Tuesday, March 02, 1999
Miami president's daughter eludes kidnappers
Some tourists killed, other captured by Rwandan rebels
BY LISA DONOVAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The daughter of Miami University President James C. Garland was able to elude Rwandan rebels who officials say have killed three people and kidnapped 13 foreign tourists — including three Americans — from a campground in Uganda.
The Congo-based rebels attacked the Buhoma camping site on the northern edge of the Bwindi National Park, known as the Impenetrable Forest, late Sunday. The camp is the main starting point for seeing the 320 rare mountain gorillas that remain along the border mountain's slopes.
Elizabeth Garland, 29, an anthropology student at the University of Chicago and a Fulbright Fellow, had pitched a tent in the area and was sleeping when the attack began.
“She was awakened by gunfire, and somewhere between 100 and 150 of these rebels came into the area and were looking specifically for American hostages,” said Dr. Garland, who spoke to his daughter around 4 p.m. EST Monday.
“She was terrified,” Dr. Garland said. But apparently her tent was in a remote-enough area that the rebels couldn't find her.
The U.S. Embassy sent in a plane to the area and evacuated Ms. Garland and some others who were brought back to the capital city and were staying in hotels and other locations, said Virgil Bodeen, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Kampala.
Though it was expected that the American tourists would return to the states, Dr. Garland wasn't sure whether his daughter would cut short her yearlong study program there.
“She had been at that site for several months, studying some of the native peoples and villages around this campsite and looking at the impact of tourism on their native society,” Dr. Garland said. He said his daughter was on her own but it's likely she knew some of the people who were kidnapped. “It was a tight-knit little community over there.”
He added: “If she went back, I would be really worried.”
Meanwhile, fighting between the Rwandan Hutu rebels and the Uganda People's Defense Forces continued Monday along the forested border.
The Hutu rebels fled Rwanda after they took part in the 1994 genocide of more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus. They have been crossing the border from bases in eastern Congo, often ambushing vehicles and kidnapping or killing passengers in Uganda and Rwanda.
In August, the rebels kidnapped four foreign tourists and seven Congolese guides and porters on a trek to observe the gorillas. They later released a Canadian tourist and all the Congolese escorts in exchange for the publication of a statement of their objectives.
The three other tourists — two Swedes and a New Zealander — have not been heard from since.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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