Ugandan government officials have been living in denial mode of late, especially when the issue of illegal incarceration and torture of Rwandan citizens cropped up. Instead of sticking to their story that they have no Rwandan in their custody, they end up dumping the poor fellows at the border. President Museveni’s letter to President Kagame that was “accidentally” leaked to the government newspaper, The New Vision, speaks volumes. The issue went beyond mere arrest and torture. In the letter, Museveni finally admits what he has denied every time Kagame has raised the issue of his contacts with members of a terror group, Rwanda National Congress (RNC). The group was behind a spate of grenade attacks a few years ago that cost the lives of several people in Rwanda and is on record saying it would resort to violence to force change in Kigali. The Ugandan government knows that kind of threat only too well. The Ugandan rebel group, Allied Democratic Front, has been wreaking havoc in Uganda and eastern DR Congo for years. When its leader, Jamil Mukulu, was arrested by Tanzanian authorities, Kampala sought his extradition which it got. But here is a president who meets a ranking member of a pedigreed terror group who openly seeks assistance in forcing regime change in Rwanda. Conventional wisdom dictates that His Excellency should have duplicated Tanzania’s good gesture and turned over the self-confessed members of a terror group. But that would be wishful thinking because the President’s self-admission of meeting with a top RNC official was not “accidental” as he claims because the official had been furnished with a Ugandan passport to facilitate her travel to Uganda. But whatever the outcome, slowly by slowly, the truth will set free very many people.
