Sam Kutesa to lead Ugandan delegation to Rwanda

Uganda’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Sam Kutesa will lead Uganda’s delegation to the first meeting with Rwanda as per the recent Luanda memorandum of understanding aimed at resolving ongoing disputes between the two nations that has led Kigali to close the border.

According to a statement from the Media Centre signed by government spokesman Ofwono Opondo, the meeting of the Ad Hoc Commission for the implementation of the Luanda MOU will be held in Kigali, Rwanda on Monday, September 16.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his counterpart Paul Kagame of Rwanda signed the Angola Quadripartite Summit agreement last month. This after the two leaders exchanged accusations of spying, political assassinations and meddling.

“We have agreed on a raft of issues that will be implemented between our two countries, largely meant to improve our security, trade, and political relations. Uganda is fully committed to enforcing this agreement,” Museveni said at the end of the summit.

“I thank Presidents Joao Lourenco of Angola and Felix Tshisekedi of DR Congo for overseeing this process. I also thank His Excellency Dennis Sassou Nguesso for witnessing the signing as Chair of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region.”

After the signing, Kagame said he did not anticipate any problems in working “more specifically with President Museveni to address what we have agreed to address”.

“It may take a bit of time to understand each other but I think we have come a long way,” Kagame told a news conference.

“We are going to address all these problems… indiscriminately,” he said, adding: “We are not going to be found wanting.”

They together with Presidents of Congo, hosts Angola and DRC have committed to a new regional cooperation and security arrangement that should ease tensions in the region.

According to the memorandum of understanding, Rwanda and Uganda undertook to:

1. Respect the sovereignty of each other’s and of the neighboring countries,
2. refrain from actions conducive to destabilization or subversion in the territory of the other party and neighboring countries, thereby eliminating all factors that may create such perception, as well as that of acts such as the financing, training and infiltration of distabilizing forces
3. protect and respect the rights and freedoms of the national of the other party residing or transiting in their national territories, in accordance with the law of the country.
4. resume as soon as possible the cross-border activities between both countries, including the movement of persons and goods, for the development and improvement of the lives of their populations.
5. promote, with the spirit of pan-Africanism and regional integration, comprehensive cooperation in the fields of politics’ security, defense, trade and cultural exchange, investment, based on complimentary and synergies
6. establish and Ad Hoc commission for the implementation of this memorandum or understanding, headed by the ministers of Foreign Affairs and composed of the Ministers responsible for internal administration and head of Intelligence of both countries.
7. keep facilitators regularly informed of progress in the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding.

-Independent