The Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) has published a report that stated that Rwanda has been wiretapping all the conversations of top Uganda officials.
OCCRP, a global investigations non-profit organisation, has issued a report on Monday that Rwanda government have been targeting Uganda ex-Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda, Foreign Affairs Minister, Sam Kutesa, and director general of External Security Organisation (ESO), Joseph Ocwet.
OCCRP stated, “The list of selected numbers [for tapping] also shows that [the Rwandan President Paul Kagame] government may have used the Pegasus to target high-ranking political and military figures in neighbouring countries.”
Rwanda has had frosty relations with those countries and with the Uganda diplomatic fall-out in 2019, relations have not improved.
According to OCCRP, the hacking occurred at the same time as the visit of Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, to Uganda back in February 21 2020 for the normalisation of relations between the 2 countries. The meeting was also attending by Angola’s Joao Laurenco, the mediator and his Democratic Republic of Congo counterpart, Felix Tshisekedi. This also happened to be President Kagame last visit to Uganda after which Rwanda closed its busiest Katuna/Gatuna border with Uganda initially over construction upgrade before Kigali cited arrest and torture of Rwandan citizens by Uganda’s security and spy agencies.
The government of Rwanda have not answered any telephone calls for an answer in the light of the revelations. It however told OCCRP that its assertions of potential targeting of activists, politicians, lawyers and others are ‘false accusations’.
