Kagame receives Museveni’s Special Envoy
By George Kalisa
President Paul Kagame held a positive meeting with Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, the Special Envoy of Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in the capital Kigali, said a statement from President Kagame’s Office on December29.
Amb. Ayebare carried a message to President Kagame in what appears to be fresh efforts to mend the relations between Rwanda and Uganda that started severing nearly two years ago.
“This evening at Urugwiro Village, President Kagame held a positive meeting with Ambassador Adonia Ayebare, President Museveni’s Special Envoy, who traveled to Kigali with a message regarding the two countries’ relationship.
Thank you @PaulKagame for warmly receiving me at Urugwiro village this evening where I delivered a message from @KagutaMuseveni” said Ayebare through twitter on Sunday.
Ayebare boasts of an excellent CV as a diplomat at both regional and international level.
In 2005, Ayebare was appointed the Deputy Permanent Representative and Chargé d’Affaires to Uganda’s mission at the United Nations in New York a post he held twice from 2005-2008 and 2010-2012.
Before he got the UN job, Ayebare had served as Uganda’s Ambassador and Head of Mission to Rwanda and Burundi from 2002 to 2005.
In 2009, He served as Director of the Africa Program at the “International Peace Institute”, a think tank, based in New York between 2009 and 2011.
Ayebare’s career journey started in 2001with his appointment as Uganda’s Principal Advisor and Special Envoy to the Burundi peace process, a job he held until 2008.
Before he became a diplomat, he had worked at the East the East African Business Week and the Integrated Regional Information Network (IRIN).
The processes of repairing the Rwanda-Uganda relations started the Luanda pact signed on August21 by Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame Securing a ceasefire at the border between the two countries is one of the key issues of this pact.
The two African leaders, Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame while addressing the media in Luanda had expressed the interest to intensify cooperation towards pacifying and normalising the relations between the two nations
Talks between Rwanda and Uganda by the Ad Hoc Commission on the implementation of the Luanda bilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed under the mediation of the Heads of State of Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) João Lourenço and Félix Tshisekedi reached unprecedented impasse on December14 in Uganda’s capital Kampala.
Delegations led by Rwanda’s Minister of State in charge of East African Community Affairs Olivier Nduhungirehe and Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister Sam Kutesa failed to make a compromise on the most contentious issues at the centre of the broken diplomatic relations and escalating tensions.
Rwanda categorically blames Uganda of indifference in the implementation of the Luanda MoU and the Kigali Communiqué as it continues to commit the very violations that caused the collapse of relations between the two countries even after signing the pack.
No common ground was reached on the key issues that spurred hostilities and escalation of tension between the two East African countries after eight hours of a closed-door meeting. The single option left for two sides was to refer the matter to the Heads of State Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame.
“More than 7 hours of a deep, open, frank but cordial discussion between #Uganda & #Rwanda. No agreement on a solution to the most contentious issues (Uganda’s support to armed groups & illegal detention of Rwandans in Uganda). We agreed to refer the matter to our Heads of State,” said Nduhungirehe in a tweet.