Monday, February 2, 2004
We are for Peace, Now Museveni, Kagame Tell UK
By PAUL REDFERN
THE EAST AFRICAN
UGANDAN PRESIDENT Yoweri Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame have pledged to mend relations between their two countries.
During the fourth meeting between the two leaders hosted by Britain�s Department for International Development in London last week � and the first under new UK Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn � the two leaders acknowledged "the critical importance of peace, stability and improved relations for the economic and social development in their own countries and the region."
Britain was clearly pleased at the latest meeting between the two heads of state with a statement from Dfid saying that Mr Benn "warmly welcomed the great efforts the two presidents and their governments had made to bring the relationship between their respective countries back to one of friendship and harmony."
High level meetings were also arranged for both President Museveni and President Kagame with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and Foreign Office Minister Chris Mullin. They later met with British Premier Tony Blair.
Last year, relations between the two countries had become so poor that the London meeting had assumed critical importance with a growing fear that Uganda and Rwanda could even go to war.
The key issue appears to have been progress made in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The two East African presidents and the international development secretary hailed the establishment of the Transitional National Government in the Democratic Republic of Congo as "a major step towards bringing stability to the region."
They restated also their commitment to supporting the transitional government, not least by continuing to "rapidly normalise their bilateral relationships with it and fully implementing the Lusaka Agreement of August 1999 and subsequent agreements."
Both Mr Kagame and Mr Museveni also urged the transitional government to "fully implement its side of those agreements."
This was the fourth review of the understanding signed by the two presidents and the international development secretary since November 2001.
Besides Congo, the two presidents and Mr Benn reviewed other regional developments including in Burundi, Sudan and in the Horn of Africa. They welcomed the recent steps towards peace taken in Burundi and Sudan and agreed to work together "to bring peace and stability in all those areas."
In addition, Mr Kagame and Mr Museveni decided to consult regularly at a bilateral level, ahead of a further meeting with Mr Benn in the region later in the year.
While he was in London Mr Museveni also addressed the issue of the International Criminal Court�s decision to investigate the Lord�s Resistance Army following a meeting between Uganda�s leader and the ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo.
This is the first time an independent state has ever asked the ICC to act on such an issue.
As a result, a statement put out by the court, based in The Hague in the Netherlands, said that locating and arresting the leadership of the LRA was a key issue. It also said that Uganda would need to call on other countries and international institutions to locate and arrest the rebel leadership.
Kampala first sought the intervention of the newly formed court in December but it said then it would take some time to decide whether or not to launch a formal intervention.
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it!
