AP News, April 19th, 2007
Rwanda filed a case against France at the U.N.'s highest court over a French request that President Paul Kagame be tried by the Rwanda war crimes tribunal.
The Hague-based International Court of Justice announced late Wednesday that Rwanda is alleging that France breached international law by issuing arrest warrants for three Rwandan government officials and that Paris is interfering with Rwandan sovereignty by seeking to have Kagame sent to the Rwanda tribunal.
The Rwandan case appeared to be the latest step in a diplomatic spat between France and Rwanda over an investigation by French anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere.
Rwanda severed diplomatic links with France last November after Bruguiere accused Kagame of ordering the assassination of the then-president of Rwanda and nine other ranking Rwandans of plotting the attack.
Rwanda's genocide began hours after a plane carrying President Juvenal Habyarimana was mysteriously shot down as it approached the capital, Kigali, on April 6, 1994. About 500,000 people, mostly ethnic Tutsis, were massacred in 100 days of frenzied killing led by radical Hutus.
The killing was only stopped after Kagame and the Tutsi army subdued the country.
The French judge opened an investigation because the plane crew was French.
According to the World Court statement, Rwanda asked its judges to declare that by issuing arrest warrants for three of the suspects, France violated their diplomatic immunity.
Rwanda also asked the court to rule France acted "in breach of the obligation of each and every State to refrain from intervention in the affairs of other States."
It also asked the court to order "interim measures" against France, but the court will only reveal what the measures were if France says it will accept the court's jurisdiction, allowing the case to go ahead. If Paris declines, the case will never start.
