Clinton Orders 200 Troops to Rwanda to Reopen Airport : Africa: President says they will be used only for humanitarian effort and won’t be drawn into peacekeeping. He asks Congress for $320 million in aid.

WASHINGTON — President Clinton ordered 200 U.S. troops to Rwanda on Friday to reopen the airport in Kigali, the nation’s capital. Officials insisted that American forces will be used solely for humanitarian aid and will not be drawn into peacekeeping operations.

“The United States must do more,” Clinton said at a White House news conference earlier in the day. He announced an emergency request to Congress for $320 million to pay for additional aid for Rwanda, where war and disease have killed up to half a million people.

“This relief effort is the most difficult and complex the world has faced in decades,” he added. “. . . The United States must not cease its efforts until the dying stops and the refugees have returned.”

But Clinton Administration officials coupled that expansive pledge with repeated and notably narrow promises about the scope of the American operation.

“The mission is designed to deal with the immediate humanitarian crisis. This is not a long-term peacekeeping commitment in Rwanda,” said White House National Security Adviser Anthony Lake.

“The U.S. responsibility ends at the airport perimeter,” Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch said at the Pentagon in announcing the deployment of the 200 troops, roughly half of whom will be security personnel.

“Our mission today and tomorrow . . . is to assist in providing humanitarian assistance. There isn’t a word in my instruction from the President that has anything to do with peacekeeping or anything else,” said Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The Administration’s decision to open the airport is based on the assessment that the new government in Rwanda, established by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front after its victory in the nation’s civil war, can maintain order, officials said. “If there is greater disorder in the country, another route will be taken,” Deutch said.

U.S. forces are expected to begin arriving in Kigali today or Sunday. Defense Secretary William J. Perry, who had already been scheduled to visit the region over the weekend, will now add a stop in Kigali, officials said.

Reopening the Kigali airport, which was damaged during the weeks of civil war that drove more than a million people into squalid refugee camps in Zaire and other neighboring countries, is designed to alleviate a severe restriction on current aid efforts.

The small airfield at Goma, Zaire, can now handle just over 20 aid flights a day and its capacity cannot be expanded much beyond that, Shalikashvili said.

Kigali, roughly 60 miles from Goma, “isn’t a terribly long distance and it would then give us an alternative to more than double the number of flights,” he said.

If the airport opening goes smoothly, U.S. personnel may conduct a “second phase” effort that would require more troops, Deutch said. Other officials have said that fewer than 2,000 troops would be involved in that effort, if it happens.

But, Deutch warned, “We shall only do this if we see success and if security conditions permit.”

One possible part of a second phase would be the establishment of way stations along Rwandan roads to provide food, water and other supplies to refugees as a way of encouraging them to return to their homes. U.S. forces might run the way stations or turn them over to U.N. troops or civilian aid agencies, Deutch said.

U.S. officials continued to say that the only solution to the enormous refugee crisis in the camps around Goma is to encourage the refugees to go home.

So far, the U.S. aid effort has been marred by a slow start, with complaints of disorganization coming from private aid workers and even some U.S. officers on the scene. Shalikashvili defended the operation but said he understands “the frustrations of the people in and out of uniform in places like Goma” with the pace of the relief effort.

“It would be very strange if they did not feel impatient and frustrated with the flow of humanitarian assistance, with the water purification equipment, with the medical teams, because the need is really so very vast,” he said.

And he warned that frustration may continue because the many aid “priorities . . . far exceed our ability to squeeze all of that in through very limited airfields.”

The first priority of U.S. officials has been to set up the logistic base that will allow the aid effort to expand smoothly and continue for the weeks, perhaps months, that will be required, Shalikashvili said. Private relief agencies, which have been able to get planes into Goma more quickly than the U.S. military, have been able to do so only because U.S. forces made improving the airfield there the first priority, he added.

The massive logistic problems involved in delivering water, food and shelter to more than a million destitute people are only part of the difficulties the aid effort faces. Keeping order will also be a major challenge--one that the Administration wants to avoid.

Administration officials insisted that peacekeeping will be the province of a separate U.N. force. U.S. forces will provide only logistic support. Eight nations so far have agreed to provide small contingents for the force, but when they will arrive and whether they will be enough remains unclear.

Administration officials conceded that the Kigali mission will not be risk-free. “You cannot be involved in operations without some danger that someone will take a potshot at you,” Shalikashvili said.

But they insisted that, in contrast with Somalia, this mission should be reasonably safe. While Somalia was still in the midst of a civil war when U.S. troops entered, Rwanda’s RPF appears to have decisively defeated forces of the former Hutu-led government, officials said.

Mission Rwanda

The relief problem in Rwanda involves two major tasks: First, persuading refugees who fled across the border to return home, where they fear being tortured and killed by rebels who overran the country two weeks ago. Second, getting the aid where it needs to go.

The U.S. Mission

The White House laid out a five-part mission for the U.S. troops that are being sent to Rwanda:

Stabilize the situation in Goma, Zaire, where the bulk of the refugees are gathered, and “stop the dying” by curbing the spread of cholera.

Pave the way for the return of the refugees to Rwanda by setting up way stations to give them food and shelter on the trip home.

Negotiate with the interim government in Rwanda to make sure that the situation there is stable and that the refugees will not be subject to reprisals when they return.

As quickly as possible, turn the situation over to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and to U.N. peacekeeping troops.

Leave.

Refugee Overflow

As of Thursday, more than 2 million people were believed to be massed in the French “safe zone,” and U.N. officials feared people would flood out of the region into neighboring Zaire.

Red Cross said displaced people in the towns of Gikongoro and Cyangugu were in far worse condition than the refugees in Zaire. It was stepping up operations in southwestern Rwanda.

Fact Sheet

Refugees’ Death Rate: 1,800 a day

Deaths in Civil War: At least 500,000

Refugees in Eastern Zaire: 1.7 million

Getting to Rwanda

One of the obstacles facing relief operations is Rwanda’s distance. Here are some of the mileage and travel times involved:

From the United States: 6,500 miles, 24-hour flight.

From U.S. headquarters, Europe: 2,727 miles, 9-hour flight.

By ship from Diego Garcia, Saipan or Thailand: 9 to 13 days.

How the Water Purification System Works

Distribution pump and hose

Collapsible storage tanks

Water purification system

60 Kw generator

Intake pump assembly

Cyclone separator

Water intake system

1. Water enters strainer directly from the lake, pulled in by a powerful intake pump.

2. It is forced through a complex series of membranes and filters which remove increasingly smaller pieces of solid material. Chlorine is added.

3. The clean water is pumped into water tanks for storage and local distribution.

4. The water is pumped into tanker trucks for transportation and distribution.

How to Help

Here is a partial list of aid agencies assisting Rwanda:

Adventist Development & Relief Agency

P.O. Box 4289

Silver Spring, Md. 20914

(800) 424-ADRA

African Medical and Research Foundation

420 Lexington Ave.

New York, N.Y. 10170

(212) 683-1161

Africare

Africare House

440 R St. N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20001

(202) 462-3614

AmeriCares, Rwanda Relief

161 Cherry St.

New Canaan, Conn. 06840

(800) 486-HELP

American Red Cross, Rwanda Relief

P.O. Box 37243

Washington, D.C. 20013

(800) 842-2200

CARE

151 Ellis St.

Atlanta, Ga. 30303

(800) 521-CARE

Catholic Relief Services

P.O. Box 17090

Baltimore, Md. 21298-9664

(800) SEND-HOPE

Concern Worldwide USA

104 E. 40th St., Room 903

New York, N.Y. 10016

(212) 557-8000

Direct Relief International

27 S. La Patera Lane

Santa Barbara, Calif. 93117

(805) 964-4767

Doctors Without Borders USA Inc.

30 Rockefeller Plaza, Suite 5425

New York, N.Y. 10112

(212) 649-5961

Food for the Hungry, Rwanda Relief

P.O. Box 12272

Scottsdale, Ariz. 85267-2272

(800) 2-HUNGER

International Medical Corps

12233 W. Olympic Blvd., Suite 280

Los Angeles, Calif. 90064-1052

(310) 826-7800

International Rescue Committee

122 E. 42nd St., 12th Floor

New York, N.Y. 10168-1289

(212) 551-3000

Oxfam America

26 West St.

Boston, Mass. 02111

(617) 482-1211

World Relief

P.O. Box WRC, Dept. 3

Wheaton, Ill. 60189

(800) 535-5433

World Vision

P.O. Box 1131

Pasadena, Calif. 91131

(800) 423-4200