Citation
PARIS, April 10 (Reuter) - France, anxious to avoid jeopardising a
perilous mission to airlift nationals from war-ravaged Rwanda, vowed on
Sunday that its troops would stay out of fighting between government
and rebel forces.
The rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) was quoted as saying it was
prepared to attack a contingent of 460 French paratroopers sent to the
central African nation on an evacuation mission if they intervened in
the ethnic conflict.
The French operation, code-named Amaryllis
, resumed on Sunday as a
military transport plane flew 64 nationals out of Rwanda to safety,
bringing to more than 150 the number of French citizens rescued since
the mission began on Saturday.
The rebels suspect France, which until recently had several hundred
soldiers in Rwanda, of siding with the Hutu majority. The RPF, with a
force of about 10,000 guerrillas, is predominantly of the minority but
formerly ruling Tutsi tribe.
Our mission is a strictly humanitarian mission permitting French
nationals to leave Rwanda,
said a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman,
underscoring France's avowed neutrality.
The RPF said a 4,000-strong force of rebels was advancing towards the
central African state's capital, Kigali, on Sunday.
French troops will not intervene,
French Cooperation Minister Michel
Roussin was quoted by French radio as saying.
The French troops are holding Kigali airport with government forces,
who had blocked the arrival of paratroopers from Belgium, the country's
former colonial ruler. The government finally cleared the Belgian
troops' arrival on Sunday.
The Belgians are unpopular among the Hutu tribe, which believes they
support the rebels.
While France withdrew 300 soldiers from Rwanda last December, it has
kept a small number of military advisers.
French citizens in Kigali said they feared fighting between the
government and rebels would intensify, adding to bloodshed that has
covered the small country since its Hutu president, Juvenal
Habyarimana, was assassinated last Wednesday.
The main battle may not have been fought yet,
International Red Cross
coordinator Philippe Gaillard told France-Info radio from Kigali.
The Defence Ministry said 100 fresh French troops were sent to Kigali
from the Central African Republic capital Bangui on Sunday,
guaranteeing the security of the estimated 450 nationals remaining in
the country, most of them in the capital.
But the exodus of French citizens, which officials in Paris said was
proceeding without a hitch, would be jeopardised if its troops were
drawn into the tribal bloodletting.
By Sunday morning French troops had flown 107 nationals out of Rwanda
in two flights, one toward Bangui and a second to the Burundi capital
Bujumbura. Most of those were expected to fly to Paris on Sunday
evening.
An undisclosed number of the 600-odd nationals safely fled from rural
villages to neighbouring Zaire and Burundi.
A company of soldiers was to leave the southwestern French city of
Toulouse on Sunday for Bangui to reinforce France's military presence
in Africa. Before the evacuation operation began France had about 8,600
soldiers on the continent.
French residents in Kigali said they were gathering at the French
school or being sought by soldiers at their homes, where they were
barricaded behind mattresses. It's very, very anguishing,
Nicole
Obels told French radio by telephone.
Kigali's inhabitants are committing suicide,
Gaillard said.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
