Citation
RWANDA'S defeated former government army is training and reorganising
to attack and retake the country from the Rwandan Patriotic Front
(RPF), senior United Nations sources reported yesterday.
Augustin Bizimungu, Chief of Staff of the Rwandan army camped along
roads leading into Goma on the shores of Lake Kivu, has issued warnings
that his men are preparing to return home and that many of his officers
did not want to go back with hanging heads
.
Sources in the UN disclosed that a senior officer in the Rwandan army
had told them that it would be impossible to establish an internment
camp for the between 20,000 and 30,000 men because they were being
trained for an attempt to retake Rwanda from the new Tutsi-dominated
government. The International Committee of the Red Cross has insisted
that it would provide aid to troops in Zaire only if they are disarmed
and put in camps guarded by Zairean armed forces. The UN High
Commissioner for Refugees and other agencies are also refusing to feed
the soldiers or give them aid.
Further fighting in Rwanda, or neighbouring Zaire, would add to the
catastrophic horror of the exodus of a million refugees from fighting
in the west of the country earlier this month or the murder by the
Rwandan army and civilian militias of hundreds of thousands of Tutsi
and Hutu moderates. Renewed fighting could also bring Rwandan troops
into conflict with Zairean soldiers. But the defeated Rwandan army
appears now to be gripped by a stronger hand than previously, and their
spirits seem high.
