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As the regime in Kampala increasingly gets suspicious, of just about
everything, the question of cooking up charges against a Rwandan diplomat
was a matter of time. Keen observers of events in this region have got
used to the regime's predictable act, of publicly orchestrating acts of
provocation against the Government of Rwanda.
What is certain is that the paranoia on the part of the National
Resistance Movement (NRM) government has reached unprecedented levels,
strangely at a time when the regime is proclaiming victory in the
just-concluded elections! In less than one month, the Ugandan government
has deported an American citizen, a Canadian national, raided the Danish
Ambassador's residence, and has arrested and stripped naked a Rwandan
diplomat. Heavens know who is next on their hit list.
Hard sell
While the Ugandan Government has been
at pains to convince the world that they did not have any role in the
framing and arresting of the Rwandan diplomat, available evidence points
to a carefully orchestrated plot to not only frame up the diplomat, but
also to embarrass the government of Rwanda into withdrawing the envoy from
Uganda.
This has not worked, as Mr Ngarambe is duly back to his post in
Kampala. According to Uganda's Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr
Okello Oryem, his Ministry received complaints about the diplomat two
weeks before he was arrested. The Minister did not bother to communicate
these concerns to the Rwandan ambassador in Kampala and this brings into
doubt the question as to whether the alleged woman's husband ever reported
to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as claimed.
What is clear is that the Minister has had to play along with those
security operatives who have been working overtime to come up with
whatever flimsy charges that will give them the opportunity to see the
Rwandan diplomat removed from Kampala.
The most revealing detail of this most primitive operation on the
part of the Ugandan security intelligence personnel, is the fact the news
of Mr Ngarambe's arrest was first relayed to the Rwandan Ambassador in
Uganda, by none other than Gen. David Tinyefuza, the coordinator of
Security and Intelligence operations in Uganda.
Ordinarily communication from a host country to an accredited
ambassador is strictly channeled through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
but Gen. Tinyefuza threw all the pretences of protocol out of the window,
to ensure that the Rwandan Ambassador learnt of the arrest from the
"horse's mouth" as it were.
Gen. Tinyefuza simply could not contain his excitement over what he
naively perceived as a successful operation and a mission accomplished.
Indeed Gen. Tinyefuza's telephone call to Ambassador Karegyesa Kamali was
not out of concern for an unfortunate incident involving a diplomat from a
neighbouring country, nor was it a friendly gesture from a caring senior
government official.
Lack of protocol
We now know that it took more
six hours, after Gen. Tinyefuza's call to the Rwandan Ambassador, for Mr
John Ngarambe to be released from his captors. Now, what was the Ugandan
General's motive in calling the Ambassador, especially bearing in mind
that such communication is supposed to come from the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs ? If the matter was a "non-governmental" issue as Gen. Tinyefuza
later told reporters, why was he the first Ugandan government official to
relay the news to the Rwandan ambassador, against all the strict demands
of protocol ?
The picture gets clearer given that Gen. Tinyefuza was not calling to
inform the Ambassador that the Uganda government was releasing the
diplomat. His call was a cruel, vindictive and a feel-good act designed to
deliver the "I got you" message to the Rwandan Ambassador to Uganda.
By their own admission, the Ugandan security intelligence operatives
placed Mr Ngarambe under surveillance the moment he arrived in Uganda to
assume his position as the First Secretary at the Rwandan Embassy.
Clearly, therefore, before the Rwandan diplomat had settled down on
his desk, Ugandan security operatives had placed him in their sights and
he was targeted not only for surveillance, but for crude and outright
harassment. Indeed the stripping, cuffing, photographing and arresting of
the diplomat was a culmination of a sustained campaign designed to force
him out of the country. A few days before the operation at Entebbe,
someone had tampered with Mr Ngarambe's car and he narrowly escaped injury
or worse.
The harassment and expulsion of Rwandan diplomats from
Kampala has served to expose Uganda's primitive approach to diplomacy and
its total disregard for the Vienna convention. While Uganda has deployed
legions of spies in Rwanda, including staff at its embassy in Kigali, the
Government of Rwanda has never made issue out of their activities.
Smart move
Indeed this approach has paid off on
the part of Rwanda as it has enabled the government to watch every move
they make and identify their network of informers. For a long time, Kigali
was well aware of the intelligence gathering activities of a seasoned
Ugandan spy, who passed for the First Secretary at the Ugandan Embassy in
Rwanda.
This person, who was well known to the Rwandan authorities as staff
of the External Security Services of Uganda, had successfully penetrated
the Rwandan society with a network of spies who included a harem of
good-time women. His escapades are legendary in Kigali, yet the Government
of Rwanda did not take advantage of this weakness to have him thrown out
of the country.
It was not until the Ugandan government expelled Rwanda's First
Secretary at the Embassy in Kampala, Mr Jimmy Uwizeye, that Rwanda
retaliated in kind, giving Kigali the opportunity to get rid of the most
accomplished spy Uganda had ever deployed in the region.
Probably, the most remarkable example of the glaring difference
between the way the two countries have adhered to the Vienna Convention
and how they have treated each other's diplomats, is the way an envoy was
treated during his tenure as Uganda's Ambassador to Rwanda. Evidently,
this envoy had a drinking problem and was often prone to embarrassing
public spectacles.
The Government of Rwanda did not exploit this vulnerability on the
part of the Ambassador to embarrass him and the government he represented.
Instead he was consequently assigned 24-hour government protection with
guards who not only ensured his personal safety, but also physically
helped him to his residence after he was no longer able support
himself.
Next time Gen. Tinyefuza plots to mistreat Rwandan diplomats he
should seek a second opinion first.
The author is Director Great Lakes Research Centre,
Kigali
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