Citation
BUJUMBURA, Burundi, April 17 (Reuter) - Rwandan soldiers raped and
hacked to death civilians while battles with rebels raged for an 11th
day in the capital Kigali after the breakdown of ceasefire talks,
witnesses said on Sunday.
It is like the mayhem has gathered pace. There are massacres all over
the place. The army's delight is to murder civilians, while civilians
turn on each other in ethnic revenge,
said one witness, trapped in the
capital Kigali.
He said in one incident soldiers tied the hands of civilians behind
their backs and then butchered them with machetes, or just emptied
round after round as if on target practice
.
Sometimes people pleaded for their lives for 20-30 minutes, then the
soldiers just shot them dead,
he said. Women are in trouble, they are
raped first, then killed.
Savage fighting continued for control of strategic hilltops around the
city. No one appeared to be in control of Kigali and army units and
rebels fought with heavy artillery, mortars and rocket-propelled
grenades, he said by telephone.
About 3,600 rebels had infiltrated the city but army units and the
presidential guard were still resisting fiercely.
An interim Rwandan government official said ceasefire talks which began
on Friday between rebels and army units had stalled over stringent
conditions each party set ahead of negotiations.
We are not talking just now,
the official said.
The interim government has been rejected as a clique of murderers
by
the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF).
In neighbouring Bujumbura, Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira and
two ministers who were killed with Rwandan President Juvenal
Habyarimana in a rocket attack on their plane in Rwanda on April 6,
were given a state burial on Saturday.
Their deaths sparked an orgy of ethnic violence in Rwanda between the
majority Hutu and minority Tutsi tribes who have a long history of
enmity. Thousands of people have died.
Belgium's 420 U.N. peacekeepers in Rwanda can start withdrawing
overland with a convoy of about 150 vehicles on Tuesday, a Belgian
armed forces spokesman said.
Ten Belgian U.N. peacekeepers were killed by government soldiers when
the latest bloodbath exploded. Rwanda gained independence from Belgium
in 1962.
Ghanaian soldiers would relieve the Belgians at Kigali airport, the
Brussels spokesman said.
The airport and certainly the runway could be seriously damaged, so
quite a lot of troops could become trapped like rats in a net,
Foreign
Minister Willy Claes said in Belgium.
A Rwandan officer of the Hutu dominated army accused unidentified
Westerners and Uganda of aiding the mainly Tutsi rebels.
There were two white bodies found when our forces killed 10 rebels in
the north. We cannot explain this,
an official said.
Government conditions for a ceasefire included an immediate halt to
fighting, setting up of patrols solely manned by state police, ending
what it called punitive expeditions
by rebels and neutralisation of
stray soldiers committing abuses
.
The RPF said it wanted the presidential guard which is blamed for much
of the anarchy in Kigali and the countryside to be disbanded and joint
rebel-government patrols launched.
The rebels also wanted the interim government dissolved so it could
open talks with opposition groups on setting up an all-party
transitional administration of national unity.
The RPF on Saturday appealed for international aid for thousands of
refugees.
A U.N. spokesman said Rwandan refugees fleeing fighting in the capital
and inter-tribal massacres were being blocked by government troops from
crossing into Zaire.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
