Excitement

We are happy that we are still here.

Last Sunday the headline was that Rose Kabuye a close adviser of the president was arrested in Germany. Kabuye (well known as Rose) is one of the Rwandans on 'the french list'. This list is created by the french and these persons they want to try for genocide related crimes. When the list came out end 2006 all the french were sent home and never returned since.

According to Germany Rose was not on an official business and therefore according to international rights they had to arrest here to deliver to France.

Of course Rwanda has a slightly different view, they say that she was there to arrange some things for the president.

Monday there was a demonstration (the second since 1994) at the German embassy, close to our house. The protest went on towards the 'Deutsche Welle', the German world service radio station.

Hazel's comment - Here on the ground in Kigali, I got caught up in Mondays anti German demonstrations, but having worked on the Plein in the Hague for so many years it wasn't really very impressive despite looking so in the news. For those who missed the news - see the Rwandan News Agency

Tuesday some smaller demonstrations took place near the EU office, but also past the American and Dutch embassies amongst others.

During Tuesday it also became clear that the German ambassador was sent home. But just the ambassador and his family not the rest of the embassy.

All this could potentionally lead to the EU standing tall as one person and ending up all leaving the country. This happened before in Hungary.

So when we picked up my parents and uncle and aunt from the airport Tuesday night we had to warn them that there is a possibility they had to leave on the next plane. Fortunately this didn't happen. Hopefully the Rwandan government knows they need the aid from Germany, The UK, Belgium and The Netherlands specifically.