UN Chief Pushes for French Troops in Rwanda

REUTERSUNITED NATIONS -- Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on Monday urged the Security Council to accept France's offer of intervention in Rwanda and said French troops should stay there for three months. Boutros-Ghali sent a letter to the council as French Ambassador Jean-Bernard Merim?e introduced a resolution asking for Security Council endorsement of France's plan to send about 2,000 troops to Rwanda to protect civilians in danger of being slaughtered in the country's civil war. A spokesman for Boutros-Ghali expressed concern about the position of the rebel Rwanda Patriotic Front -- that any French force would be treated as a "force of aggression and was not welcome" in Rwanda. But the secretary general said in his letter that 5,500 UN troops authorized by the Security Council for the UN Assistance Mission For Rwanda, or UNAMIR, lacked equipment and it would take time to train soldiers on new equipment. "In these circumstances, the Security Council may wish to consider the offer of the government of France to undertake, subject to Security Council authorization, a French-commanded multinational operation with other member states, under Chapter VII of the charter to assure the security and protection of displaced persons and civilians at risk in Rwanda," he said. He said it was necessary to ask the French to stay in Rwanda until UNAMIR was brought up to strength and proper conditions existed for the UN force to take over. "This would imply that the multinational force should remain deployed for a minimum period of three months," he said. However, diplomats said Monday that France was unlikely to win troop commitments from European allies for the planned intervention, despite pleas from Paris for help. Ambassadors from the nine-nation Western European Union defense group meet in Brussels on Tuesday to consider the French plan. A similar meeting last Friday failed to produce pledges of troops from French allies. While some have offered financial or logistical support, none seems willing to offer forces for a mission that could involve combat in a faraway country where they have no major interests, diplomats said. "I would be very surprised if anyone else joins the French in what will be a very dangerous mission," said one Brussels-based diplomat from a WEU member state. Many allies are already overstretched with UN troop deployments in Bosnia at a time when defense budgets are shrinking. Moreover, the problems of the recent UN operation in Somalia are still fresh in their minds. In addition, the rebels of the Rwandan Patriotic Front have warned France not to intervene -- increasing the risk that there could be fighting if troops go in. Jean-Michel Marlaud, France's ambassador to Kigali whose mission was closed nearly two months ago, left the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Monday for Rwanda to persuade rebel leaders to drop their opposition to the French plan, the French Embassy said. But rebel military chief Paul Kagame said that he would not meet with Marlaud. The rebels accuse Paris of supporting the government of President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose assassination in April led to the massacres. Paris has been pressing its allies to join it in Rwanda.