Chris, my love,
Never, ever disregard the political/social situation in a country and focus
only on seeing the "wildlife". The hutu, violence threat has been massive
over the past months, many many rwandans, and for that matter in the same
area, burundians, congolese have also been caught up in a battle spawned out
of the head of belgians, french, british and the americans who have played in-
their-own-interests games with the politics of that area.
Many africans have died over the past months. And of course the hutu-tutsi
tragedy was (is) immense. From the days before the tragedy "broke" in 1994, I
have been overwhelming exposed to both the tragedy and the danger.
Environmentalists, both tourister and professional, can not ignore the people
situation in a country to focus on the animal situations. Both groups are
especially targeted because of the seeming disregard of the situations, people
in the countries. The sad fact is that in many cases, the worse the social
situation is for the people of a country, the better (and cheaper) it is for
tourists to get cheap local guides, and access to wherever/whatever they like.
Of course now, people who have no idea of the political or social situation
with Uganda, or even the region, will now chatter on with pseudo-deep analyses
about both. Based upon their horror at this tragedy, they will stigmatize
entire nations and peoples.
Nicole
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Uganda Survivor Tells of Escape
By Kieran Murray
Reuters
NAIROBI (March 2) - Rwandan rebels who abducted 32 foreign tourists in Uganda
singled out American and British nationals as their hostages but at first
treated them well, a survivor of the ordeal said on Tuesday.
Linda Adams, of Alamo, California, said she was seized with the other tourists
when around 100 heavily-armed rebels swept down from surrounding hills onto
three camp sites in a remote game park in southwestern Uganda early on Monday
morning.
The hostages included nationals from several countries but Adams said the
rebels quickly separated Americans and Britons from the group and released
most of the others.
Authorities said 15 hostages were taken away into the hills by the rebels --
including at least five Americans and three Britons.
Ugandan police said on Tuesday the rebels had killed five of the hostages
while seven others were rescued and the other three were still missing. It was
not clear if the hostages were killed during a rescue mission.
But Adams said the rebels were not heavy-handed when they first took their
hostages and that they let her go when she faked an asthma attack about 1.5
miles into the hike.
``I felt they treated me well. I got away,'' she told Reuters on arrival in
neighbouring Kenya.
``I told them I had asthma and they let me go. Did they think I might hinder
them climbing? They could have shot me but they didn't shoot me. They gave me
my shoes. I didn't have my shoes and they gave me my shoes to walk.''
``At the camp, they were treating us as well as could be expected. We were
sitting down under guns, not necessarily pointing at us, but they all had
guns,'' she said.
The middle-aged businesswoman was shocked when told by a reporter that five of
her fellow hostages had been killed, and her voice began to tremble as she
recounted further details of the ordeal.
The rebels, ethnic Hutus who took part in a massive slaughter of Tutsis in
Rwanda in 1994, launched their attack on the tourists at first light on Monday
morning.
Adams said she heard heavy gunfire as the rebels overran a nearby post of park
rangers and wandered out of her tent to see what was happening.
``The sound in the valley, the vibration, was such that it was quite a
shock,'' she said. ``I heard the gunshots and some noises. I got out of my
tent and I walked around the corner to the front and I got caught.''
``I saw gentlemen running with guns and four of them came over and grabbed me,
all the money that I had, and told me to sit down,'' she said.
``After a while they brought some of the other captives ... from the other
camps, marched them up and asked them what nationality they were. If they were
British or American, they were sent to my group and a little further along, we
all got up and marched out and started up the mountain.''
One park ranger was killed and at least one rebel was wounded in the exchange
of gunfire at the start of the raid.
Adams said the French-speaking rebels were well-organised and led by an older
man who she said had treated her kindly.
The tourists had travelled to the game park in the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
to track rare mountain gorillas.
But the area is also notoriously insecure. Last August, six tourists who
crossed from Uganda into Congo were kidnapped by Rwandan Hutu rebels. Three
later escaped but the other three are still missing.
Adams said her father had warned her not to go on the trip but that she
ignored him.
``It wasn't going to happen to me,'' she said.
08:32 03-02-99
*******************************************
U.S. Speculates on Motives of Rebels
By GEORGE GEDDA
.c The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (March 3) - State Department officials believe the Rwandan Hutus
who killed two Americans and six other foreign tourists in Uganda were intent
on wrecking the country's tourism industry as part of a region-wide ethnic
conflict.
The State Department identified the Americans Tuesday night as Robert Haubner,
48, and Susan Miller, 43, both employees of the computer company Intel Corp.
Intel spokesman Bill Calder said they were husband and wife, lived in
Hillsboro, Ore., and were on their third trip to Africa with another couple
from the company.
The dead also included four Britons and two New Zealanders.
Officials do not believe the slaughter, which took place in the jungles of
southwest Uganda, was racially motivated but rather was an outgrowth of the
Hutu-Tutsi conflict that long has plagued Central Africa.
They noted that Uganda has been supporting Congolese rebels who have been
trying to oust the government of President Laurent Kabila. Rwandan Hutus,
among other outside forces, have been fighting alongside Congolese forces.
The White House pledged on Tuesday to make every effort to bring to justice
those responsible for the murder of the two Americans, who died in a section
of Uganda made famous by the film, ''Gorillas in the Mist.''
National security spokesman David Leavy said, ''We will certainly work
tirelessly to apprehend those responsible and bring them to justice.''
The State Department issued a public announcement strongly urging Americans to
postpone plans to visit western Uganda until further information becomes
available.
After learning of the situation, department spokesman James Foley said U.S.
Embassy officials flew to the scene to help evacuate survivors, including one
American, and the bodies of the victims.
The embassy personnel took the group to a safe location in Kampala, the
capital.
Disputing accounts by Ugandan officials that the victims were killed during a
rescue operation by Ugandan security officers, Foley said the dead were killed
as they were being marched by their captors.
Those who were not murdered were able to flee from the hostage takers and then
were found by the Ugandan forces, he said.
AP-NY-03-03-99 0521EST
*******************************************
By Giles Elgood
Reuters
LONDON (March 2) - When a holiday at a Mediterranean beach is no longer
enough, British tourists head for more exotic destinations.
But increasing numbers end up staying longer than they want to and some are
even killed -- the victims of kidnappers out to make a political point.
To what extent the Western tourists abducted and killed by Hutu rebels in an
area of Uganda close to the border with Congo were aware of the risks they
faced is unclear.
But foreign affairs experts doubted whether there was ever any realistic
chance of negotiating with the Interahamwe Hutus blamed for Monday's raid on a
party of holidaymakers hoping to spot rare mountain gorillas.
''One of the difficulties is that there is no real central group or central
leader of Interahamwe with whom anybody can negotiate,'' said former British
Foreign Office minister Baroness Chalker.
''They are disaffected Hutus, they are the people who conducted the terrible
genocide in 1994. They are people who are totally lawless.''
Donald Anderson, chairman of parliament's Foreign Affairs Select Committee,
added: ''I doubt if any negotiations would have led to a happy outcome.''
The travel industry, while acknowledging the seriousness of the incident in
Uganda, stressed that it was an unusual occurrence, even for the most intrepid
holidaymakers.
''We hope it won't put people off the idea of having an adventure holiday
because the majority of them are safe,'' Keith Betton of the Association of
British Travel Agents told Sky television.
Other western tourists have found to their cost that the situation in their
chosen holiday destination was less inviting than it seemed when they made
their bookings.
Last December, three Britons and an Australian died in Yemen when security
forces stormed the stronghold of kidnappers who had seized 16 foreign
tourists.
In the past, the kidnapping of tourists in Yemen by tribesmen seeking better
local conditions had become almost a routine aspect of holidays there.
Tourists were treated more like guests than hostages and released after a
short period.
Other areas have proved less than hospitable, with tourists and travellers
falling victim to political causes of which they may have had little
understanding.
Fifty-eight foreign tourists died in Luxor in Egypt in 1997 when militant
Moslem gunmen opened fire in the street.
Nine scientific researchers, including four Britons, were held hostage for
more than four months by separatist rebels in the isolated jungles of Irian
Jaya. Their freedom came only after a gunbattle between Indonesian special
forces and rebels from the Free Papua Movement.
More than three years after four western tourists were kidnapped in Kashmir by
a shadowy guerrilla group, any hope of finding them alive has all but
vanished. Another hostage, a Norwegian, was found beheaded in a remote forest.
And even the relatively blameless pursuit of cycling is not without its
perils. Briton Michael Wainwright was jailed for 10 years in Iraq for riding
into the country illegally in 1992. He was released the following year.
