The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Kigali, Rwanda | THE INDEPENDENT | President Paul Kagame has said Rwanda will only ‘open the border’ after Uganda stops alleged detention of their citizens and support of dissident groups.
Kagame said the recent high profile release by Uganda of nine Rwandans held over various charges in Kampala, was not a good enough gesture for his country to reciprocate.
“The matter is simple. Not a question of saying I do that, you do that. No, for us it’s one thing,” he said at at luncheon for Diplomatic Corps in Kigali on Wednesday.
“Now, if you stop [detentions], and second, if you really stop associating with these groups you have been giving support to in order to destabilise our country, automatically the borders would be open. It’s automatic. It’s just a direct consequence, a result of the other.”
He added that, “What I am being asked to do is say Rwandans can start comfortably going to Uganda. That’s what I am being asked. And I am holding on to that because I am not yet comfortable that I can tell Rwandans to start doing that.”
Kagame confirmed that Rwandan and Ugandan leaders will soon be going back to Angola to review progress where it has been made, and reasons for lack of it in other cases.
Kagame and Museveni were once close allies but their relations have turned deeply hostile in a dispute that damaged trade between the east African neighbours.
Earlier this month, at the function to release the nine detained Rwandans in Kampala, Ugandan Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa stated that, “Let me set the record straight. We have withdrawn charges. These people were not arbitrary arrested. It was an act of goodwill and we hope it will be reciprocated.”
He added that the decision to release the Rwandan nationals was a result of a visit to Rwanda by Ambassador Adonia Ayebare as president Museveni’s emissary to President Kagame.
Kagame referred a lot to that visit in his speech to the diplomats.
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President Kagame’s Remarks at the Luncheon for Diplomatic Corps Jan 2020 by The Independent Magazine on Scribd
That’s crazy..who are those groups the Ugandan govt is supporting? The Ugandan Ugandan public needs to know..coz rwanda has always been at odds with all it’s immediate neighbors..Get the drift?
Am not a dooms day advocate but I saw it coming for Andrew Mwenda and his corrupt friends in the Ugandan government. It is in your best interest to resolve these issues as Ugandans are not interested in these crazy fights.
I can predict a Rwandese victory in all fronts as Uganda is divided along tribal lines. The regime as stolen from the poor for 34 years . Why another bloody war to further enslave Ugandans? It is the Western Uganda war this time around. I bet most Ugandans would see Kagame as a saviour!
Rwanda is much much more fragile than Uganda…With a good chance of the repeat of 1994 .
Kagame’s government is more of a tutsi military occupation of Rwanda that is brutally suppressing the majority Hutu.
With most of the Rwanda’s current economic development and job opportunities benefitting Tutsi minority.
If today Kagame allowed a free and open border ,Rwanda will most likely lose a quarter of it’s total population to Uganda.
The claim of Ugandans welcoming Kagame as saviour is pure fantasy, as Ugandans cannot tolerate the Rwandan/Kagame totalitarian dictatorship style politics of with Rwandan government seeking to control every aspect of rwandans lives through:
~murdering/beheading dissidents,
~suppression of Economic rights of government critics.
~suppression of freedoms commonly enjoyed in Uganda.
~government claiming to win 99% of election, ~government forcefully making the people clean the country every end of month yet the people pay taxes.
~Government forcefully making husbands spying on wives, friends spying on friends etc
~Ugandans are unlikely to tolerate being lead by a people (Rwandans) who in earlier times,were their servants and concubines and who today still are perceived as manual labourers and other lowly professions.
Lastly Kampala having a GDP larger than Rwanda, Uganda has much greater resources to bring Kagame in line if museveni was not restraining himself.