Citation
Fears of a new wave of tribal killings in Rwanda rose yesterday after
gunmen shot dead a government minister and vengeful mobs killed the
leader of a hardline Hutu party. The minister of public works, Felicien
Gatabazi, was killed by gunmen as he drove from a political meeting to
his home in the capital, Kigali, on Monday night. Yesterday morning a
mob of Mr Gatabazi's supporters in his home town of Butare dragged a
rival politician, Martin Bucyana of the Coalition for the Defence of the
Republic (CDR), from his car and chopped him to pieces with machetes.
These are the most significant political murders since President Juvenal
Habyarimana signed a peace accord with the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front
(RPF) last August, ending three years of civil war.
A transitional government should have been formed in September, but
politicians, squabbling and vying for power, have failed to agree on the
distribution of ministerial positions among the parties.
The conflict in Rwanda is primarily tribal, between the majority Hutus -
including the president - and the minority Tutsis, who form the backbone
of the RPF. Mr Gatabazi, although a Hutu, had fostered links with the
RPF while Mr Bucyana's party is strongly pro-Hutu.
The atmosphere in Kigali was already tense as yesterday's revised date
for the formation of the new government approached. On Monday,
supporters of the CDR besieged the foreign ministry and held 40 civil
servants captive. The siege was broken by police using tear gas,
supported by members of the United Nations peacekeeping force.
'It is very very quiet and tense,' said Brigadier General Romeo
Dallaire, the UN commander, whose forces surveyed the city by helicopter.
The UN secretary-general's special representative in Rwanda , Jacques
Roger Booh-Booh, has warned that if a coalition government is not formed
soon the Security Council may withdraw the 2,000-strong peacekeeping
force sent to oversee the implementation of the peace accord and the
formation of a transitional government.
