13 Rwandan Clergymen Slain by Rebels

Thirteen Rwandan clergymen, including the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kigali and two bishops, were killed by four rebel soldiers assigned to guard them, Rwandan rebel radio said Wednesday.

Radio Muhabura, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., said three of the soldiers fled and a fourth was shot and killed by other rebel guards. A search was under way to find the escaped soldiers and bring them to trial before a military tribunal, the radio said.

The guards believed the clergymen had taken part in massacres of their relatives, the radio said.

But Col. Frank Mugambage, political director of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, had said Tuesday that the rebels “don’t really have any evidence” against the clergymen, slain as they ate dinner.

Up to 500,000 people have been killed in massacres and civil war that erupted after Rwanda’s president, a member of the majority Hutu ethnic group, died in a suspicious plane crash April 6.

In Kigali, meanwhile, a third round of cease-fire talks began between the Hutu-led government and Tutsi rebels.

Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian who commands the 450-member U.N. presence in Rwanda, said the parties had begun detailed discussion of a cease-fire document drawn up by the U.N. command in Kigali.