U.S. Troop Safety a Key Concern in Rwanda Mission : Africa: Despite potential for violence, aid effort has run smoothly. Officials hope to avoid another Somalia.

U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Daniel Schroeder, a ramrod-straight soldier with a closely shaved head and a razor-sharp manner, paused only once in his rapid-fire answers to a gaggle of reporters at a recent briefing here.

Schroeder, head of the task force running Operation Support Hope, the U.S. attempt to alleviate the suffering of more than 1 million Rwandan refugees, said he was considering using an American truck company to transport food and refugees in Rwanda.

“The thing that concerns us is the security issue,” he said. Then came the one pause: “It’s the unknown. It’s the uncertainty.”

So far, in its first few days, the U.S. operation in Zaire and Rwanda has encountered many daunting problems, but American soldiers at least have been spared the experience of their comrades in Somalia last year: being shot at by the people they were trying to help.

Yet the potential for trouble remains high in the consciousness of U.S. officials in Africa and in Washington. They point to two major worries: the troops, 20,000 to 40,000 strong, who remain loyal to the losing Hutu side of the Rwandan civil war and who might try to interfere with U.S. aid efforts; and the victorious Tutsi minority, who might want to exact revenge on Hutu refugees returning to Rwanda from Zaire.

By most reliable accounts, Rwanda has been peaceful--partly because much of it is almost deserted--since the army of the former Hutu-dominated government fled across the border to Zaire two weeks ago, urging or pushing much of the terrified population to flee with it. But no one knows if the peace will last. The legacy of ethnic massacres and bloodletting may not be simple to erase.

Driven from their country by the forces of the victorious Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the Hutu troops remain just across the border in Zaire. Thousands are camped for miles along the road that runs west from the border, and paymasters handed out thick wads of cash to the uniformed troops on a recent afternoon. Estimates of both the army’s size and its strength vary, because many tossed down their weapons when they crossed the border. Others, however, kept their guns.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has refused to assist the Rwandan soldiers, except the wounded, until they are disarmed and put in camps as military detainees, as required under the Geneva Convention. Hutu leaders, however, have vowed to keep their forces intact and to lead them back one day to renew the fight against the Tutsis.

During the civil war, many of those troops carried out horrific massacres of both Tutsis and of Hutus accused of collaborating with the Tutsis. Hutu government forces also murdered and then skinned the bodies of 10 Belgian peacekeepers during the war’s early days.

So far, the Hutu soldiers have not tried to interfere with U.S. or international aid efforts, but if they begin to do so, the American presence could rapidly become more dangerous.

“As long as they retain their weapons, you have a problem,” said Shawn Messick, a Pentagon special operations officer who arrived here recently. “It’s part of our operating environment here.”

The most immediate source of potential conflict centers on efforts by the United States, the United Nations and private relief agencies to encourage refugees to return home to Rwanda. The Hutu leadership opposes that and has tried actively to keep the refugees in Zaire, leading to concerns that if the repatriation effort becomes more successful, the Hutus might try to thwart it by force.

In the past, the Hutus have received aid from the government of Zaire. U.S. officials have tried to exert what influence they can on Zaire to ensure that the aid does not continue and have received assurances that it will not. But given the notorious corruption of Zaire’s government, officials concede they cannot be sure those assurances will stick.

Persuading the refugees to return will, of course, depend in part on the behavior of the civil war’s winning side. The new Rwandan government has promised not to exact reprisals against returning refugees, but scattered reports indicate some reprisals already have begun.

That, in turn, raises the question of what, if anything, U.S. forces will do if civilians in Rwanda once again come under attack.

U.S. officials insist that whatever happens, American troops will not take part in efforts to protect Rwandan civilians. That, officials say, will be up to a separate U.N. peacekeeping force.

If the violence escalates, however, the arm’s-length stance of the U.S. force could be increasingly uncomfortable.

As they await the day, still some weeks away, on which the U.N. force becomes fully operational, U.S. officials concede that much depends on the goodwill of the new government.

For all that, experienced relief workers argue that the situation in Rwanda differs greatly from the one in Somalia. Indeed, some fear that the American public drew the wrong lesson from Somalia. The U.S. military saved lives in that country, the relief workers note. The problem was, they also tried to quickly refashion a country of powerful ethnic clans into a multi-party democracy. And “mission creep” meant the rules and the goals were constantly changing.

“The difference is, this is a genuine humanitarian operation with no political or military implications,” said Steffan de Mistura, U.N. Children’s Fund representative in Somalia.

“I don’t think we are going to have ‘mission creep,’ ” Messick said. “We didn’t come in with a blank slate, like we did in Somalia, saying ‘Do good.’ We came in with very specific tasks, and that’s what we’re going to do.”

For now, officials say security for U.S. troops is a concern, but not a problem. The troops inside Rwanda have been given orders not to leave the airport where they are based. The 98 troops now in Goma live in tents next to a crowded road with no protection other than a roll of concertina wire. Most of the soldiers go unarmed, and none wear flak vests or other combat gear.

If problems do develop, officials say, the U.S. troops are prepared to defend themselves. “That’s why you send in the U.S. military, not the Peace Corps,” National Security Adviser Anthony Lake said at a recent White House meeting.

Drogin reported from Goma and Lauter from Washington.

* GENOCIDE TRIBUNAL SOUGHT: Rwanda’s new leaders call for trials against Hutu officials. A6