The President Rwanda, Paul Kagame and his Ugandan counterpart, Yoweri Kaguta Museveni have reached conscious and agreed to open Katuna border within 15 days. It is eight days away from making a year since Rwanda closed its boarder.
last year, Rwanda closed it boarders for Ugandan goods and has since stopped its nationals from traveling to Uganda using the boarder but there are those that have been using flights. Since then there has been a number of arrests in both countries and shootings in the territory of Rwanda.
Last year, Kagame flew to Tanzania asking President Pombe Magufuli to interven bying reaching out to Museveni for peace talks but Magufuli refused forcing him to seek Angolan President Joao Lourenco help and indeed, President Lourenco embarked on the campaign to restore the souring relationship between the two sister states. Dubbed as the Quadripartite Summit, the first, second and third meeting convened in Angola’s capital, Luanda in July 2019, August 2019 and January 2020 respectively. The meetings were facilitated by Angola’s President Joao Lourenco, while DRC’s Felix Tshisekedi is an observer.
During summits, leaders have been accessing the progress made in previous meetings and setting up new targets for restoration of cross boarder relationship between the two countries.
According a statement delivered by Rwandan minister of external affairs, Manuel Gomingos Augusto, the heads of state expressed their gratitude towards the progress made on the release of prisoners on both sides in regard to rule of law and elimination of tension factors.
So far Uganda has released 22 Rwandan prisoners who had been on trial in General court martial. Recently Rwanda said that two of the 13 released nationals had been wanted over treason charges. Rwanda as a country, has only released two Ugandans despite shooting scores of them on an attempt to cross to the Kagame’s side.
“The summit recommended that Uganda should in one month verify allegations of the republic of Rwanda about actions from its territory by forces hostile to government of Rwanda. F all proved, Uganda will take all measures to stop it and prevent it from happening,” he said adding that actions must be proved by Ad-hoc ministerial committee for implementation of memorandum of understanding of Luanda.
The two countries represented by Uganda’s minister for Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa and Manuel Gomingos Augusto signed on behalf of Rwanda the extraordinary treaty that constitutes legal framework to handle cases of justice.
