Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 11:48:59 +0100 (MET) From: rolf.martens-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Rolf Martens) Subject: M-G: Some newspapers 10.-13.11 on Zaire/Rwanda Some reports (directly or indirectly quoted) from various recent newspaper issues (Swedish and international): 1. Sydsvenskan (Malmoe, Sweden) Wed 13.11: Reports that "aid to starving in Zaire is still distant". "Scattered parts of an international action took form on Tuesday. Canada openly assumed resposibility as main responsible country for a military action." At a press conference in Rome, UN gen. secretary Boutros-Ghali said that the force will comprise some 10-12 000 men, from appr. 12 countries. "African participation will be considerable, after South Africa has promised troops." At least logistic support from the USA is hoped for. The Nordic countries have said they cannot participate militarily, but the 3 countries Norway, Sweden and Denmark have promised one transport aircraft each with aid. Raymond Chrétien (Canada) and Julius Nyerere (the mediators of the UN, respectively of the OAU) tried Tuesday to ease together the positions of Rwanda and Zaire on international military action and humanitarian aid. The Zairian government doesn't want any action that will "legitimize" the rebel forces in Eastern Zaire, and refused a Red Cross transport plane permission to land in Kisangani. The Zairian rebels stopped a transport with aid from Rwandian territory to Bukavu. At least 1000 are dying each day. 2. Neue Zuericher Zeitung (Switzerland) Tue 12.11: Rebels in Eastern Zaire on Monday allowed a small convoy with aid to enter Goma in Nothern Kivu. This was the first time since they seized power that they permitted such transport. Aid organizations have not yet reached Mugunga, 15 km west of Goma, because this camp is surrounded by armed exile Rwandans who almost daily are firing shells into Goma, according to corrsepondents. Those armed forces are among those (directly) responsible for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and are holding several hundreds of thousands persons as hostages, west of Goma and also in the vicinity of Bukavu. How to bring aid to these people without at the same time allowing the murderers to profit from it remains completely unclear. President Zenawi of Ethiopia in his opening speech to the OAU meeting criticized the international community, which on the one hand had demanded that African states themselves get active, but would not provide the funds necessary for this. Several west and central African states had declared themselves on principle prepared to act, but without financial support from the industrial countries there could not be any decision. 3. Le Monde (France), Sun-Mon 10.-11.11: The editorial criticizes the USA for refusing to participate in immediate action and asks whether this doesn't mean that in reality the US government had tacitly accepted or even encouraged the driving off of those hundreds of thousands of people from Rwanda in 1994. 4. Arbetet Nyheterna (Malmoe, Sweden) Mon 11.11: Unconfirmed report of 3000 students having being killed at Bukavu state university by "Rwanda rebels". Swedish aid worker Roland Staalgren reports having met in Lubutu, 300 km northwest of Bukavu, a student at a private university in Bukavu whom he had also met before and who now said that there had been a massacre in that city. At the student's own university, only a few had been killed, but at the state university in Bukavu, according to him, some 3000 young students had been. (No other sources have confirmed this, so it's not possible to say whether it's just or mainly a false rumour.) So far some newspaper reports. Rolf M. --- from list marxism-general-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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