Key Points:

Will investigating Patrick Karegeya’s death lead Pretoria to State House in Kigali?

South Africa moves to investigate Karegeya’s death after five years.

First published by South African Media, It is After an almost five-year delay, the Randburg Magistrate’s Court in Johannesburg last week finally launched an inquest into the murder of Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s former spymaster Colonel Patrick Karegeya. Once very close to Kagame, he fell out with the president in 2007 and fled to South Africa. He was found dead, apparently strangled with a curtain cord, in a plush hotel in Johannesburg’s upmarket Sandton suburb on New Year’s Day 2014.

President Ramaphose will probably visit Rwanda or President Paul Kagame Visit South Africa vice versa.

Without changes South African Foreign Affairs Minister will soon meet with Rwanda’s FM Richard Sezibera.

Sezibera will no doubt urge South Africa to stop harbouring dissidents like Kayumba whom Rwanda accuses of plotting to overthrow Kagame’s government

Though Pretoria would love to get rid of Kayumba, it has failed to persuade any other, neutral, government to take him. South Africa is unlikely to hand him over to Kigali, though South African official noted, rather ominously, that Rwanda no longer had the death penalty and had recently released some political prisoners.

Pretoria might, however, agree to persuade Kayumba to stop his opposition politics as a condition for continued residence in South Africa. He belongs – as Karegeya did – to the Rwandan National Congress, which campaigns against Kagame from abroad.

The official said South Africa felt that such politicking was inconsistent with Kayumba’s asylum status. No doubt better relations with Rwanda would be good for South Africa, if only for Ramaphosa to counter Kagame’s growing influence on the continent.

This is something Zuma could not do because he was hamstrung by his own political and ethical baggage.

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