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KIGALI, May 24 (AFP) - Rwanda's main opposition party has called for an international criminal investigation into the murder here of the president of its political bureau, Emmanuel Gapyisi.
Faustin Twagiramungu, chairman of the Democratic Republican Movement (MDR), told a weekend press conference that he wanted foreign experts called in since "several enquiries conducted locally have led to nothing." He cited the unsolved murders this year of two journalists, Straton Byabagamba and Callixte Kalisa.
"The death of Gapyisi marks the beginning" of a campaign violently to eliminate political leaders, Twagiramungu said. The senior MDR official was assassinated by two gunmen outside his home on May 18.
Twagiramungu slammed a statement published after the killing from what he called "fanatics" in President Juvenal Hyabyarimana's National Republican Movement for Democracy and Development (MRND), which accused the MDR leadership of ordering the murder of their own man.
The MDR chairman said the party planned to stage a peaceful march on Friday against political violence and offered a reward, without disclosing the sum, to "whomever could shed light on the circumstances" of the assassination.
Habyarimana called Saturday for "better protection" for politicians and expressed the hope that the enquiry would expose Gapyisi's killers.
Several politicians, including outgoing justice minister Stanislas Mbonampeka, have blamed the murder on guerrillas of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (FPR).
Gapyisi had just joined a club called the Forum for Peace and Democracy, which has shown strong opposition to an offensive led since October 1990 by the FPR.
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