The Associated Press
Tuesday, Feb. 29, 2000; 10:32 a.m. EST

KIGALI, Rwanda –– Rwanda's prime minister has resigned amid accusations of corruption, ending months of investigation that entangled the country's top political leaders in scandal.

In a resignation letter to Rwanda's president on Monday, Pierre-Celestin Rwigema said a hostile media campaign and a parliamentary inquiry that found him guilty of embezzlement had made it impossible to fulfill his responsibilities as prime minister.

While the prime minister's post is largely ceremonial, Rwigema becomes the third top Hutu official in the government to step down in recent months. Although Hutus hold official posts, minority Tutsis dominate the government and military.

Rwigema's political party, the Democratic Republic Movement, has 15 days to propose his replacement, Radio Rwanda said. The MDR is the country's main Hutu political party, and Rwigema told British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview that he would continue to head it.

Under Rwanda's 1995 Constitution, the entire Cabinet will be automatically dissolved within eight days. Cabinet ministers agreed to continue in their posts until a new government is named.

In December, a parliamentary commission adopted a report blaming Rwigema for mishandling part of a $23 million donation by the World Bank while serving as education minister. He allegedly redirected school funds to his home region in Gitarama, where he sponsored a private school. Rwigema denied most of the accusations.

The corruption investigation forced two ministers from office late last year.

Rwigema was member of an opposition Hutu political party during Rwanda's 1994 genocide, in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsi and moderate Hutus were killed in a campaign led by the then-extremist Hutu government.

Some genocide survivors said he failed to do enough to prevent the killings. Others accused him of distributing weapons to Hutu militiamen. The allegation was never proved and no formal charges have been brought against him.

Rwigema purged his own party of Hutu extremists and political opponents after the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front ousted the extremist Hutu government, ended the genocide and proclaimed a national unity government combining both Hutus and Tutsis.