Perry Backs U.N. Mission in Rwanda : Africa: The defense secretary promises U.S. support but not troops. The State Department dispatches two envoys.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry on Monday endorsed a proposal for a U.N. military expedition to stop massacres in Rwanda and promised American support--short of combat troops--for such a venture.

Describing the carnage in the tiny Central African country as “a world-scale humanitarian tragedy,” Perry told Times reporters at a breakfast meeting here that U.N. Security Council action to reduce the bloodshed there should be “a top priority.”

His remarks amounted to the first positive response by the Clinton Administration to a call Friday from Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali for a large U.N. force to quell the frenzied ethnic conflict in Rwanda. Because the United States has veto power, American support, or at least acquiescence, is vital for any new Security Council action.

Yet even as thousands more terrified refugees flowed from Rwanda into a squalid camp in Tanzania, it remained unclear what the Security Council could or would do in the crisis.

The State Department, which dispatched two envoys to the area, focused its energies on trying to arrange a cease-fire rather than galvanizing the Security Council into launching a large peacekeeping operation.

The warfare, which may have killed as many as 200,000 Rwandans, began a month ago after the Hutu presidents of Rwanda and neighboring Burundi died in a mysterious plane crash.

The vast majority of refugees in Tanzania have been members of the Hutu tribe fleeing the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a rebel army dominated by warring Tutsis. The rebels have nearly encircled the capital of Kigali and seized huge slabs of territory, including the border with Tanzania.

White House Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers said that John Shattuck, assistant secretary of state for humanitarian affairs, and David Rawson, the U.S. ambassador to Rwanda, would depart shortly to discuss the crisis with Secretary General Salim Ahmed Salim of the Organization of African Unity and other officials in Uganda, Burundi and Tanzania. Shattuck and Rawson hope to revive peace negotiations between the Rwandan government and the rebels.

One of the most commonly discussed suggestions for a solution to the crisis--an expeditionary force of African troops set up by the United Nations and the OAU--was belittled by Kofi Annan of Ghana, the U.N. undersecretary general in charge of peacekeeping, at an unusual briefing of a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on Africa.

“Given the limitations of the OAU, if we want urgent and immediate action, I’m not sure that is the organization to turn to,” Annan said Monday. “The only African country that could . . . contain the situation and help bring about law and order probably would be South Africa, but it’s too soon to turn to them.” The South African government is undergoing reorganization following historic all-race elections.

Further, Annan said, any troops dispatched to Rwanda would have to depend on the American military to get them there. “The United States is one of the few countries . . . able to move . . . assets that can get people into situations like that very quickly,” he said.

Perry echoed the sentiment, saying that--although combat duty in Rwanda is more appropriate for U.N. forces than U.S. troops--”U.S. forces might . . . be called upon to provide some special resources, some areas where we have special capabilities”--for example, a “specialized airlift.”

The Washington Post, in a graphic report from the Tanzanian border, told of scores of mutilated, bloated corpses floating down the Kagera River and over the Rusumo Falls. Reporter Keith B. Richburg also wrote of how Tanzanian authorities had created a huge pile of machetes and knives, which they collected from refugees before they were allowed to enter the country.

Before the outbreak of violence, the United Nations had stationed 2,500 troops in Rwanda. The Security Council voted 12 days ago to reduce the number to 270. About 450 U.N. peacekeepers are still in Rwanda. But on Friday, Boutros-Ghali asked the Security Council to expand the force to a size large enough to quell the violence.