15.12.10 - FRANCE/RWANDA - WIKILEAKS: AMERICAN HESITATIONS REGARDING BRUGUIERE ARREST WARRANTS

Paris, December 15, 2010 (FH) - In a cable released by Wikileaks (www.wikileaks.ch) dated January 18, 2007, the American Embassy in Paris questions the obligation for the United States to implement the international arrest warrants issued in 2006 by French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière against nine Rwandan officials, if they were to enter into their land.

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According to the document, a French official noted that "it was incumbent on the U.S. to make its own determination as to whether the U.S. was subject to any legal obligations as a result. Belgium and the UK have informed France that they will honor the arrest warrants if any of the nine arrive in their territories and will do so pursuant to an EU agreement covering such matters".

Rose Kabuye, a member of Paul Kagame's inner-most circle and the Chief of Rwandan Presidential Protocol was arrested in Germany under this agreement on November 9, 2008, and then transferred to France.

Another  telegram issued in November 2008 by the American embassy in Kigali states that Rose Kabuye "had confided [in October to embassy contacts] it would be better just to travel to France to fight against the indictment and have the case heard".

The cable, signed by American ambassador Stuart Symington, adds that "according to another highly-placed source in the Presidency, Kagame has himself expressed his fatigue with the burden of working to achieve the entry into various capitals of indicted officials when official visits are planned and had suggested to Kabuye that other protocol officers began to gain greater experience in organizing his travel".

The author of the telegram concludes:  "Rwanda's efforts to cement its own economic future by doing such things as begin today a land title process for genocide survivors and perpetrators, or a novel power generation scheme for Lake Kivu methane, continue to be shunted aside and undermined by ill-conceived actions such as this arrest".

SM/GF/FK

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