ONCE again the sight of Hutu refugees tramping from conflict in central Africa tugs at the world's heartstrings. It is a spectacle which has appeared on television screens periodically since the great exodus from Rwanda 2 1/2 years ago.

And the United Nations is there again to ensure that it generates publicity - and therefore money - from a seemingly endless tragedy.

But to focus on the plight of the refugees is to hijack attention from, the real tragedy taking place in central Africa. Refugees from Burundi deserve more sympathy, given the continuing conflict there. But Rwanda's exiled Hutus are not perpetual victims of war.

They are the ones perpetuating the conflict. And much of the world, through the UN, has helped them do it.

The fighting now spreading across eastern Zaire results from the world's strange perception that the desire of Rwandan Hutu refugees to remain refugees is of overriding importance. It began with the 1994 exodus from Rwanda, as Hutus bolted from the consequences of the murder of hundreds of thousands of Tutsis.

Two million people fleeing their country could not be ignored. The generous international response was right, if made for the wrong reasons.

Governments poured in aid to assuage consciences for turning their backs on the genocide of Tutsis.

People in the West gave because of the tragic TV pictures, amid some confusion about whom they were looking at. After visiting the refugees, Ms Tipper Gore, wife of the US Vice President, described her grief at a meeting of "genocide survivors Others were similarly confused, and the idea of the Hutu refugees as the principal victims stuck.

Britain and its allies throw $1.5 million a day into the black hole of the camps so that they can claim to help central Africa, while turning their backs on the difficult choices' required to find a solution.

The camps are by no means full of guilty people, and conditions in Rwanda are not ideal for returning Hutus. There are reprisal killings, sometimes by the mainly Tutsi army. But that is, in part, a result of the continued cross border raids into Rwanda from the camps, in order to kill, maim and keep the divisions wide.

While the UN appeals to "all sides to avoid a humanitarian disaster", referring to Hutu refugees, the real victims of the killing in eastern Zaire are the masses of Tutsis who have lived there for generations but now find themselves facing murder or expulsion.

The UN says it cannot help them, because the victims are being killed inside their own country - even if that country has disowned them.

The spread of fighting into Zaire has been predictable. The Hutu militias, when not raiding Rwanda, consorted with Zairean soldiers and civilians to destroy the country's Tutsis.

Rwanda denies any hand in helping them fight back, but support for Zairean Tutsis is an effective way to carry the war into the extremists' camp. In the circumstances, it is hard for anyone in the West to say Rwanda is wrong.

Washington would not permit similar armed camps of fanatics, intent on overthrowing the government, to sit across its border with Mexico. And the US invaded Panama and Grenada on far more spurious threats to its security.

The West keeps talking about closing the camps. Washington, describing them as centres of terrorism, says they should be shut. Two weeks ago, a UN conference said the same thing, for the sixth time in two years.

What little attention has been paid to finding a lasting solution in central Africa is suspect or shunned. The US Secretary of State, Mr Warren Christopher, arrived a fortnight ago to push a plan for a Western funded, African manned peacekeeping force.

European support is crucial.

It got buried in a spat between the French and Mr Christopher over who had the right to exercise what influence in Africa.

But if anyone doubts the West's seriousness, it can always point to the great help given to the Hutu refugees. {CORRECTION} 96102300158