Rwandan President Kagame meets Museveni’s envoy
Tuesday January 18 2022
Uganda’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, with Rwanda's President Paul Kagame in Kigali on January 17, 2022. PHOTO | COURTESY | RWANDA'S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni sent his envoy to meet President Paul Kagame of Rwanda on Monday as the two countries are reportedly planning to resume diplomatic dialogues that stalled last year.
Brokered talks had seen the two countries, whose ties turned sour in 2017, commit to resolving their differences. They achieved little success when ad-hoc meetings to fast-track implementation stopped.
On Monday, Rwanda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Relations indicated that Uganda’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Adonia Ayebare, met President Kagame.
“His Excellency President Paul Kagame today received Ambassador Adonia Ayebare who delivered a message from His Excellency President Yoweri Museveni,” the ministry said.
Office of the Government Spokesperson had not responded to The EastAfrican’s queries regarding the visit and the resumption of talks by press time.
However, the latest development comes just months after President Kagame said that communication with his Ugandan counterpart had “more or less stopped”, although he maintained that the two countries would continue searching for a solution to the problems that still exist.
Relations with Uganda deteriorated in 2017 when Rwanda accused its neighbour of harbouring groups that are hostile to Kigali, as well as torturing innocent Rwandans on its soil.
On its part, Kampala alleged there were Kigali spies on Uganda’s territory.
Attempts to defuse the tensions that since led to closure of their common borders in 2019 have not yielded results despite mediation efforts by presidents João Lourenço of Angola and DR Congo’s Félix Tshisekedi that saw Kampala and Kigali commit to ending the crisis.
While Ugandan authorities maintained that they did their part on what Rwanda asked for, and instead pushed for the reopening of the borders, Kigali maintains Uganda still hunts down Rwandans on its soil.
Uganda on January 8 deported 22 Rwandans, bringing the total number of Rwandan nationals deported by the country to 50 since December 2021.
More than 2,567 Rwandan nationals were deported by Kampala since 2017, according to Rwandan authorities.