New commission to examine border disputes

Rwanda intends to make new efforts to settle border disputes with its neighbours: Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda, that arise from colonial times, news organisations reported on Wednesday. “Rwanda has had frontier problems with Tanzania concerning a peninsula in the river Akagera which marks the border,” AFP quoted Rwanda’s Foreign Minister, Andre Bumaya, as saying during the formation of a commission to look into the claims. Bumaya also referred to frontier problems with Burundi in the Kirundo area and, recently, in the forest area of Nyungwe/Kibera. The areas at issue with Uganda are around the Virunga volcanos.

Bumaya blamed the problem on colonial powers whom he said moved border makers to Rwanda’s detriment. “Dialogue to settle the differences will be held with strict respect for the inviolability of colonial borders set out in international treaties,” he said. “With the DRC, everything will be solved under the framework of the Lusaka accords,” Bumaya said, reiterating that the commission would not be dealing with any territorial disputes with the DRC for the time being.