Citation
FRENCH forces came under attack from the Rwandan Patriotic Front
yesterday during an operation to rescue the front's own Tutsi
supporters from heavy frontline fighting.
France sought United Nations backing at the weekend for a plan for
French troops to set up a secure humanitarian zone
to protect
hundreds of thousands of people fleeing a rebel advance. The French
special forces troops meanwhile came under fire from the rebels as they
drove out of Rwanda's second largest city, Butare, with their evacuees.
Several rounds slammed into the sides of their vehicles and they
returned fire. There were no reports of casualties.
The security zone plan threatened to put the French intervention force
in Rwanda in direct confrontation with the front, the predominantly
Tutsi rebel movement that has saved much of the country from massacres
carried out by troops and militiamen loyal to the hardline Hutu
government. The front last night condemned the French proposal for
UN-monitored safe havens for civilians and said that the idea was a
cover for military intervention on the side of the government.
UN officials said the front was sending reinforcements from the
capital, Kigali, where the remaining government troops are surrounded,
and the rebel leader, Major-General Paul Kagame, was said to have taken
personal command on the Butare front.
Although France armed and trained the Rwandan army during the RPF's
invasion from Uganda in 1990, both Paris and commanders on the ground
insist that its new mission to the country is strictly humanitarian.
But the front fears that the presence of French forces in Rwanda will
slow its advance.
The proposal to set up safe havens had clearly come from France without
consultation with senior officers on the ground. Colonel Didier
Thibaut, who commanded yesterday's rescue mission, said that he knew
nothing of the plan. My men have orders to return fire if they are
attacked, whoever is doing the shooting,
he said.
The brief firefight is certain to entrench the anti-French feeling
among the front's leaders, although they will have also noted
yesterday's rescue mission and the operation in which French troops
saved 1,000 Tutsi from certain death in Rwanda's highlands near Kibuye
last week. The company of about 100 French paracommandos rescued 600
orphans and about 250 civilians, most of them Tutsi and members of
religious orders, who feared leaving Butare in the exodus of government
soldiers.
Butare was empty of civilians and populated only by a few soldiers as
the rebels swept in yesterday afternoon. The city, a big prize for the
front, was certain to fall into their hands.
The evacuation came as stray machinegun bullets ricocheted up Butare's
main street. The rescued civilians slipped out of town as about 2,000
children dressed in khaki rags and carrying rucksacks the same size as
themselves, fled.
One small boy walked in a permanent crouch to try to stay clear of the
bullets, while his comrades in arms
were shepherded by armed
teenagers. They are being saved to fight on another front,
one
government soldier said.
