Leading Article: Rwanda's moral call on the West

THE HUGE Rwandan tragedy now spilling over into Zaire dwarfs most of the other stories that have made the headlines this week. The moral imperative to help is clear. Does the challenge also pass the feasibility test? Part of it does, part may not.

After the slaughter of perhaps 2 million people inside the country over the past few weeks, about 1 million refugees are now starving and dying across the border in Zaire. More are pouring over all the time. It has been impossible to organise them, so the distribution of distributing the already inadequate amount of aid is difficult, and made more so by armed gangs in search of food and revenge. Cholera is now spreading fast.

Down In the south-west corner of Rwanda another tragedy of similar proportions is in the making. The French intervention force finds itself protecting the survivors of the Hutu government responsible for instigating genocide against the Tutsis. The victorious Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) says that if the ringleaders are not handed over it will go in and collect them.

If the French stand firm, there could be a clash. If they leave, as they say they will, the RPF will take over. Either way, the frightened Hutus could start another massive exodus. The United Nations World Food Programme is planning for at least 3 million refugees in the whole region. Already it needs at least 500 tonnes of food a day, but barely a fifth of that is arriving.

A large and fast relief operation is therefore required. Until President Bill Clinton committed himself on Thursday, the Western response had been pitiful. Now, lethargic authorities are starting to move, too little and too late. There is no doubt, however, that the operation is feasible. This is not military intervention but humanitarian relief outside the conflict zone, even though troops will be necessary to police the refugee areas in Zaire.

Behind the human disaster, however, lies a complex political conflict that outsiders enter at their peril. The well-intentioned French may already have made matters worse by backing the wrong side, their old friends in the Hutu government, thereby earning the distrust of the RPF, which is now in power throughout most of the country. This is not so much a tribal war as one of class envy. As in Bosnia, there is little ethnic difference between combatants. The Belgian colonialists built up the Tutsi minority to be a wealthy ruling class under their aegis, but ditched them in 1959 in favour of a Hutu 'revolution'. Tutsi leaders took refuge in Uganda, from which they returned as the RPF in 1990.

Hutu intellectuals, like their counterparts in Serbia, then constructed a nationalist fantasy to justify killing. They demanded that this time, unlike in 1959, the Tutsis must not be allowed to escape. Nor should there be any mercy for the 'treacherous' Hutu opposition, including many members of the professional classes who stood up for civil rights and democracy.

The shrill radio broadcasts of the extremists now tell the Hutu peasantry that they face revenge from the RPF, which is why so many are leaving. The RPF, however, claims that the Hutus have nothing to fear, and have has formed a government nominally led by Hutus, partly to impress the West. So the central questions are whether the RPF should be believed, and, if so, how to persuade the refugees to believe them and return home.

Most of the evidence supports the credibility of the RPF. The majority of their troops appear to have refrained from revenge killings, and their leaders are rational enough to see that the last thing they need is a huge body of exiled Hutus plotting revenge, as they themselves did in Uganda. But the Hutus may need the additional reassurance of a UN force to protect them, in which case the now familiar problems of peacekeeping in an unstable environment will have to be faced.

Many of the world's conflicts do not pass the feasibility test for outside military intervention. This one will have to be judged on its merits. But, where human beings are suffering and dying in places that can be reached in peace, the moral duty on outsiders to act, and act fast, is overwhelming.