Ex-leader kicked out of palace
2001-06-01 13:33
Kigali, Rwanda May - Rwandan authorities prevented former President Pasteur Bizimungu from forming a new political party and kicked him out of the presidential palace where he had been living, a relative said.
Police raided the presidential palace on Wednesday and detained Bizimungu there overnight, preventing the ex-president from holding a news briefing to announce the launch of the Democratic Party for Renewal, a close relative said on condition of anonymity.
Bizimungu and his family left the palace on Thursday. "I can tell you that the man is not in detention, he is not under house arrest nor under any restrictions," Zac Nsanga, the Interior Ministry secretary-general, told The Associated Press.
"The police received information that he was planning to launch a political party contrary to the transitional constitution and cautioned him that this was unlawful."
The ban on political rallies and new parties in this small Central African nation is part of a 1994 agreement that sought to end a four-year civil war in Rwanda.
Bizimungu resigned the presidency and membership in the country's most powerful political party 14 months ago after disputes over the prosecution of ministers suspected of graft and mismanagement.
Bizimungu, 50, was the first president of Rwanda's government of national unity formed after the former rebel group, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, overthrew the extremist Hutu administration and stopped the 1994 genocide in which at least 500 000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed.
A constitution commission is co-ordinating a national dialogue before drafting a new constitution expected to be ratified before presidential elections set for the year 2003.
Bizimungu and relatives spent Thursday moving out of the presidential palace and authorities also withdrew his official car and a security detail. The new president, Paul Kagame, had allowed his predecessor to remain in the presidential palace since Bizimungu's resignation on March 23, 2000. - Sapa-AP
- SAPA