Uganda fully backs Rwanda’s admission to the Commonwealth family, the country’s leader, Yoweri Museveni has said.

President Museveni said over the weekend that he would drum up support for Rwanda’s admission during the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) due in Kampala later this month.

Queen Elizabeth II of England and 53 Heads of State are expected to attend the meeting.

"Uganda supports the application of Rwanda to join the Commonwealth. Rwanda is effectively bilingual; they use English (and French),” Museveni told a news conference in Kampala on Saturday.

Rwanda was also this year admitted into the five-member state East African Community (EAC) bloc.

Rwanda’s admission is expected to be determined at this year’s Chogm in Kampala.

Museveni explained that Rwanda’s adoption of English resulted from the long stay in exile of many Rwandans.
He added that that historical experience could have influenced their decision to join the Commonwealth organisation.

Millions of Rwandans went into exile since 1950s escaping from harassment subjected onto them by the then regimes of extremist Hutus.

Museveni’s position to back Rwanda’s application comes just three weeks before the Commonwealth Business Forum, which President Paul Kagame is expected to attend.
The forum is one of the meetings prior to the Chogm, to which Kagame has been invited as well by Museveni.

"There is no reason Rwanda should not be admitted. So, I fully support its admission,” Museveni said.

He clarified that Rwanda’s admission to the Commonwealth would be decided on by the meeting.

The Commonwealth member states benefit from the organisation’s values which include democracy, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary, fundamental human rights – equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of race, colour and political belief.

Meanwhile, Museveni told journalists that during his meeting with US President George Bush last week, the insecurity in eastern DR Congo emerged as a contentious issue. "We discussed a lot about the insecurity in eastern Congo, Somalia and Sudan,” he said, without elaborating.

However, he said the implementation of the Lusaka Agreement would provide positive solutions to the growing volatile situation in the vast central African country.

Several rebel groups fighting Rwandan and Ugandan governments are using eastern DRC as their frontline.

Rwanda has repeatedly warned that the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and remnants of former president Juvenal Habyarimana forces, allegedly armed by Kinshasa, pose a security threat to the country and the entire region.

Museveni urged the DRC to refrain from hosting its neighbours’ rebels, which is one of the provisions contained in the Lusaka Agreement.

That other part (expulsion of rebel groups operating in eastern Congo) must be dealt with, Museveni warned.

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