Word: rwanda
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Once again Africa in general, and the unfortunate nation of Rwanda in particular, has beggared Western experience and imagination. Barring unforeseen circumstances, Rwanda's civil war is nearly over. The mainly Tutsi rebels, whose people were victims of one of the largest genocidal slaughters in the last decade, have won. Two weeks ago, following a military campaign brilliant enough to make the textbooks, the Rwandan Patriotic Front took over the capital of Kigali. Last Thursday the rebels marched to within nine miles of the town of Gisenyi, the latest stronghold of their former tormentors -- members of the majority Hutu tribe...
...rule over whom? In most civil wars, when the fighting dies, the warring parties stay put and reach some sort of agreement. That is not the case in Rwanda. Despite the R.P.F.'s selection of a Hutu as the country's next Prime Minister, and the rebels' assurances (thus far borne out) that they will not take mass reprisals, most of the Hutu, who now make up more than 90% of Rwanda's population, are engaged in what may be an unprecedented event -- the wholesale evacuation of a country...
...refugee camp. Both superlatives, unfortunately, were short-lived. As R.P.F. mortar fire zeroed in on the hills surrounding Gisenyi last Wednesday, another sea of refugees, many originally from the Kigali area, surged out. Jostling along narrow dirt roads, loaded with food, clothes, pots and pans, they massed over the Rwanda's western border. Just over three months ago, 3.5 million of Rwanda's population of 7.5 million resided in its western area. Now only 2 million remain; the rest seemed suddenly headed toward Goma. Exclaimed Panos Moumtzis of the High Commissioner's office, assessing the scene: "It's a river...
President Clinton ordered a massive "round-the-clock" military airlift to begin in Rwanda, where the refugee disaster is claiming a life a minute. After private aid experts had charged the White House with failing to understand the magnitude of the crisis, Clinton said the U.S. would build an "airlift hub" in neighboring Uganda for the 24-hour-a-day shipment of supplies to the region. He also called on the United Nations to send "a full contingent" of peacekeepers to provide security for civilians who want to return to their homeland. "The flow of refugees across Rwanda's borders...
...silicon-impregnated consort to a brutish gladiator and rental car shill, the other a member of that most dispensible of species--the "aspiring actor/model". Are these two typical of murder victims? Is their loss the greatest tragedy on planet Earth this year, worthy of the global mourning that Rwanda cannot buy at the price of a half-million lives...