‘Kagame didn’t apologise to M7’

By Vision Reporter

STATE House yesterday refuted reports that President Yoweri Museveni and Paul Kagame held exclusive talks during which the Rwandan leader allegedly apologised.

Presidential Press Secretary Onapito Ekomoloit said there were no such talks and the report in Red Pepper of Monday should be ignored because “it was false, misleading and inflammatory.”

In their Monday story, Red Pepper reported that the presidents also discussed a wide range of bilateral issues.

It claimed that Kagame, among other things, apologised to Museveni over the Katuna border post incident in which Museveni’s motorcade was cut into two. It added that the men also discussed the recent arrest of Rwandan diplomat John Ngarambe for adultery.

But Onapito said the leaders held deliberately arranged meetings and so “did not have to smuggle bilateral discussions into the middle of a delicious lunch.”

Onapito disassociated State House from the story, which he said could be misunderstood as a scheme by Museveni to disgrace Kagame.

“State House disassociates itself from the contents of the story because it could be construed as a ploy by President Yoweri Museveni to demean President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, after inviting him to attend his swearing in ceremony of May 12,” Onapito said.

He said it was very wrong of Red Pepper to allege that “according to State House sources President Kagame apologised” to Museveni.

Contrary to what Red Pepper reported, Museveni and his Rwandan visitor did not have any “exclusive meeting” at State House Nakasero or any other place in Kampala, Onapito added.

The visit, he said, was specific to Museveni’s swearing-in. Kagame’s visit to Uganda was straight and open, Onapito said and gave a chronology of events until his departure.

Kagame, he said, arrived at Entebbe Airport on the morning of May 12 and joined other invited heads of state at the Sheraton Kampala Hotel where they proceeded in one vehicle to Kololo Ceremonial Grounds for the swearing-in festivities.

After the ceremony, Museveni hosted Kagame and all the other heads of states to a luncheon at the Sheraton.

The luncheon was not exclusive or bilateral, with a number of other leaders sitting with Museveni and Kagame at the same table.

Soon after the lunch, Kagame, without Museveni, just like the other leaders, left for Entebbe Airport back home.
He said when a Red Pepper reporter contacted him with information of a purported “exclusive meeting”, he told him no such meeting took place.

“Nonetheless the reporter went ahead to misquote me as having said: “They were only two and no one knows what they discussed.”

However, he pointed out that Kagame’s presence at the swearing-in ceremony of Museveni, was a manifestation of the “cordial relations between the two leaders, their governments and countries.”