PRETORIA – President Jacob Zuma on Wednesday broke the government’s silence regarding South Africa’s recent diplomatic row with Rwanda.

 

“Even the most advanced democracies fight when diplomats misbehave,” President Zuma said at an unveiling ceremony for the presidency’s 20-Year Review document. He did not, however, elaborate further on the diplomatic impasse.

 

Last week, South Africa expelled three Rwandan diplomats over suspected links to a recent attempt on the life of exiled former Rwandan army general Faustin Nyamwasa. Nyamwasa and his family were not at their Johannesburg home at the time of the attack.

 

Rwanda responded to the move by expelling six South African diplomats. “We have expelled six South African diplomats in reciprocity and concern at SA harboring dissidents responsible for terrorist attacks in Rwanda,” Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo said via Twitter.

 

Despite Mushikiwabo’s confirmation, South African officials had remained tight lipped on the matter until Zuma’s Wednesday statements. It remains unclear whether South Africa plans to close its embassy in Kigali or whether the two countries would renew ties on a political level.

 

Nyamwasa, a vocal critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, fled to South Africa in February 2010 after falling out with his former boss. Four months later, he was shot in the stomach in what many believe was an assassination attempt by the Kigali administration. Rwandan observers have often accused the Kigali government of carrying out witch hunts against exiled critics of Kagame, who has ruled the country since 1994.

 

On January 1, former Rwandan intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya, another critic of Kagame, was found dead in a luxury hotel in Johannesburg. His body could not be flown back to Rwanda for burial. In Uganda, where Karegeya had held dual citizenship, authorities refused a burial request to avoid diplomatic tensions with Kigali. Karegeya was ultimately buried in a Johannesburg cemetery.

 

While in South Africa, Karegeya and Nyamwasa had together founded the opposition Rwanda National Congress, which had angered the Kigali administration. A week after Karegeya’s death, Rwanda’s outspoken foreign minister, Louise Mushikiwabo, said her government felt no sympathy for the deceased spy chief, who she went on to describe as an “enemy” of the Rwandan government.

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