Descent into Mayhem

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Representatives of the church and aid organizations promoting human rights and the peace process in Rwanda also suffered. Five priests and 12 young women gathered for a retreat in a Jesuit center near the airport were massacred. All were Rwandan; most were Tutsi. The guards and regular troops of the mainly Hutu Rwandan army reportedly killed Rwandan staff members of several aid organizations while expatriates were forced to look on at gunpoint.

On Friday U.N. officials in New York City claimed that peacekeeping commander Brigadier General Romeo Dallaire of Canada had brokered a partial cease-fire and that an interim government had been named. But within 24 hours rebel leaders, denying knowledge of the agreement, had renewed their offensive. Meanwhile members of the regular army were still attacking Tutsis and murdering any member of the political opposition they could find.

At dawn on Saturday, 280 French paratroopers landed at Kigali airport. By nightfall, convoys carrying 170 of the 255 Americans in Rwanda had either approached or crossed the border into Burundi, where U.S. Marines dispatched from ships off Kenya awaited. The Marines, said a Pentagon official, had an "insertion-extraction" capability; but the Administration was at pains to describe their presence as precautionary. No Americans were reported hurt. Even if the foreigners are able to escape the killing, however, the future for native Rwandans seems likely to be as bloody as their past.