Cholera Ebbs, but Perils For Rwandans on Rise

GOMA, Zaire The existence that passes as living for the 1 millionRwandan refugees in this country has gotten better, and worse, andall the while more tangled and troubling in recent days.

Finally, the rising tide of cholera, which killed thousands, hasbeen declared medically contained. The squalid camps spread northand south of here are even beginning to show faint sparks of vigor.But with vigor has come new tensions, killing and the threat ofspreading political discontent.

"The cholera epidemic is over," said Panos Moumtsis, spokesmanfor the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "The curve of death, aswe call it, is going down."

By that, the agency said it was expressing the consensus of themany relief groups assisting here on the Rwandan border. But only bythe abstract medical definition is the epidemic anywhere near over.

The brutal, humiliating death of uncontrollable diarrhea anddehydration will take 700 more lives today, and hundreds more in thedays to come.

But since the number of deaths has decreased from last week'sdaily high of about 2,000 and the number of new cases of cholera alsohas declined, the technical conditions of epidemic have passed. TheUN refugee agency said, however, that deaths from dysentery aremounting each day.

Refugees also face renewed fears from the robber instincts ofthe underpaid soldiers from Zaire.

Thursday, refugees pounced on a Zairian guard outside theoutlying camp called Katale and hacked him to death with machetes.On Friday, food supplies to about 250,000 refugees at Katale weresuspended and fatal gunfire broke out at another camp as tensionsboiled over between destitute Rwandans and Zairian soldiers.

Relief officials say refugees have suffered repeated robberiesand extortion by Zairian soldiers. In the incident Thursday, acheckpoint sentry reportedly had demanded money from a Rwandanrefugee who tried to drive into the camp in his car. Refugees withcars, radios and other possessions are presumed to be people of meansand quick targets for soldiers, who are paid virtually nothing inZaire.

All over Goma, Zairian soldiers can be seen driving confiscatedvehicles. Independent relief workers and journalists also havereported extortion by soldiers.

Tensions also are mounting between Goma's civilians and therefugees. The huge influx here has driven up the cost of living. A50-cent bottle of beer now costs $8, a $25 bag of sugar more than$60. Local farmers say Rwandans are ravaging their bananaplantations and vegetable crops.

Farmers this week demanded that Zairian authorities take firmercontrol of refugees, and at least one camp was ordered evacuated andrelocated farther from town.

Relief officials, meanwhile, continue to try to spread the wordthat it is safe for refugees to return to Rwanda and to entice themwith promises of food.

But they could not offer promises of protection againstvengeance by Tutsis, whose families were massacred in untold numbersin the short, sharp civil war.

The defeated government of Rwanda, its army and nearly all therefugees here are Hutus, who recently accounted for 85 percent ofRwanda's population. The Rwandan Patriotic Front, which won the war,is predominantly Tutsi.