Uganda cannot hoodwink the world endlessly

November 2021 was an interesting month in terms of regional diplomacy. The Burundi-Rwanda diplomatic rapprochement continues to register good progress. Tanzania and Uganda continue to elaborate the avenues to beef up their intra-state trade, and Uganda tried to punch above its weight with its trade obstructions against Kenya. 

But what is arguably most disgraceful is that Uganda removed the drapes and its full support to the terror group, Rwanda National Congress (RNC), became more visible.

Uganda had for some time tried to hoodwink its citizenry, and some gullible members of the global community, by trying to reduce the diplomatic impasse with Rwanda to a ‘border blockade’ which it blames on Rwanda.

While it is true that the latter greatly affected Uganda’s traders and its economy in general with hundreds of millions of dollars lost every year, Rwandans swiftly found better and alternative markets. 

I will not go into details as this can be substantiated not from any allegations by individuals of both countries but from up-to-date trade data of Uganda and Rwanda and from independent sources.

But what the Ugandan government tries hard for Ugandans and the world to remain oblivious to are the underlying reasons behind the closure of that border.

Plainly put, it is because of the open support that terrorists bent on distabilising Rwanda continue to enjoy in Uganda, where they have found a tactical base, recruitment, training and fundraising grounds.

Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), the appointed Ugandan security organization in facilitating RNC operations in the country, has been working in overdrive to help the terror group’s members in their recruitment maneuvers and intelligence gathering (often wrong and biased to serve Kampala’s ill campaigns against Kigali). 

Uganda also guarantees the safety of the terror group operatives.

For years, Uganda’s leadership has been dismissing these accusations by Rwanda despite the fact that they were always backed by clear and verifiable evidence. 

A recent incident where, at a burial ceremony of a Rwandan national in Uganda, a man called Nzabandora Mohamed, also a Rwandan national, took advantage of the burial ceremony to ramp up mobilization for the terror organization and spoke to mobilize the people against losing their focus and called them to recommit their efforts to the cause, is a case in point.

At the well-attended burial ceremony, the man confesses to being an RNC operative, and openly urges others to join the terror group. This is seen in a video that circulated extensively on social media networks. It raised lots of questions among the people of Uganda and Rwanda. 

It was an incontestable fact of Uganda’s open support to the RNC. A long time hidden truth by Uganda’s leadership that got out so easily. An accident or a tactic? All in all, it was simply gauche.   

This may have been very embarrassing for Uganda’s leadership that a few days after, the Minister of State had to invite Rwanda’s High Commissioner to Uganda for a meeting to follow up on issues to do with Uganda-Rwanda bilateral meeting.

I hope that the Rwandan envoy’s first comment after all the introductory diplomatic protocol for their tete-a-tete meeting with the Ugandan minister was: Did you see the video that is circulating? What good reason do you give for that? 

Here is what I think is happening with Uganda’s undying support to the RNC.

Facts are stubborn and will always end up catching up with Uganda’s leadership along this ill-intentioned terror journey with the RNC.  In this delicate reckoning, initiated by Uganda, the leadership has exposed itself to so many hitches, both at local and regional level. 

The country is losing on all fronts. Through time, this manoeuver is gradually becoming costly to the Ugandan people, the worst is yet to be seen should this scenario (Kampala's support to anti-Rwanda government groups) persist. 

Ugandan leaders today behave like the proverbial monkey that keeps climbing high and ignores the fact that it exposes itself.