Reports from Rwanda

GUTTED by conflict, peopled by a ragged collection of soldiers and

returning refugees, Kigali is starting to pick itself up.

We drive in from the north past deserted fields and thin straggles of

people carrying everything they own balanced on the top of their heads.

Sometimes a battered suitcase, mostly a dirty sack bulky with

belongings. Clutches of Rwanda Patriotic Front soldiers lounge at

makeshift road blocks and wave cheerily as we pass.

Down a steep hill round a sweeping bend and there it is -- silhouetted

against a blazing sunset, there is nothing immediately to mark the

recent conflict as you pass the city boundaries, then you see the cars

upended and burnt, the empty eye-sockets of windowless houses, the

people wandering aimlessly along the edge of the road.

At the Hotel Meridien the menu promises poached eggs Florentine but

the reception desk is manned by UN troops, the toilets are full, and a

pack of dogs are fighting at the edge of what used to be the pool. A

rat, pressed against the wall in the dark lobby, starts for the relative

safety of a pile of sandbags.

In the only room we can find, the stench of excrement is overwhelming,

the bullet-shattered windows are hung with cardboard and old blankets,

but the sheets are as clean, white, and starched as a freshly laundered

shirt.

It is typical of this city: in the midst of chaos are some flashes of

normality. Free enterprise has found a foothold and, if you have the

cash, $60 will buy you a bottle of warm champagne at a makeshift market.

There's dubious looking soap, packets of biscuits, beer, and some

chocolate. Less than 100 yards away a skeleton lies in a ditch, the

lower half still encased in jeans.

''It really looks for all the world like Rwanda won the World Cup and

Kigali had a giant street party,'' says Marsha Feeney of UNOMR -- the

United Nations' Observer Mission in Rwanda. ''All the houses have their

roofs but the street is littered with rubbish and possessions.''

In the flat white compound which doubles as an information centre,

bloody patches on the walls are the only reminder of the 17 Jesuits who

were massacred there. Their dog, old, skinny and riddled with disease,

is desperate for human company and lies next to anyone who sits down.

In the centre of town, staff at the US Embassy are trying to put the

place back together. From the outside it appears untouched but it's

clear the gates have been forced. The US Ambassador, David Rawson, who

returned on Sunday said he was still trying to figure out how it was all

going to be cleared up.

Rawson said he had made contact with some of his employees including

his cook who had remained in hiding in Kigali. ''She lost her husband

and her older children but she survived. There are some terrible,

terrible stories.''

Rawson will be meeting US Army representatives later today to discuss

their operational base in Kigali. America plans to bring up to 2000

troops to the capital and fly in food and other suppliesn. Rawson,

clearly shocked at the state of the city he worked in, is unsure what

the future holds for Rwanda.

The upper echelons of government are well in place but there is no

structure beneath them to support it. No system of bureaucrats to get

the necessary groundwork prepared to rebuild the city and the country.

The new regime has the added problem of weeding out those involved in

the atrocities. There are said to be some 30,000 people identified: but

how they will deal with them is anybody's guess.