Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407250068
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: GOMA, ZAIRE LENGTH: Medium
Cholera is spreading quickly and ferociously through the camps, killing at least 3,000 refugees since Wednesday, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. Others are dying of other diseases and malnutrition.
Thousands of refugees have left the camps, massing at the Rwandan border, hoping to return home. Zairian troops stopped them, apparently until the border area can be cleared of abandoned weapons.
The United States sent a C-141 cargo plane to Goma and another to Uganda to launch an around-the-clock airlift expected to last months and involve as many as 2,000 U.S. troops.
``It is probably only a massive intervention, that only a superpower like the Americans can provide, that will save this situation,'' said Ray Wilkinson, a U.N. agency spokesman in Goma.
President Clinton on Friday authorized more than $100 million for medicine, food and water, bringing the total of U.S. aid for the Rwandan crisis to $250 million since April. Although the U.S. effort, bolstered by German support, was a big step toward relief, much more is needed, said Rupert Colville, a U.N. spokesman.
``We are very disappointed with the response on other parts of our appeal, particularly on the sanitation,'' he said.
The U.S. military's relief operation will last months and be a costly venture because of Rwanda's remote location and the staggering number of needy, Defense Secretary William Perry said Saturday.
Cholera spreads through contact with feces. The refugee camps need at least 60,000 latrines for adequate sanitation, Colville said, but no government has offered to provide or maintain latrines.
``It's no good purifying the water if there's feces lying all over the place,'' he said.
The refugees, members of the Hutu ethnic group, have crammed into sprawling camps in Zaire to escape feared reprisals from the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front. Those rebels defeated the government army last week after three months of battle.
The refugees, mostly Hutus and numbering as many as 1.7 million in the past 10 days, fled after radio broadcasts from the former government said the rebels planned to kill them.
U.N. special envoy Shaharyar Khan said there have been no reports of civilian abuse by the rebels.
Rwanda's new rebel-installed government will need at least five years to restore political stability before it can call elections, President Pasteur Bizimungu said Saturday.
The nation will be governed by the rebel-appointed Cabinet installed Tuesday and by a transitional Parliament that will reflect different political philosophies, he said. The government will decide later what role, if any, other political parties can play, Bizimungu said.
by CNB