By Mulengera Reporters
On reading the latest edition of the Independent news magazine, one clearly gets to see how Andrew Mwenda is a very frustrated man leaving in a bottomless dilemma. Reflecting on impending military confrontation (his own characterization) between Uganda & Rwanda, Mwenda says at some point when he pushed hard for reconciliation, Kagame called him naive. At the same time, Kampala (whose big man M7 he says he has been pleading with to stick with Kagame) accuses him of being an agent pushing Rwanda’s agenda. In a 5 page article in which he clearly shows bias in favor of Rwanda, Mwenda wonders why Uganda doesn’t seem to have much appetite to deescalate tensions with Rwanda yet M7 went an extra mile to pacify Salvar Kiir’s S. Sudan from which Uganda economically reaped less economic benefits than Kigali.
Clearly making a case for Kigali, Mwenda says in the last 10 years Ug exported goods worth USD2.2bn to Rwanda, a country which only sold USD85.5m worth of goods to Uganda. He says Ug gets lots of Forex from Rwandese students studying here & also from Ugandan expatriates in Kigali & from Rwandan tourists. He says these are many & stay in Uganda longest. He also attacks M7 strong relationship & admiration for China which he says despite having a bigger GDP (USD12trn) buys so little from Uganda (USD27m). In comparison he says much poorer Rwanda with a GDP of just USD9bn annually buys from Ug goods worth USD226m. He blames selfish actors in Ug intelligence services for antagonizing M7 with Kagame. He also accuses the leadership at Sam Kutesa’s foreign affairs of being narrow-minded & therefore incapable of appreciating what Rwanda means for Uganda. He says 1000s of Rwandan refugees fought in M7 NRA war and falls short of saying without their sacrifice, M7 wouldn’t be president today. He accuses Ug of sabotaging Rwanda’s economic interests including disallowing Rwandair to pick & drop passengers at Entebbe on its way to London & Brussels. He says its narrow-mindedness to deny Rwandans this b’se Uganda Airlines is being revived. Mwenda says he reported CAA bosses to M7 about Rwandair sabotage but he did nothing. He also accuses Ug of prioritizing the SGR line linking up to South Sudan ahead of the part linking to Katuna near Rwanda. He refers to the 16 Rwandan students who Kla officials allegedly used to demonize Kigali in the international media for having links with M23 rebels. Mwenda also says Kagame sent him to M7 to protest about the presence in Uganda of Rwandan tycoon Tribert Rujugiro who Kigali accuses of funding rebel activities. Mwenda, who has on a voluntary basis been brokering peace between M7 & Kagame since 2011, says the Ugandan veteran leader promised Rujugiro would sell his businesses & relocate from Ug which never happened. Mwenda also refers to Henry Tumukunde in order to make point that many of the refugee-related claims made against Kigali are untrue. Promising to spill more beans in a subsequent longer article, Mwenda says he had convinced Kagame to forgive dissidents like Rujugiro, Patrick Kategyeya & Kalisa Mupende but the deal failed b’se of the complicated approach the trio adopted towards Kigali. He says Kagame reluctantly agreed to forgive the trio in order to neutralize Kla’s claims that Rwanda kills its dissidents.
