Rwanda expels German envoy

Nov 11, 2008

KIGALI<br><br>Rwanda asked the German ambassador to leave Kigali on Tuesday in a growing row over Germany’s arrest of a senior aide to President Paul Kagame.

KIGALI

Rwanda asked the German ambassador to leave Kigali on Tuesday in a growing row over Germany’s arrest of a senior aide to President Paul Kagame.

Rose Kabuye, the director general of state protocol, was arrested at Frankfurt airport on Sunday by German police acting on an international warrant issued by France in 2006 for her and eight other Kagame associates.

“We’ve asked the German ambassador to leave until this matter is resolved,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Rosemary Museminali told Reuters in Kigali, adding that Rwanda had also recalled its ambassador to Berlin for consultations.

“We have not broken ties with Germany,” she said. “It’s not a permanent move.”

Kabuye is accused of involvement in the 1994 shooting down of a plane that killed former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, leading to a campaign of genocidal killings in the central African nation, German prosecutors have said.

The other indictees are James Kabarebe, the head of the military, Charles Kayonga, army chief of staff; Faustin Jyamwasa-Kayumba, the ambassador to India; Jackson Nkurunziza, of the presidential guard; Samuel Kanjyamera, an RPF parliamentary deputy; Jacob Tumwime, an army officer; Frank Nziza, a presidential guard officer and Eric Hakizimana, an intelligence officer.

Judge Bruguière was unable to indict Kagame because under French law, sitting heads of state enjoy immunity from prosecution.

Kagame yesterday angrily protested the arrest, calling it a violation of sovereignty.

“We will see how we can challenge such actions, which in my view are simply a question of being arrogant and people being a law unto themselves,” Kagame said after visiting Kabuye in prison yesterday.

Kabuye was in Frankfurt to prepare a visit by Kagame, who is touring European countries.

Kabuye is one of the nine Rwandan officers against whom the French anti-terrorist judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere issued arrest warrants in November 2006.

The French magistrate accused them of having organised the assassination on April 6, 1994, of Habyarimana, which the accused have always denied. The assassination ignited a genocide in Rwanda.

Asked at a news conference whether the arrest could have an impact on cooperation between Rwanda and the European Union on resolving the crisis in Congo, Kagame said: “Certainly the arrest of Rose has some implications, foreseen or unforeseen, because in many ways it’s a violation of the sovereignty of Rwanda.”

Kagame said the arrest would affect his country’s relationship with France and Germany.

Kagame said he expected Germany to extradite her to France within days. Kabuye’s lawyer has said she is willing to go before a French judge.

Ties between France and Rwanda have been badly strained since the warrants were issued.

The German government has said it was obliged to act on the arrest warrant.

Habyarimana’s plane was hit by a missile and his death ignited mass killings of Tutsis and some moderate Hutus. Kagame was then leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front which defeated the government’s Hutu militias to end the genocide.

In April, Kagame made a four-day state visit to Germany. According to media reports, Kabuye was on that trip but German law prohibits the detention of any members of an official delegation.

When she was arrested on Sunday, Kabuye was not with the president, German prosecutors say, and thus not protected by diplomatic immunity.

“Rose’s visit to Germany was not private. It was official in that she was doing the work of the Rwandan president,” Kagame said.

In an apparent retaliatory move, Rwanda is poised to issue arrest warrants against 23 French military and political officials over their suspected role in the genocide, judicial sources said yesterday.

Born in April 1961, Kabuye grew up in a refugee camp in Uganda. She took part in October 1990 in the RPF offensive against Habyarimana’s troops at the rank of a Major. She later served as governor of Kigali and MP before being named to the head of Rwandan protocol. She is very close to Kagame.

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