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Rising tension

Tension has been high at the Uganda-Rwanda borders since Feb.27 when Kigali stopped allowing travellers and vehicles from Uganda to cross the joint border at Gatuna.

President Museveni and his Rwanda counterpart, Paul Kagame have blocked open public discussion on the issues and allowed the public to debate only unlikely causes such as the alleged holding of Rwandans in detention in Uganda and alleged repairs on the Gatuna border roads and Uganda’s alleged welcoming of anti-Kagame dissidents of the Rwanda National Congress.

Tension on the Rwanda-Burundi border has lasted longer; since 2017 when Burundi banned the export of fruit and vegetables to Rwanda and direct travel between the two countries ceased. President Pierre Nkurunziza accuses Kagame of being the mastermind of a 2015 coup attempt in Bujumbura. Kigali denies the charge but, in turn, accuses Bujumbura of sheltering camps of the FDLR rebels on its territory.

The open hostility between Rwanda and Uganda is newer but it has a longer history of mutual suspicion and tension obscured by a coating of cordial ties among the Rwandan Tutsi and Ugandan Hima ethnic groups.

Museveni and Kagame are former comrades in arms. With Museveni as leader and Kagame as his lieutenant, they commanded wars that toppled governments in Uganda, Rwanda, and the DRC between 1980 and 1997.

But since becoming president, Kagame has sought to break away from being seen as Museveni’s lieutenant and his country as an extension of the Kampala government.  As The Independent has reported before, the two now view each other with suspicion.

According to an International Crisis Group (ICG) report titled `Rwanda/Uganda: A Dangerous War of Nerves’ of December 2001, “in many aspects, the Rwanda-Uganda quarrel looks indeed like an irrational and emotional family feud”.

According to the ICG: “Their intimate twenty-year collaboration means that they know all of each other’s secrets. This feeds paranoia within the top leaderships and tendencies to see previously close associates as possible enemies.

“The Rwanda leadership now views Museveni as domineering and patronising. He is known for his belief in negotiations as a war strategy that he used in both the struggle against the military junta in Uganda in 1986 and in 1994 in Rwanda on behalf of the RPF. This makes it difficult for the leadership in Kigali to trust Museveni’s commitment to any agreement. In return, the Ugandan leadership views Kagame as resilient, driven by the need for recognition as a fighter, arrogant and unwilling to listen to advice.”

The Daily Monitor newspaper in Kampala in December 2018 quoted Kagame saying Rwanda does not take lightly threats of invasions from neighbouring countries.

“Those challenges have been changing forms but they remained in substance a security threat. When it comes to us, our history, we don’t take any security challenge lightly. They say once bitten, twice shy. We have had our taste of it, we wouldn’t want to be found wanting in terms of taking care of our security. Big or small, we will take care of it. We have people around us in the region, others far away, disguised as political activists. There are those who help them directly, others who hide it and call it helping people involved in political struggles. We have to remind them that is not their business, because if they think it is their business then the question is `are they inviting us to make it our business to get involved in their politics?’” he reportedly said.

This attitude shows that Kagame feels that his government and his country face constant threats of elimination. The feeling is compounded by history of oppression and reality of defending a geographically small country in a hostile environment. In military terms, Rwanda lacks “strategic depth”, meaning that any attack cannot be easily absorbed and a counter attack launched. To survive, Rwanda must strike first. That is why its army appears to be constantly on high alert, without room for error of omission.

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