African Leaders Set Rwanda Plan; 12 Killed in Refugee Camp

Leaders of seven East and Central African countries adopted a strategy Saturday to combat insecurity in the aftermath of Rwanda’s genocide and to encourage more than 2 million refugees to go home.

Meanwhile, shooting broke out Saturday in a refugee camp in southern Rwanda, killing at least 12 people and wounding 36, a U.N. source said. The incident was the worst single case of violence yet in the refugee camps throughout the region.

In Nairobi, a one-day summit--attended by the presidents of Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and Zambia, and Zaire’s prime minister--ended with a joint communique covering most key issues. But the absence of Zairian President Mobutu Sese Seko fueled doubts about the plan’s implementation.

The officials agreed to separate suspected perpetrators of last year’s genocide from innocent refugees in camps in Zaire and Tanzania and to set up safe corridors from the refugee camps to the Rwanda border. They also agreed to establish safe corridors and transit points inside Rwanda for returning refugees.

The leaders expressed full support for an international tribunal to judge those who planned the slaughter of up to 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in the Central African nation.

“It was a very good meeting, but a lot of work needs to be done,” Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi told reporters after the talks. “It is only through the process of national reconciliation that the circle of violence in our sister state can be avoided.”

Saturday’s shooting was the worst single case of violence in either the camp in southern Rwanda or in camps in Zaire, Burundi and Tanzania for the millions of Rwandans who fled their homes last year to escape ethnic killings.

It was unclear who did the shooting or how it began, but a U.N. team was investigating. There were reports of as many as 50 deaths, with hundreds wounded, said a U.N. source, but the United Nations could not confirm the higher figures.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees reports that an estimated 1.2 million Rwandan refugees are still in camps in eastern Zaire.

Relief agencies say the Zairian camps are a powder keg because of the presence of 30,000 soldiers of the previous Hutu government and an estimated 10,000 militiamen.

The militias are blamed for most of the deaths of 500,000 people, mostly from the minority Tutsi ethnic group, during the blood bath that followed President Juvenal Habyarimana’s death in an unexplained plane crash April 6.

The militiamen and soldiers also have been preventing refugees from returning home in an attempt to deprive Rwanda’s government of a population base.