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.
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