In Fear of a Nation's Revenge

By Kevin Fedarko

When a group of cabinet ministers from the new Tutsi-dominated Rwandan government arrived in the town of Cyangugu in the French-protected safety zone last Friday afternoon, several thousand people flocked to the local stadium to hear their words. Amid the commotion, few remarked on the site from which the ministers hoped to persuade 100,000 Hutu refugees that if they return to their homes, they will not suffer reprisals for the massacres of up to 500,000 Tutsi. Barely four months ago, this same stadium was crammed with tens of thousands of Tutsi men, women and children waiting to be slaughtered by Hutu soldiers and militia.

It is a measure of the evil that has swept through Rwanda that the symbolic guilt represented by Cyangugu's stadium was more potent than any reassurances the ministers could offer. Before the speeches had concluded, 2,000 more Hutu, convinced that they would be killed by the new government if they stayed in Rwanda, were already trudging across the border to the Zairean town of Bukavu.

In the past few weeks, nearly 100,000 Hutu squatters have descended on this obscure Zairean border post, transforming the stretch of road between the customs gates and the town of Bukavu into a slow-moving river of humanity. At night, refugees occupy virtually every open spot along the highway, lighting their cooking fires in front of houses, sleeping on lawns and in vacant lots. Beyond the town, 320,000 more refugees have set up home in filthy, sprawling & camps. The human wave, augmented each day by new arrivals, is rapidly overwhelming the resources of a town that cannot even boast the rudimentary air and road links that allowed international aid groups to get supplies and medicine to Goma.

Now Bukavu fears a repeat of the huge exodus that brought 1.2 million Rwandans into Zaire last month. The latest tide could pour out of southwestern Rwanda this week, when the last of 2,500 French soldiers who established a safe zone in June for 1.5 million frightened Hutu are scheduled to depart. Under domestic pressure to bring its troops home, the French government last week ignored a plea by the U.S. to stay on until the situation stabilizes. The Hutu fear that the African troops of the United Nations force replacing the French will not be able to guarantee their safety. Also poised to move in are soldiers from the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front. "We want to occupy all Rwanda," Prime Minister Faustin Twagiramungu declared on Thursday. "Indeed, for the credibility of the government, we have to occupy all Rwanda." Although Twagiramungu pledged the army would not seek revenge, his remarks only deepened the alarm of Hutu inside the enclave. The fears of those camped in the French zone intensified on Friday when Zairean paratroopers shut down the border, choking off the flow of refugees attempting to make it across the rusty bridge before the escape hatch closed. While thousands more stacked up behind them, Zaire announced that it would accept no more Rwandans until someone finds another country of asylum for the exiled Hutu leaders, who might be planning to resume the war from Zaire. Most of them would be charged with genocide and face execution if they return home.

If they continue to be denied safety in Zaire, many Hutu may head instead across Rwanda's southern border into Burundi, where tensions between resident Hutu and Tutsi -- and the 230,000 Rwandan refugees already camped there -- are near breaking point. For now, each new arrival pushes Bukavu another notch closer to the horrors at Goma, where epidemics of cholera and dysentery have killed at least 25,000. To prevent a similar refugee crisis, aid agencies are rushing food, water and medicine into the vicinity of Cyangugu in hopes of forestalling a mass departure. But if the humanitarian diplomacy fails, the images at Bukavu may soon reach a level of wretchedness and ignominy rivaling those at Goma.