Rebels Declare Unilateral Cease-Fire in Rwanda Fighting : Central Africa: Spokesman says his group has ‘obliged’ global community. But it shuns peace talks.

Rwandan rebels declared a unilateral cease-fire Saturday in their war with government forces following the deaths of an estimated 100,000 people in more than two weeks of fighting and ethnic slaughter.

But the rebels refused to participate in peace talks with Rwandan government officials in this northern Tanzanian town.

Announcing the cease-fire, which is scheduled to begin at midnight Monday, Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) Secretary General Theogene Rudasingwa said, “The international community sees this as a way of stopping the massacres, so we have obliged.”

On Friday, the United States called on the warring sides to agree to an immediate cease-fire and said it was prepared to help efforts to arrange a political settlement of their dispute.

But Rudasingwa, the chief rebel delegate, doubted that the government, which independent observers blame for most of the massacres, can fulfill its cease-fire conditions.

Human rights workers estimate that 100,000 people have been killed and 2 million people displaced in fighting since Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed in a plane crash April 6. Rwandan diplomats charge that the plane was shot down.

Aid workers said the killings were continuing in southern towns. It appeared that most of the victims were members of the country’s Tutsi minority, associated with the RPF, or supporters of opposition parties.

Government comment was not available on the cease-fire declaration that was signed by RPF Chairman Col. Alexis Kanyarengwe in rebel headquarters in northern Rwanda. U.N. officials attending the talks had not been told of the RPF move.

Terms of the cease-fire include:

* Control of killings by government forces in their areas within 96 hours of the cease-fire deadline.

* Monitoring of the cease-fire by 270 U.N. observers still in Rwanda following a cut in peacekeeping forces by the Security Council.

* Negotiations on implementation of the 9-month-old peace accord that was supposed to end the civil war in Rwanda and establish an all-party transitional government.

* Exclusion from peace talks of those linked to killings.

* An international tribunal to investigate and punish those allegedly responsible for killing the president and carrying out massacres.

* Joint control of the airport in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, by rebels and government forces and creation of internationally supervised safe corridors for delivery of aid and safe passage of civilians.

Organization of African Unity Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim welcomed news of the cease-fire declaration.

“Much will depend on what happens on the ground, but a cease-fire would be an important step toward ending the carnage and mayhem,” he said on arrival in Arusha.

On Friday, Salim blasted a U.N. announcement that it was evacuating most of its 2,500 observers and troops from Kigali because of the resumption of fighting.

A U.N. spokesman in Kigali said 1,000 peacekeepers were due to leave the capital by Saturday night, leaving about 600 troops who will be reduced within days to 270.

But U.N. special envoy Jacques-Roger Booh Booh said he had been given authority to hold back 1,000 troops who had been evacuated to Nairobi, Kenya, in order to send them back to Kigali if a cease-fire was reached.