Finally, Some Help for Rwanda

After more than two deadly months of inexcusable delays, Rwanda may finally get some help. This year there have been at least 2 million people killed there, solely because of their tribal identification.

Unfortunately, stopping the slaughter isn’t the mandate of the 5,500 African peacekeepers expected to go to the Central African nation under the auspices of the United Nations. At the insistence of an overly cautious Clinton Administration, the U.N. Security Council is directing the troops to protect Rwandans by setting up havens without ordering the soldiers to stop the massacres.

Mindful of the disappointing results of the massive and expensive U.N. intervention in Somalia, the Clinton Administration should express some caution. But the Administration imposed burdensome conditions that delayed the peacekeeping effort.

The Administration acknowledges some of the killings as acts of genocide. But a broader recognition of the wholesale slaughter as genocide would require the United States and other nations to intervene under a 1948 international accord. Political semantics cannot disguise the Hutus’ systematic elimination of Tutsis, the minority tribe that dominated Rwanda.

When the first Hutu president, Juvenal Habyarimana, was killed in a suspicious plane crash April 6, his death triggered this latest round of bloodletting. Hutus, however, aren’t the only killers. Last week, Tutsi rebels killed Roman Catholic clergy who were apparently members of the Hutu tribe.

Burundi’s president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, also died in the airplane crash, but his death did not precipitate a mass attack. However, previous tribal rampages have claimed more than 200,000 Tutsis and Hutus in Burundi.

Crisis is common in Africa, so common that Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe believes the Organization of African Unity ought to have an intervention force at its disposal. Mugabe is right. He is expected to call for a mechanism that would allow the OAU to ask countries to provide troops. In the meantime, Mugabe is one of 14 African leaders who is committing troops to Rwanda as part of the U.N. peacekeeping force. The peacekeepers, equipped with the weapons and logistical support they need, should arrive as soon as possible.