Kigeli V (as in the fifth) might himself have been easily forgotten, an accidental, throwaway ruler of one of the smallest and poorest countries in Africa, the last twitch of a monarchy abolished in 1961 as Rwanda moved from colonial feudalism to independence. Bill Clinton would call his administration’s failure to intervene one of the biggest regrets of his presidency. Over 100 days in 1994, nearly a million Rwandans were murdered by other Rwandans, a massacre of the country’s Tutsi minority by its ruling Hutu majority. If Westerners know Rwanda at all, it’s as the site of a genocide the world ignored. If only other people-important people, his own people-were as easily persuaded. “The King of Africa?” Kigeli, who has a receding Afro and a long, genial face framed by narrow eyeglasses, looked as though he were considering the phrase’s ring. But on the subject of his neighbors, His Majesty needed no liege. Benzinge was translating from Kinyarwanda, the native Rwandan tongue. We had been chatting for four hours when the subject of Kigeli’s neighbors came up. When he isn’t serving as the king’s chancellor, Benzinge is a part-time mattress salesman at the mall’s Sears. “He must be escorted,” Benzinge told me.) The hotel, wedged between Route 50 and the yawning parking lots of Fair Oaks Mall, is also a convenient spot for Benzinge. (Kings don’t drive-this one doesn’t even have a license. Kigeli deems the roadside hotel more appropriate for royalty, even if it means dipping into his paltry savings for a taxi ride. So we met in the lobby of the Fairfax Marriott at Fair Oaks.
“He is living very humbly,” said Benzinge, who is 78. I had driven through the housing complex and wanted to see the inside of Kigeli’s home, but his longtime assistant and translator, Boniface Benzinge, warned that it wasn’t suitable for official audiences. Now, only the passing happiness of a few Virginia children. But the stakes back then-a half century ago-were considerably higher.īack then, the fate of an entire country and the future of a centuries-old dynasty hung in the balance. The task of distinguishing the truth tellers from the cheats also confronted Kigeli during his short time on the throne. “ ‘No, no, it’s a liar!’ ” he went on, mimicking his exchanges with the children, some of whom seem, oddly, to have more than one birthday a year. “I give them sweets,” Kigeli said, his long limbs shaking with laughter. They turn up at his doorstep, claiming a birthday and reaching across the threshold for a treat. In English, a language that normally eludes him, His Majesty said that the children of the Oak Creek Apartments had a particular fondness for their real-life colossus of a neighbor. Kigeli said that was for the people to decide. In 1996, Paul Kagame, now president of Rwanda, told Kigeli (pictured) he was welcome to come home but not as king.
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