1 000s protest in Rwanda

2008-11-19 19:05

Kigali - Tens of thousands poured onto the streets of Kigali on Wednesday to condemn France in Rwanda's biggest post-genocide protests as a top aide to President Paul Kagame was extradited from Germany to Paris.

"Free our dear Rose", "We condemn France and Germany" said slogans scribbled on banners as demonstrators converged on the German embassy and the office of Germany's national broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.

The protests were organised with the Rwandan authorities' backing to coincide with the transfer to French justice of Kagame's chief of protocol, Rose Kabuye, who was arrested in Frankfurt on November 9.

She was detained on a warrant issued by a French anti-terrorism judge probing the role of Kagame's entourage in the 1994 crash of a plane carrying then president Juvenal Habyarimana.

The Hutu president's death is widely believed to have sparked the genocide by Hutu militias of the country's Tutsi minority.

Before protestors started flooding the streets of Kigali, the city was at a standstill.

All shops and offices were closed as the entire country was unofficially granted a day off to join the protests.

Thousands of residents from towns and villages across Rwanda were trucked in on Wednesday morning to swell the numbers.

"The country will rise up as one man," Information Minister Louise Mushikiwabo had said on Tuesday, predicting that as many as half a million people could join the demonstration.

Some demonstrations were also planned in other towns in Rwanda, a country with a population of more than nine million.

The country has mobilised in ways previously unseen. On Kigali's main roundabout, an electronic billboard flashes the highlights of Kabuye's life, from her days in the bush as a rebel to her accession as Kagame's top aide.

An early member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which eventually ended the 1994 genocide and has held power ever since, Kabuye is the country's first ever woman to reach the rank of lieutenant-colonel.

"We will continue to fight for the release of Rose Kabuye and her return to Rwanda," the billboard read.

Kagame's Tutsi regime has denounced Kabuye's arrest, accusing France of persecuting the genocide's survivors instead of hunting its perpetrators, some of whom are believed to be living in Europe.

Rwanda has also accused France of actively supporting Hutu militias during the genocide and has threatened to issue warrants and indictments of its own against top French military and political officials.

In the crowd, a female RPF veteran shouts: "Arresting Rose who stopped the genocide is tantamount to trampling Rwanda's sovereignty. We have lived with Rose, we know she is innocent, we reject imperialism."

- AFP