By Our Reporters
In one of his recent letters to his Ugandan counterpart, Rwandan President Paul Kagame lists the family of retired Judge Patrick Tabaro as one of the factors explaining his uneasiness with the government of Uganda. In the letter, Kagame begs Museveni to do something about Justice Tabaro’s son in the names of Counsel Edgar Tabaro. In the letter, Kagame doesn’t disclose much about the Tabaro family but merely reminds Museveni of the details he revealed to him during their earlier meeting and discussion about the same in Addis Ababa which the two leaders on the sidelines of an AU Summit. For starters, the Tabaros (who are a very amiable family) hail from Nyakabande village Bufumbira East in Kisoro district where they are known to be one of the prominent Hutu family. It’s public knowledge that the Rwandan authorities have lately been very uncomfortable with prominent Hutus including Minister Philemon Mateke. The trouble for Edgar Tabaro (a very outspoken city lawyer) started when he agreed to give legal representation to some of the Rwandan fugitive families that have been coming to Uganda to seek refugee status on grounds of political persecution at home. Some of the people he legally represents are widows who claim that their husbands were politically assassinated back home in Rwanda. As such he has been helping out with processing legal documents for many Rwandans coming to Uganda as refugees. Indeed, many of these refugees always run to him whenever they feel threatened even when they are in Uganda. We were unable to speak to the Tabaros directly but sources close to the family vehemently defended Edgar’s right to defend his clients because this is in line with his profession and source of livelihood. This is how one such source put things in perspective: “Edgar is a lawyer who is never afraid of anything when it comes to his duty to advance the cause of humanity and that’s why he is representing those widows as human beings and not because Kagame perceives them to be hostile to his government. He keeps saying he would represent any matter in court as long as that makes the world a better place. He is not in this for sectarianism purposes but because he believes in fairness. He is never afraid of any risk this exposes him to because his philosophy is that all humans will after all die someday.” Reliable sources say this complaint against the Tabaro family as raised in Kagame’s letter is something Museveni has contemptuously been very reluctant to respond to in his subsequent interactions with Kagame.
