Uganda is considering petitioning the East African Community (EAC) Secretariat in Arusha, Tanzania, to challenge what it perceives as Rwanda’s economic sabotage in breach of the regional bloc’s guidelines, a minister said Sunday.
Mr Philemon Mateke, the state minister for regional cooperation, told Uganda’s Daily Monitor Sunday evening that he would confer with his senior line minister, Mr Kirunda Kivejinja, on the petition “because interfering with cross-border trade by Rwanda violates the East African Community guidelines yet it (Rwanda) is the chair of the community.”
President Kagame, the immediate past African Union chairman, succeeded President Museveni as EAC chair last month amid rising tension and long-standing counter-accusations, including claims that either government is propping up subversive elements against the other.
Rwanda’s ambassador to Uganda, Maj Gen Frank Mugambage, Sundayy said he was “engaged” and unable to speak on Kampala’s latest charges.
Kigali at the end of last month abruptly stopped vehicles from Uganda from entering Rwanda through Katuna, citing ongoing construction works at Gatuna side of the frontier.
A senior official familiar with the goings-on between the countries, but who asked not to be named due to sensitivity of the matter, said Rwanda’s last-minute notification about closing Gatuna border post was suspicious because road works are planned in advance, and was not likely to have informed its sudden decision.
Rwanda’s foreign minister Richard Sezibera followed with a tweet on March 1 in which he warned Rwandans against crossing to Uganda, claiming Rwandans were being targeted in ongoing arrests, torture and harassment.
“This is for their own security. Ugandans in Rwanda or travelling through Rwanda are safe,” he tweeted.
In an interview published last month by The East African President Kagame responded to the question, “Do you think things are getting worse or improving between Uganda and Rwanda?” thus:
“There is a good foundation from which we should be building a very good relationship…it is very intriguing to find that we have something like this (tension) going on. And it goes on every day, even as we speak.”
The matter, he noted, must be resolved “because the alternative is not something that we should even be thinking about, or entertaining; that we can stand in the way of our own progress or the progress of all East Africans.”
After days of quiet, Uganda opened up, with Uganda Media Centre executive director Ofwono Opondo dismissing the allegations by Kigali against Uganda, including of indiscriminate incarceration of its nationals, as baseless.
At the time, Rwanda shared on social media what it said was a list containing particulars of 40 Rwandan citizens taken into custody by the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), according to Rwanda’s State Foreign Affairs Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe.
He claimed that more than 800 other Rwandans had either been deported or refused entry to Uganda since January 2018. The Monitor could not independently confirm the allegation that Kampala has since rubbished.