Rwandan officials would neither deny nor confirm the reports

President Yoweri Museveni [Uganda], Uhuru Kenyatta [Kenya] and Paul Kagame [Rwanda] after commissioning of berth 19 within the port of Mombasa. Photo/Laban Walloga. 

Rwandan officials would neither deny nor confirm the reports. However, one who agreed to speak maintained that Bigaruka’s whereabouts were “irrelevant”, preferring instead to ask what Bigaruka was doing in Tanzania in meetings with officials of the Tanzanian government and military.

Tanzanian sources have confirmed that Bigaruka was indeed in Tanzania, with one saying he could still be there, “as a resource person for the army given his knowledge of the Kivus”. Wherever he is, however, if true, this saga would have been a factor in Kigali’s irritation at Kikwete’s advice.

Adding to Rwanda’s suspicion of Tanzania’s intentions is an interview Bernard Membe, the country’s foreign minister, gave to the Pan-African magazine, Jeune Afrique, while visiting France, way back in November 2012, when preparations to deploy the UN’s Force Intervention Brigade were already underway.

Although he spoke of the need for the FIB to be neutral, he also insisted on the imperative to recapture the territory “occupied illegally” by M23.

A Rwandan official noted: “Membe said absolutely nothing about the FDLR which for over ten years has been committing war crimes in the DRC and has been declared a terrorist organisation by the UN”.

As if to confirm that Tanzania is pre-occupied by M23 and not the FDLR, which the FIB is supposed to disarm, Assah Mwambene, the spokesman for the Tanzanian government, recently told the BBC: “we are determined to eliminate M23”.

He said nothing about what was in store for the FDLR, which Rwandan officials maintain has deployed troops within units of the DRC army with the knowledge of MONUSCO under whose auspices the Force Intervention Brigade operates.

With all this in the background, it is hardly surprising that when the Tanzanian government started expelling illegal aliens, the majority of whom are said to be Rwandans or of Rwandan origin, Kigali smelt a hidden agenda.

The Tanzanian government has emphasised, rightly so, that ejecting illegal immigrants is within the rights of any sovereign state. The timing, however, lends itself to a diversity of interpretations.

It remains to be seen whether President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda who has been asked by Tanzania to mediate will defuse the row whose causes go deeper than many have hitherto assumed.

(Frederick Golooba-Mutebi is a Kampala- and Kigali-based researcher and writer on politics and public affairs.