My appeal to Museveni and Kagame

Your Excellencies, permit me to salute you for the commendable services you are rendering to your countries. I am writing to you out of a heavy heart caused by the diplomatic impasse between Uganda and Rwanda, which has caused tremendous suffering to the people you are governing. In order to ascertain the gravity of the matter, I have had to engage the affected people in the two counties. Their tales range from loss of income to loss of physical contact with their family members.

The diplomatic standoff, which has led to the border closure of commodities and materials from Uganda and prevented Rwandans from travelling to Uganda, has largely affected traders, border communities (those dealing in restaurants, lodging and money (exchange), transporters, consumers especially the ordinary men and women, and obviously has led to loss of revenue to the two governments. It has also added to the unemployment problem - bus drivers, conductors, turn-boys, travel agents, and factory workers, have all lost their jobs. This has negatively affected numerous families.

As a matter of fact, while on average the three major bus companies operating the Kampala-Kigali route had on single route eight buses transporting passengers before the border closure, at the moment, they are each seriously struggling to fill two buses on a single route.
The rising prices of commodities and materials in Rwanda is compromising people’s welfare, especially those living on meagre incomes.

For example, after the border closure, a 25kg bag of maize flour has increased to Rwf16,000 from Rwf11,000, a carton of highland milk has increased to Rwf16,000 from Rwf11,500, an apple price has increased to Rwf500 from Rwf250 Rwf, cooking oil has increased to Rwf12,000 from Rwf8,500, a bag of cement (Hima) has increased to Rwf9,200 from Rwf8,500.

Your Excellencies, in essence, the state of affairs is not only compromising the wellbeing of the populations, which is one of the key components of national interests of states in relations with other states, but is also undermining national security, which is a major foreign policy goal of nation-states in international relations. This is reflected in smuggling of commodities across borders and in creation of suspicion, which in turn, leads to arms race and consequently threatening security between nation-states.

Yours Excellencies, it is apparent that in this current diplomatic standoff, there is no outright winner - both the people of Uganda and Rwanda are bearing the burden created by the diplomatic standoff.

And while diplomats from the two countries and the East African Community (EAC) structures are working around the clock to resolve the diplomatic impasse, from the look of things, unless you dialogue, the standoff may be prolonged, hence causing more suffering of your electorates.

Therefore, your Excellencies, for the sake of your suffering people and in the spirit of the EAC integration and pan-Africanism, I appeal to you to address the impasse.

Charles Kiiza,
[email protected]