PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (AFP) – Commonwealth leaders dismissed protests over Rwanda’s rights record and admitted the mainly French-speaking nation into the family dominated by former British colonies, officials said yesterday.

In another coup for the African nation still scarred by the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were massacred, French officials announced just hours later that Paris was restoring diplomatic ties with Kigali cut in 2006.

As the Commonwealth marks 60 years since it rose out of the break-up of the British empire, the African nation and former Belgian colony became its 54th member.

Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma telephoned Rwandan President Paul Kagame late Saturday to tell him the news, a Commonwealth official said.

“The leaders agreed to admit Rwanda as the 54th member,” Commonwealth spokesman Eduardo del Buey said in a statement.

Although Sharma had been expected to officially announce the decision later yesterday after the final session of a three-day summit in Trinidad, delighted Rwandan officials had already let the cat out of the bag.

“My Government sees this accession as recognition of the tremendous progress this country has made in the last 15 years,” said Information Minister Louise Mushikiwabo, quoted by Rwandan daily New Times online edition.

A Rwandan Government spokeswoman in Kigali told a national newspaper: “Rwandans are ready to seize economic, political, cultural and other opportunities offered by the Commonwealth network.”

After Mozambique, which joined 14 years ago, it is only the second country with no ties to Britain’s colonial past and no constitutional links to London to be admitted to the Commonwealth.

But the decision will anger rights activists who had argued that Kigali’s continued abuses of basic freedoms since the 1994 genocide made it unworthy to join.

“I say the proof will be in the pudding. Let’s see if a year down the line, whether the Rwandan Government has passed a freedom of information act, whether it will allow dissent for the upcoming elections,” Maja Daruwala, director of the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative told AFP.

The decision was made the same day as Commonwealth leaders unveiled a breakthrough declaration on climate change, pushing for a deal to curb carbon emissions at the Copenhagen talks.

The leaders said a legally binding climate accord was “essential” and they backed the December 7-18 Copenhagen negotiations called to draft a successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol.

The Commonwealth Climate Change Declaration also hailed moves promoted by Britain and France to establish a US$10-billion fund for the next three years to help offset the cost of going green for poor countries.

“We, as the Commonwealth, representing one-third of the world’s population, believe the time for action on climate change has come,” Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said as he unveiled the agreement.

“We believe the political goodwill and resolve exist to secure a comprehensive agreement at Copenhagen,” he said.

China, the United States, the European Union and Brazil have all announced greenhouse gas emission reduction targets designed to contain the level of global warming.

India remains the only big polluter still to declare its target. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised on Saturday its goals would be unveiled soon and would be “ambitious”.

But in an interview yesterday, India’s chief climate change negotiator flatly rejected taking on emission reduction targets.

Negotiator Shyam Saran told the NDTV news channel India was under no pressure to announce firm numbers ahead of the summit.

“There cannot be any emission cuts,” said Saran, adding the developed world did not expect countries like India to adopt emission reduction targets but instead to accept “deviation from business as usual”.