Rwandans Flee, but Tanzania Closes Border

The woeful refugees of Rwanda are on the road again. And once more they are fleeing toward sanctuary where they are unwanted. Shambling on foot, some of their children already going lame, about 50,000 advanced Friday along a winding mountain highway of northernmost Burundi.

The double-file exodus on either side of the road stretched for miles.

An additional 150,000 Rwandan refugees packed their few belongings from seven camps in the area, waiting for this fresh wave of fear to sweep them along onto the road too.

But the path may lead only to a wall of soldiers determined to turn the Rwandans back.

At midday Friday, the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees sent teams onto the road to announce on bullhorns that Tanzania, their destination, was closing its border to the refugees. The United Nations urged Rwandans to return to camps here in Burundi, where some of them have lived since last summer.

“The lead column of about 500 is still two days from the border. We asked them to go back. They said they wouldn’t. They said they would stop and wait and see,” U.N. spokesman Fernando del Mundo said.

Little wonder. No one, and certainly not the United Nations, can ensure anyone’s safety in Burundi. It is trapped in a rising fever of the very same Hutu-Tutsi ethnic passions and bloodletting that brought Rwandans here seeking shelter in the first place.

“The air is full of rumors. They are going to attack us. I don’t know who, but I’m leaving,” said a refugee woman along the road 20 miles east of here. “I have three children. Two are sick. Can you help?”

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So far most of the refugees seem in fair health, and those on the road could be seen with several days’ supply of food. But this is the rainy season, and aid workers say they fear the spread of disease among any moving mass of people with inadequate water and sanitation.

More troubling are the ethnic divisions: Rwandan Hutus led a genocide of perhaps 500,000 Tutsi countrymen last spring. Then they were overpowered by an invading army of Tutsi rebels. Fearing revenge, they left in one of the largest and fastest-moving refugee flights of modern times. Tens of thousands died of cholera and other diseases.

Most survivors went west into Zaire. Others headed directly into Tanzania. The remaining 200,000 came here to Burundi.

But in the last week, Burundi’s Hutu-Tutsi tensions have boiled over. A grenade was thrown in one of the refugee camps near here, killing 12. The small radios that refugee leaders carry as treasured possessions broadcast fearful stories of ethnic fighting to the south in Burundi’s capital, Bujumbura.

Then, U.S. and European diplomats evacuated their dependents, and aid workers withdrew from some of the hot spots.

African peasants may have little formal schooling and only what Westerners might consider a primitive education. But they sense danger like the rabbit senses the hawk.

“White people are leaving. . . . It must mean something bad,” said Leonidas Minane, a Burundi Hutu who is preparing to join the Rwandan Hutus in the march to the border.

An unknown but potentially crucial factor in this latest refugee migration is the influence of the former Hutu government of Rwanda. These men and women, themselves refugees, have maintained their credibility and influence with their Hutu population.

This week’s sudden flight stirred a range of speculation: Might the Hutus be consolidating to prepare for a military counterattack someday? Might they be encouraging destabilization in the region to entice foreign intervention--a path they believe would give them a voice in negotiating Rwanda’s future?

“Of course someone is telling them to go. They are not running out of fear,” insisted Oscar Gishikizo, Burundi’s national police captain in charge of security in this region.

As he watched refugees file by on the highway, he scowled. “Among these people are some who committed crimes--the genocide you know--and they want to stick together.”