Rwanda Government has finally relented to the pressure mounted by her own desperate people to open the Katuna (Gatuna) border post after persevering to almost four months of hunger and collapsed cross-border trade.
Rwanda abruptly closed the border post on February 28, 2019.
In a disguised statement dated 7 June 2019 and signed by Pascal Bizimana Ruganintwali, the commissioner General of Rwanda Revenue Authority, Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA) requested “to carry out trials for heavy vehicle movement at Gatuna border to assess the success of the constructed works”.
However, a political pundit on Cross-
Border studies who prefers anonymity but is closely following Rwanda’s egoistic debacles has poked holes in Rwanda’s new resolve.
He argues that Rwanda’s “childish play games have come back to haunt her”.
“The hunter has now become the hunted. Rwanda has instead become the villain in her own movie. Kagame will end up giving in to the pressure of his own people who have given him ultimatums to re open the border because they are dying of hunger. Kagame knows very well that a hungry people is a threat to his stay”, he adds.
He further observed that the temporal opening of the border is a disguise to enable Rwandans access food items from Uganda since Rwandans have never been able to engage in food productivity due to poor and laxed domestic policies hence they entirely depend on Uganda for survival.
Rwanda’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Richard Sezibera in February claimed that “the rise in tension at the border is the climax of two years of fruitless discussions with Uganda over issues that concern Kigali.”