A FRANCO SPANISH proposal for a 5,000 member international force to help bring assistance to over a million Hutu refugees in Zaire has received a lukewarm response from the US, Britain and African states.
The proposal emerged at a meeting between France and Spanish political figures on Monday and Tuesday, as humanitarian agencies continued to be prevented from reaching the refugees. The Hutus fled Rwanda in 1994, fearing reprisals for the genocide of up to a million Tutsis by Hutu militias.
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees warned yesterday that the situation was becoming even more urgent. "You can't repatriate dead refugees. We need to get in there," a UNHCR spokesman told Reuters in Nairobi.
There is speculation that the rebel force which has routed the Zairean army over the past fortnight in the east of the country and caused the refugees to flee is divided over whether to fight on. Their leader, Mr Laurent Kabila, announced a three week ceasefire on Monday.
The ceasefire has done nothing to ease the refugee crisis, with fears rising that many of the close to a million Hutus may have run out of food. Aid agencies, including Trocaire, travelled to Goma, in Zaire, yesterday to assess the situation. Concern and Trocaire are also involved in making preparations for a possible mass return of the refugees to Rwanda.
An eight nation African summit in Nairobi on Tuesday called for the UN to send a neutral protection force to create havens from which they could go home along safe corridors. Any force containing French troops, however, would not be regarded as neutral by the Rwandan government, which sees France as a supporter of the Hutu cause.
France and Spain are reported to have pledged 1,000 troops each to the proposed force. But African nations will not even discuss the issue until next Monday, while AFP reported British officials saying it was far too early to consider such a force. The proposal is also reported to envisage the involvement of US troops.
The rebel ceasefire appeared to be holding yesterday. The rebel force made rapid gains after ethnic Tutsis, living in Zaire rose up two weeks ago when Zaire decided to expel them. These Tutsis - the Banyamulenge - appear to have formed an alliance with various groups opposed to Zairean President Mobutu Sese Seko.
Mr Mobutu, whose 31 year rule has been marked by a high level of corruption and political repression, is now in Nice, France, after treatment in Switzerland for prostate cancer. Mr Mobutu told journalists last night that he favours a neutral force in Zaire.
There are unconfirmed and highly doubted reports that he intends to return shortly to Zaire, where his grip on power has been greatly weakened during his absence.
The Franco Spanish initiative envisages three phases.
The idea is little by little, the troops will be replaced by Africans, according to a spokesman for the Spanish foreign ministry reported by AFP. In the second phase, it will be international troops with Africans, in the third phase only Africans.
France and Spain say they want international backing for sending troops, particularly from the US but also from the UN and the Organisation of African Unity.
Widespread accusations that France is partisan in the region may militate against the plan. Belgium, the former colonial power in the region, has already said it will not send troops.
Aid workers in the area say they have lost track of the fleeing refugees' precise whereabouts in eastern Zaire. The lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of the Hutu refugees is highlighted by the different assessments of what has happened to Mugunga camp, which until recently was the biggest refugee camp in the world, housing some 400,000 people.
The UNHCR on the one hand believes most of Mugunga's 400,000 people have fled some 15 km west, to where the tarred road runs out. But other agencies believe Mugunga is still full. Nobody is able to state from where their information comes. As the days pass by, aid agencies fear that intervention will come too late for many of the homeless people. Hunger, thirst, cold and physical attacks from Zaireans are among the threats facing those who are on the move in Zaire.
Several thousand people - the bulk of them brand new Zairean refugees - have trickled eastwards into neighbouring Uganda, and Tanzania. Some Burundians have gone home, back to the civil war they fled which is still raging there.