Winnie Byanyima’s diplomacy

After Byanyima left, Museveni called Adonia Ayebare, Uganda’s permanent representative to the United Nations in New York. He asked him to come to Kampala immediately. Ayebare, whose mother is related to Kagame and his father is related to Museveni, was Uganda’s ambassador to Rwanda in the mid-2000s. He is known to have good relations with both presidents and played an important role in reconciling the two in 2011.

Ayebare is also a brother to Col. Abel Kandiho, the Ugandan chief of military intelligence whom Rwandans accuse of arresting and torturing Rwandans. There has been sharp disagreement between Ayebare and Kandiho over how to deal with Rwanda. Ayebare believes Uganda should find ways to keep Rwanda an ally. Kandiho believes Rwanda is a dangerous neighbour out to abuse Uganda’s sovereignty by infiltrating her security agencies.

When Ayebare met Museveni, the Ugandan president asked him to take a message to his Rwandan counterpart. In the message, Museveni said he had been told by Byanyima of his (Kagame’s) concerns and was willing to meet his request. The Ugandan president asked Kagame to give a list of persons from Rwanda held in detention in Uganda. Museveni promised that he would release them.

According to sources, Kagame was pleased with the offer and officially his office tweeted saying: “This evening at Orugwiro village President Kagame held a positive meeting with Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, President Museveni’s Special Envoy, who travelled to Kigali with a message regarding the two countries’ relationships.  Many observers of the relations between Kampala and Kigali were surprised by such a positive response.

Museveni also tweeted saying: “… I received Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, who had gone as my special envoy to President Kagame on the issue of the tensions between our two coutnries. Ambassador Ayebare was well received by H.E Paul Kagame and they had very fruitful discussions. Soon the two sides will be taking decisive actions to end the tensions. Uganda, I can guarantee, will do its share of the normalization of the relations between our countries.”

For those following relations between Uganda and Rwanda, this sudden change in Museveni’s attitude is surprising, to say the least. According to sources in Kigali, Kagame personally and the government of Rwanda generally, had tried to bring their issues to the attention of the Ugandan president since 2017 and got no positive response. It is this that led the situation to escalate to border closure. Why then would Museveni change his attitude now?

The answer seems to lie in Museveni’s comments after meeting with Kagame at the border on Feb.21. During this meeting, which was also attended by President João Manuel Gonçalves Lourenço of Angola as mediator and President Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo as witness, Museveni for the first time spoke publicly about the issue. He revealed part of his thinking when he addressed a group of Ugandans who had lined the road to welcome him.

According to media reports, Museveni said the problem leading to the closure of the border was not one caused by Kigali’s relations with Kampala. Rather, he argued, it is an internal political crisis inside Rwanda especially within the Tutsi community of Rwanda Patriotic Front. He said Uganda helped the exiled Tutsi refugees to return to Rwanda. When they got to Kigali, they got disagreements leading some to run to exile. It is these disagreements, Museveni reasoned, that are the cause of the crisis.

Museveni apologized to both Ugandans and Rwandans on both sides of the border for the inconvenience of the border closure. He also said Kigali had made some demands which Kampala had agreed to meet. We now know that one such demand was the removal of persons hostile to Rwanda from Uganda. The other was to close some NGO in Uganda, which Kigali accuses of fanning anti-Rwanda activities. He then concluded his speech saying: “The truth will come out one day because NRM stands for the truth.”

Those who know the Ugandan president well say this statement was loaded. They also say it gives an important insight into his reasons for responding to Byanyima’s request and for participating in the Luanda process. The aim, they say, is to prove that he is innocent and shift the blame on Kagame. By meeting all the demands of Kigali, he will place Kagame on the spot to open the border or be seen as the one who is a troublesome neighbour.

“Rwanda accuses Uganda of helping its dissidents to organize activities to overthrow the government in Kigali,” one analyst told The Independent on condition of anonymity, “Even if both sides set up verification mechanisms to stop such activity, it will not achieve much. Why? Because there are no training camps in Uganda for Rwandan dissidents, but Rwanda will not believe this. Even if they existed, Rwanda would find it hard to prove this in a verification effort.”