East African Community is in Good Health: President Kagame

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame has said that the East African Community (EAC) which he currently chairs ‘is in good health’ despite ongoing sour relations between Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi. On Monday, Kagame met members of local and international media at a press conference held as part of 25th commemoration of the genocide against the Tutsi. Journalists engaged the President on several issues involving Rwanda’s relations with neighbours in the region, France and South Africa as well as suspected militias planning to attack the country, among others. A journalist asked the President whether the absence of regional leaders (EAC) at the 25th commemoration on Sunday, April 7, signaled that the block is undergoing sour relations. In response, Kagame said: “The EAC is in good health, irrespective of whatever aspects. Even if all heads of state of EAC would have been here as you and I would have wished, still there would be problems to address. It wouldn’t be a solution. EAC countries… some of them were represented,” Kagame said in reflection to presence of Tanzania Prime Minister and Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister at the commemoration ceremony. Last month, President Kagame accused Uganda of land locking Rwanda. “I am sure some of the traders affected are in this room. We had containers leaving Kigali going to Mombasa (Kenya). You have to go through Uganda going to Mombasa. Actually the irony here is that both of us are landlocked. But for us we face double the problem of being landlocked because Uganda land locks us,” Kagame told over 2000 business leaders during Africa CEOs forum in Kigali on March 25.