Nicolas Sarkozy visits Rwanda

  1. Posted on Thursday 25 February 2010 - 11:15
    Muhyadin
    Muhyadin Ahmed Roble, AfricaNews reporter in Nairobi, Kenya
    France president Nicolas Sarkozy is visiting Rwanda on Thursday, following years of tension between the two countries since the 1994 genocide.
    Nicolas Sarkozy
    The spokesman for the Élysée Palace, the official residence of the Frenchman, said that President Sarkozy will meet with his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame in Kigali, the capital of the nation and also visit a memorial to the genocide.

    “They will now turn their attention toward the future,” the spokesman said, speaking on normal ground rules of anonymity, the US based Newspaper New York Times reported.

    “We will recognize the errors of judgment that France and the international community made,” the spokesman said. The purpose of Sarkozy’s visit will open a new chapter in relations between the two nations.

    Tension between Rwanda and France peaked in 2006 and Rwanda cut diplomatic ties with France after a French prosecutor issued warrants against nine close friends of president Kagame.

    Rwanda accused France of training and providing arms to the Hutu militias and former government troops who were accused of links in the 1994 Rwandan genocide, which killed an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus.

    Rwanda, a French-speaking former Belgian colony, has lost its French speaking and admitted to Commonwealth of Nations as the second former colony without links to Britain to join.

    Diplomatic ties between Rwanda and France recovered in November and Rwanda reopened its embassy in Paris.

    Nicolas Sarkozy will be the first French leader who visits Rwanda since the 1994 genocide.

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