Angolan President João Lourenço arrives ahead of Rwanda-Uganda talks

Rwanda, Uganda keen to normalize relations

Thursday, February 20, 2020

President João Lourenço of Angola is set travel to Rwanda on Thursday, February 20, a day ahead of the Quadripartite Heads of State Summit, which aims to end the feud between Rwanda and Uganda.

Angolan daily newspaper, Jornal de Angola, reported that President Lourenço is expected to join President Paul Kagame, President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda and  Félix Tshisekedi the President of DR Congo in their bid to normalise relations between Kigali and Kampala.

The Summit will be held at the Gatuna-Katuna border crossing between Rwanda and Uganda on Friday, February 21. It is the latest of the series of regional meetings facilitated by Angola and DR Congo in an effort end the standoff between two East African Community nations.

The upcoming Summit, the fifth of its kind by the four leaders, was decided at a recent summit of the group, which took place in Luanda, on February 2.

The first summit took place on May 31, 2019, in Kinshasa, DR Congo, while the city of Luanda hosted the other three, held on July 12, August 21, 2019 and February 2, 2020.

It comes after the Ugandan Government on Tuesday released 13 Rwandans, four days after the third meeting of the Ad Hoc Commission on the implementation of the Luanda Memorandum of Understanding between Uganda and Rwanda held in Kigali, last week.

Last Friday’s meeting in Kigali was a follow-up on the Luanda MoU signed by both countries in August last year.

In January, Uganda released nine Rwandans after three years of incarceration.

Rwanda has continuously provided evidence pinning Uganda on efforts by armed negative groups to destabilise the former and denounced arbitrary arrests and detention as well as torture of hundreds of its citizens in Uganda.

Last week, the Ugandan delegation agreed that their government would undertake to verify and respond, by February 20, to some of the most pressing issues capable of immediately being addressed and further investigate and respond to the other issues.