afrol News, 18 April - After a long quarrel with its former colonial master over the issuance of arrest warrants against nine close allies of the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, Rwanda has finally decided to summon France to the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Rwandan officials asked the UN Court to nullify the French arrest warrants against their security officials, including the head of the Army and the Army Chief of Staff, Charles Kayonga and James Kabarebe who were indicted by a French Judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, for playing a key role in killing of the former Rwandan President, Juvenal Habyarimana, in a 1994 plane crash.

The death was believed to have opened the flames of the country’s 1994 100-day genocide in which over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.

Angered by the French indictment, the Rwandan officials said arrest warrants allow their government to malfunction because the indicted officers have not been able to travel abroad to attend official missions.

The warrants against the nine officers were issued in last November after a French Judge implicated President Kagame in the killing of his predecessor.

Mr Kagame has always denied being involved in shooting down Mr Habyarimana’s plane, although he did not regret the death.

But Judge Bruguiere said that Mr Kagame's Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front forces had possessed missiles capable of downing the plane which also had the former President of Burundi and a French crew of three on board.

Rwanda decided to break diplomatic relations with France. The Belgian authorities now promise to broker peace between Paris and Kigali. The Belgian Foreign Affairs Minister, Karel De Gucht, disclosed the news to journalists after he held talks with President Kagame in Rwanda.

President Kagame said France should apologise to Rwandans for aiding and abetting the genocide and other crimes in their country. “We don’t have any personal vendetta against France,” he said.

For the Rwandan Foreign Minister, Dr Charles Murigande, they are waiting to see whether the incoming French government will change its attitude towards Rwanda.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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