DATE=12/30/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=RWANDA ATTACK
NUMBER=5-45152
BYLINE=TODD PITMAN
DATELINE=TAMIRA, RWANDA
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: Rebels in Rwanda last week launched their
first attack in the country in more than a year.
Reporter Todd Pitman recently visited the site of the
attack in northwest Rwanda and has more on the story.
TEXT: Surrounded by maize fields and scenic farmland
at the base of several towering volcanoes 80-
kilometers northwest of the capital Kigali, Tamira
village is a resettlement site for Tutsi refugees who
fled Rwanda in 1959, but have returned only recently.
Largely unguarded and precariously close to the
Congolese border - where extremist Hutu militias from
Rwanda are based - Tamira was an easy target for
attackers creeping through the area on foot.
Forty-four-year-old Jean Damascene Ntaganda was at the
site when the attack began.
/// NTAGANDA ACT IN FRENCH, ESTABLISH AND FADE ///
Mr. Ntaganda says he was at home asleep with his
family when he awoke to the crackle of gunfire. As
gunmen broke down the front door to his house, Mr.
Ntaganda grabbed his terrified wife and one of his
children and took cover under a bed.
The attackers, carrying flashlights, stepped into a
side room and shot his mother and three of his
children at point-blank range.
/// NTAGANDA ACT IN FRENCH, ESTABLISH AND FADE ///
Mr. Ntaganda says rebels then broke through a wooden
door into his room and opened fire again, killing his
wife instantly and leaving him - with a bullet wound
in his shoulder - for dead.
The attack lasted nearly one-hour before soldiers from
a nearby camp repulsed the insurgents. When it was
over, 29-civilians were dead and eight were wounded.
At Tamira, pock marks from bullet holes are scattered
across white plaster walls on a house where two people
are said to have died. Outside another home,
residents pointed to a chunk of someone's skull,
apparently blown apart by a bullet, laying in the
grass.
Military commanders say the attackers were Interahamwe
militiamen and soldiers from the former Hutu-led
government who together orchestrated the country's
1994 genocide - a bloodbath in which extremist Hutus
massacred an estimated 800-thousand Tutsis and
moderate Hutus in 100-days.
The slaughter was brought to a halt in July 1994 when
Tutsi rebels ousted the former government and seized
the capital, but attacks, ambushes, and massacres
continued in the northwest for years.
The area has largely been calm since late 1998, when
the army pushed the insurgents across the border into
the Congo at the start of a Rwandan-backed rebellion
there.
A senior Rwandan officer at Tamira, Major Emmanuel
Karemera, says army troops pursued those responsible
for the attack into Congo. Army troops killed several
of the insurgents when they found them the next
morning at a temporary campsite. The rest scattered
into the forest.
Major Karemera says it has been long time since the
army has seen the rebels with ammunition and arms, but
now it seems, they are being re-supplied.
He says parachutes have been air-dropping arms to the
insurgents across the border in the Congo. The group
that launched the attack at Tamira were said to be
carrying new machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade
launchers.
Rwandan officials in Kigali have played down the
rebels' strength, and say the attack at Tamira was an
isolated incident.
But that is little comfort for Tutsi civilians living
close to the Congolese border, who complain that
authorities have not provided adequate security to
protect them. And with no weapons of their own, they
are ill-equipped to protect themselves.
Munyarugero Nkusi was one of two armed civilian guards
protecting the site when the attack took place.
Mr. Nkusi says some of the militiamen called out his
name during the incident, proof he says, that some
villagers in the area had collaborated with the
rebels.
///NKUSI ACT IN KINYARWANDA, ESTABLISH AND FADE///
Mr. Nkusi says people at Tamira think the rebels have
a vanguard in the area, sympathizers who guide them
along. He says people here are deeply afraid the
rebels will come back. (SIGNED)
NEB/TP/GE/RAE
30-Dec-1999 11:06 AM EDT (30-Dec-1999 1606 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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