President speaks on Gen. Kaka, ‘king’ Kigeli

President Paul Kagame has backed judicial proceedings against Generals Frank Rusagara and Sam Kanyemera Kaka. He said the two men were charged with obstructing justice.Both men were arrested last month after they allegedly blocked three police officers from arresting businessman Assonapol Rwigara on July 27 at a funeral in Kigali. Rwigara was wanted in connection with his construction site which had earlier claimed three people.“That is a simple matter that has been blown out of proportion,” the President said when asked for a comment on the two men who now await a Military Tribunal verdict on September 21.He said there were other people implicated but wondered why they got away with it. “There are actually others who I think were not dealt with, which I think is the problem. That is a problem of the system,” he told a press conference yesterday at Village Urugwiro.“There is nothing that I know about that prevents police from arresting anyone from anywhere whether at a funeral service or a wedding stage. Nobody can stop them be it a general or an MP,” Kagame said. Kaka, a former army commander, is a Member of Parliament, while Rusagara is the commandant of Rwanda Military Academy in Nyakinama, Northern Province. Both Rusagara and Kaka are currently on bail. Following the Generals’ arrest, Rwigara came out of hiding. He was later charged with homicide but later granted bail.Meanwhile, President Kagame also refuted claims by former Rwandan king Kigeli Ndahindurwa V that he promised him a feedback from Rwandans on the deposed monarch’s proposal to return home as king.“I last met him in 1996 in the US in the presence of then Rwanda’s Ambassador to the US, Theogene Rudasingwa, and my question to him was why he had not returned home. He (Kigeli) told me that he cannot return home anyhow, that he wanted to come as king. I asked him whether he was a king where he was (in the US),” Kagame said.The President said that in that meeting he told Kigeli that he had no powers to reinstate him as king. However, the President said, he told the former monarch that the government would pay his upkeep allowances and provide him with security in view of his historical importance, when he returns home. “I told him that I was from a different school of thought, and that we had liberated our country, at whatever cost, to ensure that all Rwandans return home and live peacefully,” the President said, adding that he told the self-exiled former ruler that he had a right of returning home. He said that he had told him that if he returned home and convinces Rwandans to reinstate him as king, he would become one again.“That was my last word to him and I told him that if he ever makes up his mind he should contact our ambassador (to the US),” he explained. By that time, Kagame was still vice president and minister of defence. Kigeli told BBC last month that Kagame promised to consult with the government on whether the former should come as king, and that he had not received a response. However, Kagame said he was not indebted to Kigeli as the 72-year old man said recently.The President said Kigeli was deposed at a time when he (Kagame) was very young, and was therefore not in anyway involved in his downfall. Kagame was one year old when Kigeli was overthrown by Hutus in 1959, a phenomenon that was followed by bloodbaths leading to the fleeing of the royal family and thousands of Tutsis. Kagame said that following his meeting with Kigeli, the former king was later manipulated by negative groups which lied to him that they were his army, and that they would install him as king if he helped them overthrow the Kigali regime.“Those people told lies to this poor man telling him that they were his army. That is how he went to Kinshasa to embrace (former Congolese president Laurent Desire) Kabila,” Kagame said.Ends

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President speaks on Gen. Kaka, ‘king’ Kigeli