Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 30, 1994 TAG: 9408010046
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: New York Times and Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
``This relief effort is the most difficult and complex the world has faced in decades,'' Clinton said at a White House news briefing.
But in a clear allusion to the military's relief effort in Somalia, where dozens of soldiers died in combat, the White House insisted that its forces would confine themselves solely to aiding refugees and stay far out of Rwanda's gruesome civil war.
Without mentioning Somalia by name, Clinton said the U.S. military would be sent to Rwanda for the sole purpose of assisting in the delivery of relief aid.
``Let me be clear about this,'' Clinton said. ``Any deployment of United States troops inside Rwanda would be for the immediate and the sole purpose of humanitarian relief, not for peacekeeping.''
Anthony Lake, head of the National Security Council, would not speculate on how many troops would be needed in the Rwandan capital, Kigali. He said the chief concern is the security risk for U.S. troops.
``We are looking very, very carefully at the security situation, both now and down the road as we deal with this immediate crisis to make sure that, if we open the airfield, that there is a secure environment,'' Lake said. Clinton's military and security advisers nevertheless acknowledged that the troops faced at least a small prospect of danger, mostly from Hutu forces defeated in the Rwandan conflict by the rebel Tutsi army.
The president also said Friday that he had asked Congress to allot $270 million more for emergency aid to Rwandan refugees. That would bring the total of American assistance to nearly a half-billion dollars since relief efforts first began in the spring.
``We have delivered more than 1,300 tons of equipment, food, water and medicine,'' he said. ``We have increased safe water production and distribution from nothing to 100,000 gallons a day.'' But, he added, ``the United States must do more.''
The deployment to the airport in Kigali - about 100 Air Force logistics experts and Army troops and 100 Special Forces to provide security - is a toe in the water in what could turn into a larger, if brief, military presence.
Lake said the U.S. aim is first to stabilize the refugees - insuring that millions of outcasts get food, water and medical care - and then to assist them in returning home.
The effort is a race against time, he said, because many refugees will die soon without quick assistance, and many more will die later if the Rwandans do not go back to tend their farms, where the crops soon will start dying in the fields.
``The crops are going to start dying in the fields within a couple of weeks now if the refugees cannot get back and start to harvest them,'' he said.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Friday that the United States was talking to France in the hope of delaying the French withdrawal.
The French have pledged to pull their forces from the country by Aug. 21, and reports that the first troops would leave soon have raised fears of yet another exodus of Hutus, this time from the French haven.
by CNB