Rwandan president visits troops in Darfur

By MOHAMED OSMAN, Associated Press Writer

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Feb 23, 2005 (AP) — Rwandan President Paul Kagame visited Sudan, where his troops are participating in an African Union force trying to calm the western region of Darfur.

Kagame inspects the Rawandan army troops before flying to Sudan’s Darfur. (Reuters) .

Kagame, who has drawn parallels between Darfur and his country’s 1994 genocide, did not speak to reporters on arriving Tuesday in Sudan and was driven to his residence in Khartoum. Kagame was greeted at the airport by President Omar el-Bashir and was expected to visit Darfur on Wednesday.

There, the Rwandan president was expected to inspect the 130-plus Rwandan troops participating in the African Union force, which is responsible for protecting unarmed monitors of a cease-fire in the troubled area. Both sides have been accused of violating the truce.

The Sudanese government is accused of responding to a rebellion among ethnic African tribes in Darfur by backing a scorched-earth campaign by ethnic Arab militia known as Janjaweed. The United Nations has accused the government and the Janjaweed of widespread human rights abuses, and has recommended war crimes trials.

The United States has accused the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed of genocide.

During commemorations last year of the 10th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, many observers said that the international community moved too slowly to prevent thousands of deaths in this central African country, and called for quicker and more decisive action on Darfur.

Kagame also has drawn parallels, saying last August as the Rwandan troops prepared to join the peacekeepers: “Our forces will not stand by and watch innocent civilians being hacked to death like the case was here in 1994.”

U.N. observers in Rwanda had lacked a mandate to intervene in the genocide there.

Rwandan Minister of State for Cooperation Protais Mitali has said Kagame’s three-day visit would include talks with el-Bashir about Darfur, regional conflicts and bilateral relations with Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir.

In Rwanda, more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and political moderates from the Hutu majority were killed in a campaign involving government troops, Hutu militia and villages organized by an extremist Hutu government. The genocide ended when then-rebels led by Kagame captured the Rwandan capital, Kigali, and ousted the extremist government on July 4, 1994.