Rwanda says troops will protect Sudanese villagers
Adds African Union offical’s comments)
By Finbarr O’Reilly
KIGALI, Aug 14 (Reuters) – Rwandan troops will intervene to protect civilians in danger when they are deployed in west Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, Rwandan President Paul Kagame said on Saturday.
Rwanda says the world’s slow response to the Darfur crisis echoes its own experience during a 1994 genocide. Kagame’s latest comments follow confusion over the exact powers and role of the troops being sent to Sudan.
Some 154 Rwandan troops are being sent to Darfur this weekend as apart of an African Union (AU) force to protect observers monitoring a ceasefire between the Sudanese government and western rebels.
The United Nations calls Darfur the worst humanitarian crisis in the world and says 50,000 people have been killed and at least 1 million more displaced since two rebel groups took up arms against the government in February last year.
“The most important thing is to give a sense of security to the citizens of Sudan,” Kagame told journalists at a farewell ceremony for the Rwandan troops, who are expected to be airlifted from Kigali to Darfur on Sunday.
“They would certainly do that (intervene if civilians are threatened), otherwise they would have no business being there. It is implied in their presence,” he said at a military base.
Kagame acknowledged the AU force had a limited mandate, especially to intervene, but said the troops should be seen as the vanguard of a more robust mission.
“That’s how it should be seen and understood,” he said, adding that while his troops were there to protect civilians, the mission would be limited by both its mandate and its small size in Darfur, a region as big as France.
In the 1994 Rwanda genocide, state-sponsored Hutu militias slaughtered some 800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates in 100 days.
PROTECTION FORCE
El Ghassim Wane, acting head of the AU’s Conflict Management Center, who spoke at a news conference in Addis Ababa, also said the troops would act as a protection force if the need arose.
“The main task of the troops was to protect the AU observers. But in the event they come across attacks against civilians they will take appropriate action,” he said.
The troops will be based at six centres where the AU observer groups are positioned. These include El Fashir, El Genina, Nyala, Cape Cabia, Tine and in Abeche in Chad, he added.
A Dutch plane airlifted Rwandan supplies, including armoured personnel carriers and crew, to Sudan on Saturday and was expected to return to transport the 154 troops on Sunday, army spokesman Patrick Karegeya said.
Wane confirmed the troops would be airlifted on Sunday.
The 53-member AU has said it wants to boost the number of troops to Darfur to 2,000 and adopt a peacekeeping role as well as protecting the ceasefire observers.
That plan awaits approval by the head of the AU’s security body and no agreement has been reached with Sudan. Sudan says it has no problem with African observers or African troops to protect those observers, but peacekeeping is its responsibility.
Julia Dolly Joiner, AU’s Commissioner for Political Affairs will visit Darfur from Sunday to Tuesday to assess the humanitarian situation and meet Khartoum officials.
(Additional reporting by Tsegaye Tadesse in Addis Ababa)