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Attack Against Habyarimana's Plane Was 'Legal', the New Times Says

Hirondelle News Agency (Lausanne)
NEWS
December 7, 2006
Posted to the web December 8, 2006
Arusha
The attack against the plane of the late president Juvénal Habyarimana was a «
legal » action committed in time of war, the pro-government daily New Times has
written ten days after the publication in France of an investigation accusing
the sitting president Paul Kagame and his circle of having ordered the said
attack.
Article 18 of the Rules of air warfare in international law concerning the
conduct of hostilities states that "the use of tracer, incendiary or explosive
projectiles by or against aircraft is not prohibited. This provision equally
applies to states which are parties to the declaration of St. Petersburg, 1868,
and to those which are not", David Kabuye, a close relation of Kagame and
director of the New Times, wrote Wednesday in the paper.
David Kabuye is also the husband of lieutenant-colonel Rose Kabuye, one of the
nine persons suspected by the French judge Jean-Louis Bruguière of having
premeditated the attack of April 6th against the plane of Habyarimana.
« An aircraft under the command of a person who is a duly Commissioned Officer
or enlisted in the military service is considered a legitimate target during
war by this law. So shooting down the plane was legal. Judge Bruguière is aware
of this ».
David Kabuye adds that " given that the French crew was military, flying a
Commander-in-Chief of an army at war, whoever shot at and brought down the
plane did it to a legitimate target and could not have committed a crime
legally, if we go by International Law of Armed Conflict which France is a
signatory to."
Also aboard the president's plane, the government's Army Chief of Staff,
General Déogratias Nsabimana, died in the attack as well.
In 1993, the government had signed a peace agreement with the rebels of the
Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) which included a permanent ceasefire resolution.
David Kabuye is an ex-officer of the RPF. Judge Bruguière accuses the hierarchy
of RPF of having fomented the attack. It is the first time someone close to the
government endorses such a position.
The rest of Kabuye's article reproduces the official Rwandan discourse
according to which Habyarimana's plane was gunned down by the former
president's own men.
Bruguière's issuing arrest warrants for nine Rwandan officials has led Kigali
to cut off all diplomatic relations with France. Paris has « deplored »
Kigali's reaction.


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