200811122275 | Kigali throws out German Envoy

Kigali throws out German Envoy

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.

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.