Citation
BRUSSELS, April 7 (Reuter) - Elite troops of late Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana have captured at least one government minister and are hunting down more, Belgian news agency Belga said on Thursday.
Belga said the head of Rwanda's Liberal Party, a Tutsi, was among ministers seized by the military after Habyarimana and Burundi President Cyprien Ntaryamira, were killed in a rocket attack on their plane as they flew back from regional peace talks on Wednesday.
Belga said an attempt to arrest Prime Minister Agatha Uwilingiyimana had failed after other soldiers intervened to prevent her being taken away by the elite presidential guard.
A very well informed source (in Kigali) said that lists are being circulated of those people hunted by the elite troops,
Belga reported.
Professor Filip Reyntjens, an expert in Central African affairs at Antwerp University, said his sources in Kigali told him that military troops had arrested several leading Tutsis. Both of the presidents belonged to the Hutu tribe.
Reyntjens told Reuters that Charles Shamukiga, a Tutsi businessman and honorary consul in Luxembourg, was among those arrested by troops in Kigali. Some arrests are underway...there has been a big clampdown on human rights activists who feel very threatened by what has happened,
Reyntjens said.
(c) Reuters Limited 1994
