, which took six weeks to resolve to do
something
about Rwanda, is prepared to rescue these people. If not,
they may all be dead within two weeks. The rebel Rwandan Patriotic
Front is advancing on Gitarama and the retreating government forces are
unlikely to leave the Tutsi alive as they retreat.
The government is understandably keen on UN intervention. Augustin
Bizimana, the Defence Minister, says: The UN should come to help us
stop the killings.
But the government's real need of the UN is that the arrival of a
significant force could help ceasefire negotiations and save the
administration from defeat.
The rebels sense victory and have no faith in the UN's ability to stop
the slaughter behind government lines.
From Sam Kiley in Kigali.
