Rwanda Peace Talks Stall After Troops, Rebels Conduct Raids

U.N.-brokered peace talks in Rwanda stalled Friday after rebels killed a peacekeeper and a pro-government Hutu militia, blamed for widespread massacres, stormed a hotel sheltering refugees.

“The talks essentially stalled because of the day’s events,” the commander of U.N. forces in Rwanda, Maj. Gen. Romeo Dallaire, told reporters. He said a date for resumption of the talks would be announced later.

The talks had been called to discuss prospects for implementing an African-mediated cease-fire and other ways of preventing ethnic slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of people, mostly minority Tutsis.

The peacekeeper, a Uruguayan major, was fatally injured and a Bangladeshi peacekeeper was wounded by a rebel rocket-propelled grenade fired from close range at their U.N.-marked vehicle about 13 miles north of Kigali.

In Kigali, a Hutu militia stormed the Mille Collines hotel in the government-held city center in search of Tutsis who dominate the ranks of the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front. Dallaire said no one was killed in the incident. Up to 600 people had taken refuge in the hotel.

U.N. military spokesman Maj. Jean-Guy Plante said the hotel raid, in which the militia opened fire, appeared to be in retaliation for an overnight rebel raid on a militia-controlled religious complex from which they freed about 600 refugees. U.N. officials said at least 40 people were killed in the raid.