Editorial: Cheap talk is not what Uganda and Rwanda need
Thursday, March 21, 2019

There is nothing more embarrassing than someone caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar, and that is exactly what the case with President Yoweri Museveni’s recent "accident” letter underlines.

Some might wrongly think that the current bad blood between the two countries was triggered by President Kagame’s recent revelations during the National Leadership Retreat of Uganda’s string of provocations and the failed attempt to mend bridges, but no.

Rwanda provokes no one and does not interfere in any country’s internal squabbles nor does it provoke them. But Rwanda’s patience also has its limits and it will call a spade its name and not just sweep everything under the carpet and pretend that everything is normal.

Just imagine if Rwanda was to give the murderous ADF-NALU logistical, material and political support, would it really have the courage to look Uganda in the face? But Uganda miraculously manages to do so without batting an eyelid and even has the audacity to claim that its leaders met Rwandan dissidents by "accident”.

One only has to browse through SoftPower, the Ugandan establishment’s hatchet man (or should one say woman?), which has made Rwanda its prime mission. One thing is for sure; the people behind it – especially Museveni’s former Special Presidential Assistant for Communication – should be given credit for their fertile imagination.

They could put it to good use by helping find a way to end the impasse instead of concocting stories out of thin air. Yes, those make-believe stories give RNC/FDLR cabal some false sense of morale booster, but then it costs nothing to keep dreaming.

Sticks and stones may break our bones but words alone will not hurt us. Otherwise, life continues as usual in Rwanda where God comes to rest in the evening after a weary day trying to save some people from themselves.