Region (MRB Oct 01 2001): UK and SA favours sought amid Uganda and Rwanda tension.

As relations between Uganda and Rwanda deteriorate Britain is seeking to bring the two presidents together next week in London to avoid a new outbreak of hostilities. Ugandan troops have fought fierce battles with soldiers from Rwanda on three occasions in the north-eastern DR Congo city of Kisangani and there are fears that more may soon follow.

Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni recently wrote to Clare Short, Britain's international cooperation minister, asking for military help to ward off feared Rwandan aggression. He has also asked the World Bank to allow for an increased military budget. However the request was refused because the bank says government spending, which increased from 9% of GDP in 1998/99 to 11.5% in 2000/01, benefited the military at the expense of other development.

Museveni is also seeking the support of South Africa, which he believes is sympathetic to the Rwandan version of events that led to the battle between Ugandan and Rwandan armies in Kisangani in 1999; the two countries subsequently established a peace commission to study the problem.

Ugandan government officials have hinted at an apparent trade-off for SA's favours, with Museveni offering the Uganda Commercial Bank to a South African bank, Stanbic, for $19.5 million - ignoring the Development Finance Company of Uganda's offer of $25m.

Dissidents on each side

Rwandan and Ugandan defence ministers met this month and agreed to ease tension, to prevent dissidents from using their territory to destabilise each other's regimes, and to allow independent observers into border areas to assess security disputes.

Museveni fears a Rwandan threat to Uganda's stability, and Rwandan President Paul Kagame alleges that Uganda is allowing the training of dissidents in Nakivale and Kyaka camps. The arrest of former Kagame bodyguard Kasangwa Masudi in the Tanzanian district of Kagera, bordering Uganda, has heightened his suspicions.