Diplomatic Briefing
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Newsline: France recalls ambassador to Rwanda
France said Monday it had recalled its ambassador to Rwanda after authorities in Kigali refused to accept Paris’s choice of a new envoy. “The Rwandan authorities refused to give this approval” and “we have recalled our ambassador (Laurent Contini) for consultations in order to study the situation,” said a French foreign ministry spokesman, Vincent Floreani. Weekly Jeune Afrique earlier reported that Kigali had this month rejected the nomination of Helene Le Gal, currently France’s consul in Quebec, because she was considered too close to French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe. The magazine said Juppe “has long been considered hostile to the current authorities in Kigali.” Floreani would neither confirm nor deny this was the reason for Le Gal’s rejection, but said ties between the two countries were strong. Contini, considered close to former foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, fell out of favour with Juppe last year after making statements considered too favourable to Kigali. Juppe, who was also foreign minister during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, has said he will not “shake hands” with Kagame or go to Rwanda following the release of a 2008 report accusing France of complicity in the genocide. Juppe, who has dismissed the report as “lies and fabrications”, did not meet his Rwandan counterpart when she visited France and was outside the country during Kagame’s visit. France and Rwanda have a history of difficult ties and relations between the two countries were broken off between 2006 and 2009.
http://www.rnw.nl/africa/bulletin/france-recalls-rwanda-envoy
Newsline: Swedish government expels foreign official
The Swedish government said it had expelled a foreign diplomat, amid reports the person in question was a high level official at the Rwandan embassy in Stockholm. “We can confirm that we have expelled a diplomat,” foreign ministry spokesman Theo Zetterman told AFP, refusing to provide any details on the identity or nationality of the diplomat or the reasons for the expulsion. A weekend report by the Rwanda News Agency said Evodo Mudaheranwa, the second in command at the Rwandan embassy in Stockholm, had last Wednesday been given 48 hours to leave over “activities incompatible with his diplomatic status”. The Rwandan embassy refused to comment, referring questions to the foreign ministry in Kigali, which could not immediately be reached for confirmation. The Rwandan agency report, which cited unnamed observers, said his expulsion may be linked to the disappearance last month of Rwandan journalist Jean Bosco Gasasira with the Umuvugizi newspaper, who had found asylum in Sweden. When contacted by AFP, Swedish police could not confirm the journalist’s disappearance or say if a probe had been launched, and the foreign ministry would not say if any diplomatic steps had been taken in connection with the reported disappearance. Gasasira’s editor Amiel Nkuliza, also based in Sweden, told AFP he had not managed to contact the journalist since January 13. Nkuliza also said that while at the embassy, Mudaheranwa had systematically harassed him, Gasasira and other Rwandans critical of the government in Kigali.
http://www.thelocal.se/39106/20120214/
Newsline: Belgian Embassy issues visa to Rwandan general charged with genocide
Belgium has given a visa to the head of the Rwandan special services General Karenzi Karake who was found guilty of genocide by a Spanish judge in 2008. According to reports fromBrussels, the general accompanied Rwandan President Paul Kagame during his visit to France. France has no embassy in Rwanda, so the Belgian Embassy issued a visa for the internationally wanted general at the request of Paris. In 1994 the Rwandan provisional government organized the massacre of 800,000 people from the Tutsi minority. People of the large Hutu nationality who had moderate political views were also killed.
Newsline – US lawyer jailed in Rwanda: US Embassy didn’t help
A U.S. lawyer released from a Rwandan prison on medical grounds credited America’s Secretary of State with his release but said Sunday the U.S. Embassy did not help him secure food or medicine while in prison. Peter Erlinder, 62, said he had to sleep on a concrete floor without a blanket and without assistance from the embassy after his May 28 arrest in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital. The Minnesota law professor thanked U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton for saying Rwanda shouldn’t arrest lawyers but said embassy officials in Kigali and Nairobi have not helped much. “My government insisted that I take my medications from my captors rather than bringing me medications directly,” Erlinder told a news conference in Nairobi, his first public comments since his arrest. “It was impossible for them to arrange a doctor whom I would pay so that I wouldn’t have to get my food and my medication from my captors.
Newsline: U.S. Embassy in Rwanda Boosts Co-Ops With Grants Worth $75,000
Ten cooperatives and community-based groups around the country were yesterday awarded grants worth $75,000 by the United States Embassy. The funds were handed over to the cooperatives under the auspices of the US Ambassador’s special self-help fund awarded on an annual basis. According to the Economic and Commercial Officer at the embassy, Alexander W. Sokoloff, the grants are intended to support community-based economic initiatives aimed at helping these communities improve their lives.
Newsline: Sweden to close six embassies, open 10 new ones
The Swedish government said it would close six Swedish embassies, including five in Europe, this year and open 10 new embassies. Embassies facing closure were based in European Union members Bulgaria, Ireland, Luxembourg, Slovakia, and Slovenia. “Within the framework of the close cooperation that exists between the EU member states, there is scope for developing new forms for maintaining bilateral contacts in future,” Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said. Meanwhile, Sweden is to upgrade its missions in Albania, Kosovo, Georgia and Moldova to embassies. The sixth embassy to be closed was in Dakar, Senegal, while section offices were to be upgraded in Senegal’s West African neighbours Burkina Faso, Liberia and Mali as well as Rwanda, Bolivia and Cambodia.
Newsline: France and Rwanda agree to restore ties
France and Rwanda have restored diplomatic ties, officials in both countries said, three years after relations were severed when a Paris judge accused Rwandan President Paul Kagame of ordering his predecessor’s assassination. France and Rwanda have frequently sparred over the 1994 genocide in the African country. But tensions peaked in November 2006, when Rwanda cut off diplomatic relations with France, furious about a French probe into late former Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana’s mysterious assassination – a probe that led to French efforts to arrest officials close to Kagame.
