Rebel forces in Zaire under the leadership of Mr Laurent Kabila have given United Nations humanitarian organisations 60 days to repatriate Rwandan Hutu refugees. Otherwise, Mr Kabile says, they will do it themselves. The agreement came after intense international concern for their fate following allegations that the rebel forces had been involved in ill treating them; even, according to the UN Secretary General, Mr Kofi Annan, in trying to starve them to death.
Although this is trenchantly denied by Mr Kabila, the reports are sufficiently grave and damaging to merit his most immediate attention and the international investigation he has conceded. This is necessary for reasons of political prudence as well as humanitarian concern. The refugee issue could be a public relations disaster for him, deflecting attention from the remarkable success he has had in undermining the Mobutu regime and the complex, and positive, international negotiations about the whole region this has produced.
The full political and military context of the refugee tragedy must be borne in mind when assessing it. The estimated 85,000 people involved are the rump of the one million who fled Rwanda in 1994, after the Rwandan Patriotic Front had won the war and stopped the genocide. Among them were the very militias who had carried it out and who survived with impunity in the refugee camps set up on the border with Zaire. It is they who have been driving the remaining refugees on a gruelling chase through eastern Zaire, after the great majority of their compatriots abandoned them and returned home at the end of last year.
So this refugee story is being played out in the middle of a war. Many of those commenting on it are motivated by strategic interests or systematic political preference for one side or the other. This does not excuse actions against the refugees, attempts to use them for political gain, much less gross violations of their rights or capacity to survive. Many of them may not want to return. And because roads have been destroyed it may be impossible to arrange in the time available. But efforts must be redoubled to handle this question in the context of regional negotiations and war crimes tribunals.
Those calling for the suspension of Irish aid to Rwanda as a result of these atrocities must also reflect on the real context in which these events are being played out. The Government has been generous in its response to the need to rebuild Rwanda after the genocide and probably too uncritical about the Rwandan government's role. But it has been correct to extend solidarity and to make a favourable judgment about the potential now unfolding to reach a comprehensive agreement on the future of the Great Lakes region.