Legal Journals

Aid to Rwandan President Arrested in Germany

By ltieh

On Tuesday, November 11, the Rwandan President Paul Kagame declared Germany violated his country’s sovereignty when it arrested one of his aids, Rose Kabuye,  and subsequently expelled the German ambassador. Germany responded by asking the Rwandan ambassador to leave Berlin.

Kabuye, chief of protocal for the Rwandan President, was arrested Sunday at Frankfurt International Airport on a French warrant. She is wanted in connection with the 1994 fatal attack on the plane of former Rwarndan President Juvenal Habyarimana. Kabuye is suspected of housing the Tutsi cammando unit blamed for shooting down the plane.

While Hutu extremist accuse the Tutsi fighters led by Kagame of shooting down the plane and killing the then President Habyarimana, a Hutu, some believe that Rwanada’s hard-line Hutus may have staged this accident, shooting down the plane to create a pretext for mass violence against Tutsis.

Kabuye’s arrest may affect Rwanda’s cooperation efforts with the European Union with respect to the recent fighting in Congo. The African Union has also expressed displeasure with the arrest.

It remains unclear whether Kabuye had diplomatic immunity in Frankfurt. Ties between Rwanda and France have been strained since the issuance of warrants for nine associates of Kagame over the plane crash. The Tutsi-led government accuse France of training and arming the Hutu militias and former government troops who led the genocide in Rwanada in April 1994. The 100-day slaughter killed over 500,000 minority Tutsis and some moderate Hutus, ending with Kagame’s forces ousting the Hutu government that orchestrated the killings.

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Full post as published by Harvard International Law Journal Digest on November 13, 2008 (boomark / email).