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Source App: [Rwanda Hutu Cabinet Minister Resigns - Netscape]

Rwanda Hutu Cabinet Minister Resigns

Monday, December 21, 1998; 10:55 a.m. EST

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) -- A Rwandan Hutu cabinet minister has resigned and fled the country, apparently after members of her family were arrested on suspicion of aiding Hutu rebels, the weekly New Times reported
Monday.

Beatrice Sebatware-Panda, minister of state for internal affairs, communal development and resettlement, has been missing since Dec. 4 when she
wrote a resignation letter to President Pasteur Bizimungu and flew to Nairobi, Kenya, the newspaper quoted Interior Minister Sheikh
Abdulkarim Harerimana as saying.

He said the Sebatware, the daughter of a former Hutu police official in Kigali who is sought by the government for taking part in the 1994
genocide, fled after the arrest of her brothers on suspicion of collaborating with Hutu rebels fighting in northwestern Rwanda.

More than 500,000 minority Tutsis and politically moderate Hutus were slaughtered by Hutu soldiers and militiamen before Tutsi-led rebels took power and stopped the killing in July 1994.

The rebels formed a government of national unity including both Tutsis and Hutus.

Since then, at least three Hutu ministers have resigned and formed a Hutu opposition in exile, accusing the government of sidelining the majority Hutu population.

Hutus make up about 65 percent of Rwanda's 7.7 million people, while Tutsis account for 14 percent.

© Copyright 1998 The Associated Press

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