OUT OF AFRICA

United Nations Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali pledged to honor Rwanda's demand that the U.N. end its two-year peacekeeping mission, which officially expires this Friday. Military forces could be gone within three months. Though millions of Hutu refugees from the losing side of Rwanda's violent civil war fear revenge from victorious Tutsis should they venture home, the Kigali government insists there is no need for an international police force within its borders. That's true up to a point, Nairobi bureau chief Andrew Purvis reports: "The government can provide security for the Tutsis, but there's no indication they have the will or the inclination to protect the Hutus. If the U.N. leaves now, there will be no credible source of information for the thousands of Hutu refugees who may be contemplating a return to Rwanda. Next time another massacre occurs, as happened just last week, both sides will offer different stories and it will be impossible to sort out the truth from a distance." Though Boutros-Ghali must gain approval from the U.N. Security Council before pulling the 1,800 troops, Purvis believes it will happen. "The real legacy of this mission is the failure of the U.N. to act when the massacres began in April 1994. Of the half million slaughtered, thousands could have been saved."