Rwandan Rebels, Troops Exchange Shells Despite Truce

Hundreds of Rwandans crowded elbow to elbow in Kigali’s open-air market Wednesday, determined to fill their cupboards despite warfare that has ripped apart their country.

The next moment they cringed in the dirt or ran for their lives as an artillery shell howled toward them. The shell, which wounded several people, provoked a retaliatory barrage from nearby government guns, which earlier had peppered Rwandan Patriotic Front positions on the next ridge.

The continuing violence brutally contradicted a cease-fire pledged Tuesday in Tunis, Tunisia, between representatives of Hutu-dominated government forces and rebels of the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front.

In Paris, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France is ready to intervene if the cease-fire fails and the killings continue.

France would organize “with its principal European or African partners an intervention on the ground aiming to protect groups threatened with extermination,” Juppe said.

Hundreds of French and Belgian troops left Rwanda after evacuating thousands of foreigners two months ago, early in the fighting.

Pasteur Bizimungu, head of the rebel delegation at the Organization of African Unity summit in Tunis, said Tuesday he would order his troops to respect the truce immediately. But other officials from both sides said they had no plans to silence their guns.

“There may be a cease-fire in Tunis, but not here,” said Capt. Nakoura Katanga, 28, a Togolese officer in the lightly armed 450-member U.N. monitoring force, as he sped in his white U.N. truck away from the market.