22.01.07 - RWANDA/GENOCIDE - HABYARIMANA’S WIDOW DENIES HAVING ORGANIZED THE GENOCIDE

Arusha, January 22 2007 (FH) - Agathe Kanziga, the wife of the late President of Rwanda Juvénal Habyarimana, denies in an interview to the Figaro Magazine she has ever played a role in the genocide which broke out in her country in 1994. On January 4th, the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA in French) rejected her demand for asylum because of her alleged participation in the planning of the genocide. Immediately, her attorneys seized the Appeals Board which is to examine her case next Thursday. « The real organizers of the Rwandan tragedy are those who shot down the plane » of President Habyarimana on April 6 1994, Mrs. Kanziga declares. « Who wanted the president dead also wanted the end of the Rwandan population because he knew the consequences of his action », she accuses. Mrs. Habyarimana blames the genocide on the new president of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, and his party, the ex-rebel forces of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). « Everything points in the direction of the RPF. They recently declared the attack was legal. And Kagame said he didn’t give a damn that 12 had died in the crash », she adds. The wife of the late president also says she has never meddled with politics. « I never got involved in political affairs, either before, during or after the events that stirred our country. Let those who say it, I did prove it! I was simply the First Lady », she says. She also denies the existence of the Akazu, the inner circle of persons said to have organized the genocide. « After the attack of the RPF in 1990, the family of the president started being libeled and this Akazu was invented. The word was coined by our detractors. We were just a family like another one. Was that a crime? Being the President or his wife doesn’t mean you can’t have a normal family life, devoid of political schemes». Mrs. Habyarimana eventually denies that her and the family of the late French president François Mitterand had a friendly relationship. « There were no friendly relations between the family of the French president and the family of the president of Rwanda. There was nothing beyond agreements of cooperation between the two countries and respect from one president to the other », she claims. MG/ER/PB © Hirondelle News Agency