Uganda has pledged to strongly back Rwanda’s bid to join the Commonwealth come November this year. Speaking to The New Times Friday, February 23, Uganda ’s Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Hon. Rebecca Kadaga, declared that Uganda will do everything in its competence, to support Rwanda’s admission. She was in the country for the recently concluded two-day International Women Parliamentarians Conference.

“You can be assured of our total support. We will do everything possible to ensure your successful admission. We supported the admission into the EAC, then why not the Commonwealth?” a confident Kadaga said.

Uganda strongly supported Rwanda’s bid for admission into the East African Community (EAC), culminating in the admission of the latter last November.

A former Belgian colony, Rwanda severed ties with France, which played a pivotal role in the 1994 Genocide in which about one million Rwandans were killed in just one hundred days, late last year. She has already applied to join the 53-member bloc, with all indicators of eminent admission.

And President Paul Kagame was on February 16 quoted by The Times as saying that Rwanda will cement its bitter divorce from France.

Kagame, who will be attending this year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Kampala from November 23-25 as an observer, was also quoted in the same newspaper as having said that Rwanda’s admission into the Commonwealth group is a moment he is looking forward to.

“There are many benefits for us in joining the Commonwealth. I hope they will approve our membership. I am looking forward to it,” the President is quoted as having told The Times.

Formerly known as the British Commonwealth of Nations, the Commonwealth is an association of former British colonies, dependencies and other territories. It was only after India’s and Pakistan’s independence in 1947 that the Commonwealth defined its modern shape. It dropped the word ‘British’ from its name, the allegiance to the Crown from its statute, and became a receptacle for decolonized nations.

Every two years, Commonwealth leaders meet for a few days to discuss global and Commonwealth issues, and to agree collective policies and initiatives. So far Mozambique is the only country that was not a British colony that has been admitted to the Commonwealth. And in November this year, during the CHOGM conference in Kampala, Rwanda and Yemen hope to be admitted to the bloc.

Like neighbouring Burundi, Rwanda was colonised by Belgium but became so close to France after getting her independence from the European country in the 1960. Relations between Rwanda and France were severed in November last year, when French judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere accused senior Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) officials of participating in the shooting down of the aircraft carrying former president Juvenal Habyarimana in 1994.

By Eleneus Akanga
The New Times