Kagame Receives French Foreign Minister

Rwandan President Paul Kagame received France’s Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner in Kigali on Thursday, symbolizing the restoration of diplomatic ties between the two countries after a three-year split.

President Kagame and Mr. Kouchner held a meeting and resolved to use “discussions on historical errors between the two countries” as a way to cement their relations.

Ties between Rwanda and France were restored a month ago, having been severed following a diplomatic row after controversial French Judge Jean Louis Bruguiere indicted Kagame over alleged responsibility for Rwanda’s 1994 genocide.

The Judge had issued international indictments against Kagame and several of his senior aides, claiming that while still a rebel leader in 1994, Kagame had ordered the downing of a plane carrying Rwanda’s then Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana, with the aim of triggering a genocide against his own minority Tutsi so that he could surge into power.

Although France did not try to arrest Kagame because it grants immunity to serving heads of state, relations soured between the two countries and Rwanda officially cut diplomatic ties in 2006, later replacing French with English as its official language.

Relations between Kigali and Paris were only restored in December 2009. [PE]