Lusaka agreement “only unifying factor”

Meanwhile, in choosing to go to the Victoria Falls summit in Zimbabwe last month instead of attending Kagame’s inauguration as president, Museveni “was perceived as showing his preference for a regional approach” to the DRC crisis, which officially distanced him from Rwanda’s “more unilateral approach,” the ICG report said. Rwanda’s recent internal crisis had been exploited by Ugandan officials “who assess the RPF’s political strategy since 1994 as a failure.” Over the past few years, Museveni had been “trying to advise the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) to broaden its base and to include more Hutus in government,” the report stated.

The tension had now reached a point where both regimes suspected the other of training its enemies, it said, adding that it was crucial to heal the rift to avoid further conflict between the two countries. The effective implementation of the Lusaka peace agreement on the DRC, which may now be the “only unifying factor” between the two countries, would help defuse the tensions. [The full report is available at http://www.crisisweb.org]