Memories of Monarchy : Exiled Rwandan King Tours With Few Trappings, Zealous Backing

It was hardly the entourage expected of a king, or even a former king. To begin his tour of Southern California, King Kigeli V of Rwanda arrived at a wildlife preserve in Acton in a Honda Civic--hardly regal or even comfortable transportation for this seven-foot-tall man who has been in exile for 34 years.

With him was only one aide, who serves as his secretary and counselor. But the exiled king--now living in a suburb of Arlington, Va., where he last made news when he applied for food stamps--did have a chauffeur for this trip.

At the wheel of the Civic was Charles Coulombe of Arcadia, an American representative of the Monarchist League, a London-based organization that attempts to reinstate deposed royalty around the world.

“Call me old-fashioned,” said Coulombe as he introduced Kigeli to actress Tippi Hedren, who runs the preserve. “But these people want their king back.”

In part, the purpose of Kigeli’s tour of the Los Angeles area was to seek donations for a nonprofit fund he has set up to assist the estimated 100,000 Rwandan children orphaned by the genocide that recently decimated their country.

But it was the Monarchist League that sponsored and planned the trip. Certainly, the visit to the Shambala Wildlife Preserve--home to 70 lions and tigers, plus two African elephants--was not Kigeli’s idea. The king was not comfortable around the animals.

For the monarchists, the point was in the symbolism. “Well, you know, the lion is the hereditary badge of his house,” Coulombe said. “The king of the beasts is a universal motif.”

This week, Kigeli also met with members of the local Rwandan community, appeared in a commercial for the United Nations Children’s Fund to drum up more support for the Rwandan orphans, and attended a reception at the Mayflower Club in North Hollywood, a social club frequented by monarchists and British expatriates.

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The league was alerted to the financial and political plight of the 58-year-old king by an article in People magazine last year. “It described the dire straits to which he had been reduced,” said Coulombe, who oversees the group’s functions in the western United States.

Kigeli had been living on the gifts of supporters and taking public transit to get around the Washington, D.C., area. His aide declined to comment on the king’s widely reported application for food stamps.

“That’s a private matter,” said Boniface Benzinge, who also serves as Kigeli’s interpreter. The king, although fluent in five languages, speaks little English.

The Monarchist League added Kigeli to the long list of exiled royals it has taken under its wings since the organization’s founding in 1943.

For this trip, the league took care of his transportation and lodging and arranged for him to be chauffeured to various events because, as Benzinge put it, “we didn’t know anyone here.”

Though he has not stepped foot in his country for more than three decades, Kigeli has strived to remain active in his country’s affairs. After the recent, bloody civil war, he tried to help negotiate the return of Rwandan refugees.

“Always my duty is serving Rwanda’s population outside,” said Kigeli in his native Kinyarwanda. “The king is the first protector above all political parties.”

It is believed that half a million Rwandans, most from the Tutsi minority, were slaughtered in the civil war that began after Hutu President Juvenal Habyarimana was killed when his plane was shot down last April. Another 2 million to 3 million refugees flooded nearby African nations when the fighting reached a boiling point. Many have been slowly returning to Rwanda since the fall, when a provisional government of Hutu and Tutsi leaders was installed.

Coulombe believes Kigeli could still be an effective ruler of the troubled country. “Kigeli is both Tutsi and Hutu. . . . Traditionally, the king is above all tribes,” he said.

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Coulombe escorted Kigeli with unbridled enthusiasm, often making addenda to the king’s statements about the strife in Rwanda. A die-hard royalist born in New York City, Coulombe heralded Kigeli’s popularity in Rwanda, saying that a Rwandan newspaper, Le Flambeau, had called for the king’s return in a recent editorial.

Kigeli’s family had ruled Rwanda for nine centuries before he was ousted in a 1960 coup. He lived in Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya until he moved to the Washington area in 1992 to be closer to the United Nations, which has largely ignored him.

When asked if his move was prompted by reports that he feared for his safety, the exiled king said: “I have never had a bodyguard. My bodyguard is God.”

According to a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, Kigeli was given asylum in 1992 as an exiled king--a status that carries no diplomatic privileges.

In a brief speech to the Mayflower Club at a reception in his honor Thursday, Kigeli thanked members for their support during his trip and made an appeal for aid to Rwanda. “We need almost everything. We have to start from zero and build today.”

Monarchists in attendance toasted His Majesty King Kigeli V in a room decorated with photos of Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Charles, Prince Andrew and Princess Diana.

Audience members then rushed to his table to have their pictures taken with the towering monarch. Disposable cameras clicked away.

“Monarchy is still highly respected throughout the world,” Don Foreman, secretary general of the Monarchist League, said in an interview from London. “We sincerely believe that there are many countries that would benefit from having their monarchies restored.”

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The league--which boasts an estimated international membership of 1,000, including 150 in the United States--is reminiscent of the loyalists in the American colonies who sided with King George III during the Revolutionary War. They have fought to stop former British colonies from removing Queen Elizabeth II as their head of state. Their dinners begin with a toast to monarchy.

Members of the league say there are 150 similar organizations around the world. These monarchists believe that in countries where there is a strong tradition of monarchy, the absence of royalty can leave a vacuum to be filled by the likes of a Hitler or Idi Amin.

The Monarchist League’s purpose is threefold: to protect existing monarchies, to assist in the restoration of deposed monarchs and to promote their cause in countries like the United States, where there is little popular support for the return of exiled royalty.

Foreman noted that in Uganda, which borders Rwanda to the northeast, King Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II( was returned to symbolic power in 1993. There he was credited with helping to ease tribal and ethnic tensions.

The same could occur in Rwanda, monarchists say. Roy Green, a local monarchist who helped arrange the king’s trip, said now that tribal warfare has diminished in Rwanda, Kigeli may soon be able to return.

Observers of the area are more hesitant. German Consul General Hans Allard Von Rohr, who attended the Mayflower Club reception, spent time in Uganda as a diplomat. The Rwandan provisional government “would be cautious to bring back such a popular figure,” he said.

“We wait for stability,” said Kigeli, who hopes that the government in place in Rwanda will hold free elections in 1999, as promised. “They have said that,” he continued, extending his hands skeptically. “But I do not know if they will do it.”

Until stability comes, Kigeli waits. And aside from his aide and his monarchist supporters, he waits alone. And as it stands, the royal family lineage will die with him.

“A king cannot marry in exile,” Kigeli said sadly. “I cannot have happiness here.”