Angry Protests Against German, French Indictments in Rwandan Capital

Large crowds of tens of thousands of people on Wednesday morning rocked the streets of Kigali, putting off all businesses to denounce the arrest in Germany of the Rwandan chief of protocol, Rose Kabuye, indicted among nine officials by a French judge.

Kabuye, a retired army colonel, Kigali city mayor and a member of parliament, was together with nine senior Rwandan officials indicted by a French judge Jean Louis Bruguière, in 2006 of involvement in shooting down of former Randan President Juvenile Habyarimana’s plane, widely believed by the French authorities to have triggered the 1994 genocide which resulted in the deaths of over one million souls in just 100 days.

Shops were closed and buses ceased to run as thousands of angry protesters marched from the city center to Deutsche Welle radio’s relay station in Kigali carrying banners condemning France and Germany and calling for unconditional and immediate release of Kabuye.

Kabuye who has been in German custody since her arrest last Sunday, is about to be handed over Wednesday to the French authorities to face trial on charges of terrorism, murder and conspiracy.

According to her lawyer, Lef Forster, Kabuye will on arrival appear before the French anti-terrorism judges Marc Trévidic and Philippe Coirre.

The arrest has inflamed further relations between France and Rwanda, which severed diplomatic ties in 2006 after the original French indictment against Rwandan officials, was made public.

Demonstrators who braved the heavy morning down pour, waved banners that read: “No to Jean Louis Bruguiere, never to France with their bogus indictments, Rose and others stopped genocide and are our heroes, Germany: arrest genocide perpetrators, not innocent ones and France’s days of lies are numbered” as they matched towards the German embassy in Kigali. “Germany shame on you! 70 years after the holocaust you arrest a woman who stopped genocide,” another banner read.

Wednesday’s protests are among a series that have been organized at various levels from all people across the country and Rwandans in the Diaspora.

On Tuesday, thousands of Rwandans in the Diaspora and their friends in Sweden and United Kingdom (UK) staged massive protests across their respective cities against France and Germany, denouncing the French indictments as neo-colonialism by extension and an attempt to negate genocide.

Over 50 retired women soldiers and cadres who were with Kabuye during the 1990-94 liberation struggle of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front, have camped at the gates of the German embassy in Kigali and pledged never to leave until their comrade is released.

Source African Press Agency

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