A Rwandan cabinet member has resigned and fled the country after her brothers were arrested on suspicion of collaborating with Hutu rebels fighting in the northwest, the Rwandan News Agency (RNA) reported yesterday. Beatrice Sebatware-Panda, the minister of state for internal affairs, reportedly wrote a resignation letter to President Pasteur Bizimungu on 4 December before leaving for Nairobi “on the pretext of taking her seriously-ill child for treatment”, RNA quoted the ‘New Times’ weekly as saying. According to the newspaper, Interior Minister Sheikh Abdulkarim Harerimana confirmed Sebatware-Panda’s departure, saying she was suffering from “psychological shock” after the arrest of her brothers. Her father, a former Hutu police official in Kigali, is sought by the government in connection with the 1994 genocide. RNA said Sebatware-Panda returned to Rwanda from the Mugunga refugee camp in the former Zaire in November 1996.
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