Kampala - The Ugandan government on Monday handed over 10 suspected rebels to Rwanda in a gesture aimed at improving ties between the feuding neighbours in Africa's volatile Great Lakes region.
"We handed over 10 members of the Rwandan People's Assembly (RPR) to the Rwandan authorities in Kabale," Uganda's military intelligence chief Leopold Kyanda told AFP.
"The action is a very good gesture," he said, speaking after handing the rebels over to officials from Rwanda's National Security Services in the border outpost of Kabale.
Kyanda said the 10 were members of the little-known RPR that has been recruiting insurgents from refugee camps in Uganda since 2004 in an apparent bid to launch a rebellion against the tiny Central African nation.
"They have been in our custody for the last two months. We trailed them until we concluded that their intentions were not good," he said.
"They were recruiting people in camps (in Uganda) and taking them to the Congo (Democratic Republic of Congo)" from where they were planning to attack Rwanda, he said.
Ties between the two impoverished neighbours have been frosty since 1998 when they fought in the DRC after deploying troops there to back rebels who ousted former dictator Mobutu Sese Seko.
In 2004, the three nations signed a tripartite agreement to halt the presence of armed groups in the DR Congo that pose a threat to all of them. - Sapa-AFP