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[RwandaLibre] BDlive - 1 hour ago: Retired Rwandan general in custody.
Retired Rwandan general in custody.
BDlive - 1 hour ago. BY NICHOLAS KOTCH, 2014-08-22 14:50:46.0
A RETIRED Rwandan army general is being held in custody in a barracks in the small central African country whose president, Paul Kagame, has accused exiled opponents of fomenting rebellion.
In its brief report on Wednesday, the government's New Times quoted the defence ministry as confirming the arrest. Investigations were continuing, a ministry spokesman told the daily newspaper, declining to say why the general was arrested.
Brig-Gen Rusagara retired last year from the army -- one of Africa's most effective and disciplined.
"Of course there is speculation that he was in contact with the RNC (Rwanda National Congress) but no evidence has been put forward so far," a European diplomat in Kigali said on Thursday.
"It's not clear under what legal framework he has been arrested but as a former army general he is subject to different rules than ... civilians," he added.
The RNC has become a rallying point for Mr Kagame's political opponents, many of whom are former loyalists who fought alongside him to end the genocide against the Tutsi minority in 1994. An influential group of RNC activists has been based in South Africa and Rwanda suspects that Pretoria is overly tolerant of their activities in exile.
Relations between South Africa and Rwanda came close to rupture in March this year. The two countries expelled each other's diplomats after a reported assassination attempt in Pretoria against Rwanda's former army head, Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa. Two months earlier Mr Kagame's former intelligence chief, Patrick Kareyega, was murdered in Sandton's Michelangelo Hotel.
Bilateral tension has subsided since then, at least on the surface.
Despite the dramatic growth of its economy and its reputation for efficiency, Rwanda's internal stability has increasingly appeared to be underpinned by intolerance of any dissent. Mr Kagame was first elected president in 2003 and although his constitutional mandate will end in 2017 there is widespread conjecture that he wants to stay on. In reality he has been in charge of the former German and Belgian colony since 1994 when he and the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) drove majority Hutu forces responsible for the genocide into exile in neighbouring Zaire, now called the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
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