Your source for credible news Issue no 005
August, 2020
Pastor that lost everything due to
persecution in Uganda cries for justice
NEWS
Family of Rwandan murdered in Kisoro calls for justice Page 4
OP - ED
Ugandan Military Intelligence starts anti-Rwanda recruitment drive in refugee camps Page 7
REGIONAL Innocent Ugandans dumped at Kagitumba border, after spending years in CMI dungeon enduring torture. James Makombe is one of them.
45-year-old James Makombe is a Ugandan of Rwandan descent, and that led him to being victimized in Uganda. He is one of the many victims of the Ugandan regime’s hostile stance against Rwanda, and Rwandan nationals. Page 2
“Pastor” Deo Nyirigira, back in the news ‘for all the wrong reasons’ – works with new terrorist group
Rather than incite others to violence, why can’t Kambanda himself go to the jungles, hold a gun?
Deo Nyirigira can’t seem to be out of the news, except that for this alleged “man of God” it is always for the wrong reasons. No longer serving his long time boss in RNC Kayumba Nyamwasa, he is recruiting for a new terror network, the Rwanda Alliance for Change (RAC) Page 5
The man known as “the professor of hate”, US-based Charles Kambanda, was earlier this week, on Tuesday, inciting violence after he called upon “Rwandan refugees” to take up arms to overthrow the RPF leadership. Page 6
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Covid-19 pushes Uganda’s Health Sector to brink of collapse, Kampala sources.
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CARTOON
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Pastor that lost everything due to persecution in Uganda cries for justice “I was so surprised. Some men came to my house and just grabbed me and took me to Mbuya. I was later told I was being accused of espionage, something that as a man of God I knew completely nothing about!” narrates Makombe, adding that some of the men “spoke Kinyarwanda fluently.” Agents of RNC, such as one Kayumba Rugema, a Rwandan citizen that also is a deserter from the RDF in which he was a corporal, have been seen working with CMI, abducting innocent Rwandans and torturing them in the Mbuya dungeons. While in detention, Makombe said, he and a number of other Rwandans “suffered some serious beatings, so much that some appeared to be losing their mind because of the pain.” The torture also included electrocution, being immersed in ice water, and being starved whereby they ate only once a day, “always smelly posho and watery beans.”
Innocent Ugandans dumped at Kagitumba border, after spending years in CMI dungeon enduring torture. James Makombe is one of them.
By Mary Cyusa 45-year-old James Makombe is a Ugandan of Rwandan descent, and that led him to being victimized in Uganda. He is one of the many victims of the Ugandan regime’s hostile stance against Rwanda, and Rwandan nationals. Makombe says nothing short of God saved him after the torture that members of Ugandan security forces inflicted on him back in Uganda. “Having gone through that I don’t know how much I can thank the Government of Rwanda for the welcome it gave me!” says the humble-sounding man who currently resides in Nyagatare District.
Makombe had lived in Uganda all his life. He was born to Jean Kamigindi and Therese Mukagatare, and practically was a citizen of Uganda, having never set foot in Rwanda. His story is the story of so many Ugandans that have Rwandan roots who in the recent years have been caught up in the Ugandan regime’s anti-Rwanda stance that has indiscriminately targetted innocent people for no other reason than that they are Rwandans, or Ugandans of Rwandan ancestry.
and Prophets Church in Uganda.
As a young man Makombe earned a degree in theology, from Global University Uganda, after which he became a pastor. Before Ugandan forces targetted him for harassment and torture, he was a pastor of the Apostles
It is one of the favorite concocted accusations of CMI against Rwandans or people of Rwandan ethnicity, and it is an accusation that, according to past victims of torture by CMI, almost a death sentence.
According to his friends, Makombe was a happy man, known for his integrity and passion for serving God. But then all his life’s work was suddenly snatched from him when on 17 March, 2020 he was arbitrarily arrested, and illegally detained incommunicado by agents of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) at its headquarters of Mbuya Military Barracks. The accusation was “espionage.”
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After four months of such suffering, Makombe and others were suddenly released, and deported on 7 July this year alongside 11 others who were dumped at the Kagitumba Border Post. “I could not believe I was out of the Mbuya hell!” he exclaims, saying at one time he was certain he would die. “Now I have learnt of the fight our government put up to have us, and many other Rwandans released. Without that fight we would surely be dead!” In Rwanda he and his fellow former detainees were immediately taken to hospital and treated for their injuries, “although some will be permanent,” he says. He laments how he lost his life’s work in Uganda, where lawfully he was a citizen. “I lost my house, my job, and my car. Everything I worked hard for, I lost. I hope to find justice one day,” he says, almost on the verge of tears.
Issue no 005 August 2020
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For RFI and HRW, lives of Rwandans don’t matter as long as they humiliate their government By The New Times On August 5, 2020, Radio France Internationale (RFI) published an article on the decision taken by the Rwandan government to hold at stadiums those caught violating guidelines that were put in place to contain the spread of the coronavirus. In the article, journalist Laure Brulard, dismisses the measure as consisting “lectures” and describes them as “drastic.” Brulard also cites Human Rights Watch’s “concerns” about what the organisation describes as “detentions without due process or legal authority.” One, it is surprising that RFI and HRW believe they, not the government of Rwanda, have the primary duty to protect Rwandans. In fact, because the government has a responsibility to protect its citizens, it has been transparent in reporting about Covid-19. It is therefore surprising that neither the journalist nor the “human rights” organisation noted the transparency exhibited so far by the Rwandan government, which published figures related to people that were held at stadiums. The World Health Organisation has praised Rwanda’s management of Covid-19, citing transparency as being a major reason the country is among the few worldwide that have prevented large-scale coronavirus outbreaks.
Interestingly, none of the witnesses cited by the article claimed to have been targeted by the measure unfairly. They all admitted to having contravened the anti-Covid19 regulations that have allowed the country to, more or less, return to normal life. In fact, some of the people who were interviewed for the article even pointed out that they would rather go to the stadium for “lectures” than pay astronomical fines as is done in Europe. In other words, the anti-Covid19 measures in Europe are “drastic.” But then, if the government does not hide its actions and Rwandan citizens do not complain of being unfairly accused but find the measure adequate, what is it that drives RFI and HRW to raise an unjustified controversy? More so, when they have not raised concern regarding anti-Covid-19 measures in Europe where the WHO hasn’t expressed similar confidence as it has for Rwanda’s handling of the pandemic. RFI’s journalist Laure Brulard thinks the measure is drastic because offenders sometimes spend up to 6 hours in stadiums without food or water.
According to her reasoning, the government should direct part of the state’s resources to give ‘cookies’ and an ‘escort car home’ to adults who knowingly violate preventive measures and endanger the lives of their fellow citizens, someone commented on social media. Laure Brulard should lead this human rights campaign, but she should start in Europe which has more resources and has faced a worse covid-19 situation than Rwanda. Human Rights Watch is even more astonishing. Instead of applauding the ingenuity of a homegrown solution that allows the government to protect its population while respecting social distancing measures for violators, the organization wants to see an administrative measure to be included in the penal code because, otherwise, it is “detention without due process.” Such a move would criminalize incivility and reclassify the contravention as an offense that would be registered in the criminal records for people caught drinking in bars, praying in groups in their houses or playing football. It seems HRW doesn’t think the current measures are strong enough because HRW is advocating for more stringent punish-
“Rwanda’s progress is due to a similar combination (as New Zealand) of strong leadership, universal health coverage, well-supported health workers and clear public health communications,” said the World Health Organisation Director-General Tedros Adhanom. Human Rights Watch and RFI should be exposing to the world the countries that have failed the transparency test of the World Health Organisation.
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ment that would remain part of the permanent record of the offender. What kind of human rights organisation ignores the end goal of protecting the public, violators included, but wants a more drastic approach in policing? More than once, communiques issued by the Rwandan national police indicated that offenders were referred to local and health authorities for further explanations on COVID-19 prevention guidelines, the so-called “lectures.” Would HRW and RFI prefer them charged and prosecuted in compliance with due process standard rather than spend a few hours at the stadium? Evidently, the Rwandan government’s approach is innovative and aims to educate and sensitize Rwandans rather than criminalize irresponsible behavior. After months of lockdowns, Rwandans, with few exceptions, understand that the sacrifices made have not been in vain. It seems the end goal of HRW (and RFI) is to humiliate the government of Rwanda. But they haven’t thought this one through clearly.
Issue no 005 August 2020
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Family of Rwandan murdered in Kisoro calls for justice
The casket bearing the remains of Ivan Mukiza an innocent Rwandan national murdured in Kisoro, Uganda.
By Patience Kirabo The family of Ivan Mukiza, a 23-year old Rwandan national that was murdered in Uganda last Thursday, says the Uganda Government should be called to account for their son’s murder. Mukiza was reportedly murdered by one Edson Kazungu in Kisoro, who then fled the crime scene leaving the victim’s lifeless body on the ground. Kisoro Police later reported that the young man was hit with a hammer on the head, resulting in his death. The deceased, who hailed from Mukamira in Nyabihu District, had been peacefully living and working in Kisoro for years until Kazungu murdered him following what is termed “a misunderstanding.” The body was handed over to Rwandan authorities at the Cyanika Border Post by Ugandan local authorities the following day, Friday.
According to those that knew him, Mukiza was “a decent young man that had lived peacefully ever since he moved to Uganda.” But in the ongoing anti-Rwanda hostile environment fostered by the Ugandan regime few Rwandans are safe any more, Rwandan border authorities have remarked. “Obviously the fellow that killed Mukiza had an agenda, and he knew he would not be held accountable. ” Upon receiving Mukiza’s body, the government of Rwanda requested an update on the investigation of his death, and his murderer. However, since then nothing has been communicated, either to his family or to the Rwanda government. This has led the family to question the circumstances of their son’s death as not much information has been given by the Uganda government, “which shows no sign of investigating the culprit
though he is well known,” they bitterly remark. “Our young boy was murdered in cold blood and no one cared to find out how and why he was killed?” asked an uncle to the deceased. “Mukiza being a Rwandan, his murder clearly was planned!” A trend has long emerged whereby Rwandans in many areas in Uganda are being victimized just because of who they are. In the same week that Mukiza lost his life, another Rwandan national, one Emmanuel Baragahoranye, was also killed. The unknown assailants dumped Baragahoranye’s body in a potato field. Just like with Mukiza’s case, the Ugandan authorities are yet to investigate his death. In recent years Rwandan nationals travelling to Uganda, or living there have suffered harassment
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and persecution at the hands of security agencies, so much so that arbitrary arrests or abductions on concocted charges became routine. Accusations of “espionage”, “illegal weapons possession,” “kidnap”, and others for which they never afford the victims a chance to defend themselves against have been common. Almost invariably they are followed by illegal detention, incommunicado, with no right to consular visits. Hundreds of innocent Rwandans have suffered torture, and every imaginable abuse of their rights at the hands of Ugandan security agencies. Though some have been lucky to be released from prisons and dungeons, deaths resulting from the abuses and injustices inflicted by operatives of Ugandan security services against Rwandans have been many.
Issue no 005 August 2020
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“Pastor” Deo Nyirigira, back in the news ‘for all the wrong reasons’ – works with new terrorist group By Robert Rutoma Deo Nyirigira can’t seem to be out of the news, except that for this alleged “man of God” it is always for the wrong reasons. When news broke that Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) had arrested 32 members of a group that was mobilizing and recruiting for a new anti-Rwanda terror network, it came as little surprise to many local observers; especially those that have long become accustomed to the dubious character of the Ugandan leadership. It would soon emerge that the 32 were members of a new group that the notorious Mbarara-based “Pastor” Deo Nyiligira is working with. (When CMI found out the 32 were working with Nyirigira and Sam Ruvuma, a cousin of Museveni’s, in a new anti-Rwanda terror outfit, plans were made to bring very light charges against them, of “violating Covid-19 guidelines). Nyirigira is no longer serving his long time boss in RNC Kayumba Nyamwasa. Instead, he is recruiting for a new terror network, the Rwanda Alliance for Change (RAC) led by Jean-Paul Turayishimye, the former “head of intelligence” of RNC (and also a former escort of Nyamwasa whom he is now fighting). Nyirigira, who for long has been the bane of innocent Rwandans in the western region of Uganda – many whom he has betrayed to CMI on a variety of concocted charges – and others have turned their back on Nyamwasa. “It is a clash of greedy, self-serving characters really, and Nyirigira has always been one of the greediest, most self-serving of all,” said a close observer of RNC. “It is known that Nyirigira is now accusing Nyamwasa of having ‘lured his daughter Jackie into RNC activities without informing him; but who is Nyirigira really fooling? He knew all the time that she was involved in terrorism, but did nothing to stop her. Why wait when she is arrested to try to pretend ‘she was lured!’”
That is Nyirigira, a long-time liar, but it is the same with all these RNC characters!, our source remarked. “Whether some of them have formed a new group, RAC, the outcome will be the same – chaos, betrayal, greed, disorganization!” But Nyirigira is very calculative, and always has been. “One can’t be surprised if he and Turayishimye are now directly targeting Museveni’s favors – most especially as it seems clear Museveni has no problem with RAC, but rather trying to find ways ‘to reconcile them with Nyamwasa’.” Nyirigira has always been a man of big, greed-fueled ambitions combined with a very unscrupulous, “even criminal dispositions”, as was shown for instance when he ran away to Uganda after embezzling millions of francs from adherents of his AGAPE Church in Rwanda in 2000. Before then, in the 90s, Nyirigira had harbored “very big expectations of what he would get out of Rwanda,” a former acquaintance of his told Virunga Post. Except that his expectations were “over-exaggerated” and not in tandem with his meager contribution to the RPF struggle, which in fact had been characterized by dishonesty and lack of integrity. While the RPF struggle was
mostly about sacrifice for the cause, with some Rwandans paying the ultimate price, Deo Nyiligira was preoccupied with self-preservation. He for instance one time out-rightly rebelled when asked to undertake missions that he deemed “too risky”. He instead requested to manage financial resources. It turned out his intentions were to steal even the contributed by patriotic-minded Rwandans to keep the struggle buoyant. In other words, while other cadres put their lives on the line, Nyiligira was busy stealing from the cause, to the extent he even stole goats that Rwandans in villages were contributing to the struggle! But when liberation was achieved the shameless Nyirigira did not only expect a place at the High Table, he literally demanded to be accorded preferential treatment. However, in the process of building a transformative establishment, the RPF had to undertake meticulous evaluations and assessments of its cadres. As it emerged, Deo Nyiligira lacked the minimum threshold of integrity and competence to be part of the new leadership at the highest level, as he demanded. His transgressions were well-known, but the RPF leadership wasn’t
intent on pursuing past petty crimes. It was pre-occupied with much weightier issues. But it wasn’t ready to bring a known crook into high leadership. That is when Nyirigira decided to anoint himself a ‘pastor’ and venture into church business. There with his predilections for a high life of luxuries, his habit of embezzlement would resurrect. He “ate” members’ money, and members became increasingly unhappy. When the centre could no longer hold after tumultuous episodes in the Nyamirambo-based church, Nyirigira fled to Mbarara, Uganda. There had been deafening cries of “enough is enough” as church members were demanding accountability, banks were knocking to collect overdue loans, while others were calling for the intervention of law enforcement. Nyirigira calculated well in one thing, however: that subversive activities against Rwanda would always be welcome by the Museveni regime. “Welcome of course, but no plots to destabilize Rwanda will ever succeed; so let Nyirigira go on deceiving his Uganda regime hosts, and ‘eating’ their money,” smiled a reader in Kigali.
Deo Nyirigira has closed ranks with Nyamwasa’s former escort Jean Paul Turayishimye in the new armchair terrorist group RAC.
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Issue no 005 August 2020
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Rather than incite others to violence, why can’t “Professor of Hate” Kambanda himself go to the jungles, hold a gun? commentators ask By John Karera The man known as “the professor of hate”, US-based Charles Kambanda, was earlier this week, on Tuesday, inciting violence after he called upon “Rwandan refugees” to take up arms to overthrow the RPF leadership. Kambanda did this during an interview on one of the many YouTube-based terrorist media outlets, RTV Ubwiyunge Radio & Television, run by one of the overseas anti-Rwanda armchair terrorist groups: CNRD-Ubwiyunge. Kambanda, who claims to be a “researcher and human rights defender” though he has long been exposed as a genocide revisionist and denier – whom an a well-researched article of the First this month on the blackstarnews.com website has compared to notorious deniers of the
Jewish Holocaust – and his online media hosts have been disseminating messages of genocide ideology for a long time. In the interview Kambanda says: “’Rwandans in exile, take up arms and overthrow the RPF! Let no one ask me again what the law says about that. It is a human right. There is no other choice but to stand up and fight. If anyone asks, say Kambanda told you to take up arms!” said the agitated sounding man, who has invariably been described as a hate monger. “However it is very easy for these dishonest demagogues to incite others to violence when they themselves sit comfortably in the West,” commentators on Facebook said. They wonder why if Kambanda, who teaches at St. Johns University in New York State, is so committed to violence, he himself does not
come to the jungles of Congo, join FDLR and take up a gun. “Then he would show us how brave he is!” commentators observe. Read:Battle royal in anti-Rwanda rebel coalitions: “You don’t own us” FLN rebel blasts both Twagiramungu and Rusesabagina But this “professor of hate” is very happy to mislead the children of others to take up arms for criminal causes, who then perish in military routs, the facts show. It is the same thing the South Africa-based Nyamwasa has been doing, “but when RNC was annihilated mid last year in DRC, did anyone hear Nyamwasa even offer a word of condolence to even one of the parents of the hundreds of RNC rebels that were killed? Did anyone hear from Kambanda?!,” people ask. “Imagine how such an old man
with such ideas pollutes young minds with his poison,” said an observer that followed the interview. It is worth reminding our readers that Prof. Charles Kambanda, now teaching in the United States, after he was dismissed from the National University of Rwanda, for gross misconduct, where he was infamous for “trading grades for sex.” In the US, “he must have seriously misled his current employers, St. Johns University; otherwise, the ethically-challenged man would never find employment,” said a former colleague at NUR. The CNRD-Ubwiyunge YouTube channel is part of the larger MRCD-Ubumwe outfit of Faustin Twagiramungu and Paul Rusesabagina, individuals that have spent years in Europe opportunistically posing as “Rwandan opposition leaders.”
“Professor of hate” Kambanda incites children of others to violence. Many wonder why, if he loves it so much, he doesn’t head to the jungles of eastern Congo, pick a gun, and try violence himself.
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Issue no 005 August 2020
OP-ED
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CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Rutabana’s sister blasts Nyamwasa over statements about her brother’s disappearance
Ugandan Military Intelligence starts anti-Rwanda recruitment drive in refugee camps By Alex Muhumuza
refugees camps where Kinyarwanda speakers are to be found.
News reaching our desk is that Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) has deployed agents in all refugee camps in Uganda where there are Kinyarwanda-speaking refugees, and they are recruiting them to join anti-Rwanda rebel groups. The Ugandan regime has long been exposed as working with Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC, as well as other anti-Rwanda terror groups like FDLR and RUD-Urunana – the latter two both offshoots of the ex-FAR, and Interahamwe militias, the main perpetrators of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
It has come to light that in these camps, CMI is luring any refugee it can persuade, but most specifically it’s agents are seeking out those individuals that ever were in security forces in Rwanda before they left for some reason or other – including even others that were in FDLR. Reports indicate that the camps where these recruitment activities – “which gravely run counter to both the letter and spirit of the Luanda MoU”, as an analyst puts it – include: Nakivale, Kyaka2, Kyangwari, Kiryandongo, Rhino Camp, Rwamwanja, and Oruchinga refugee settlement camps.
The latest we have is that a year after RNC and other illegal armed Rwandan groups in eastern DRC were militarily annihilated – with several of their top commanders killed, hundred of their fighters taken out of action and driven out of their bases – the Ugandan regime is bent on helping the terror outfits rebuild. That plan seems to be centered around recruiting from Ugandan
Indicating that the recruitment drive in the camps is part of a newly accelerated anti-Rwanda effort by the Ugandan regime, reports are surfacing that CMI has set up a cadreship training school for the Rwanda National Congress, RNC. “All this indicates that Kampala, instead of looking for peace, is completely unchanged in its hostile stance,” an official in Kigali remarked.
The Ugandan ruling establishment’s activities fly in the face of their very commitments, notably the articles of the Luanda Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), on which Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni upended his signature – together with his Rwandan counterpart – on 21 August 2019. “The parties (Uganda and Rwanda) undertake to refrain from actions conducive to destabilization or subversion in the territory of the other party and neighboring countries, thereby eliminating all factors that may create such perception,” the MoU says in part. “The recruitment that CMI is conducting in the camps is just another example that to Museveni, agreements are just pieces of paper,” said the Kigali official, who requested not to be named. “CMI’s acts in the camps clearly are conducive to destabilization, or subversion against Rwanda, in clear violation of all efforts, such as Angola’s, to bring back normal relations.”
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Seasoned observers of the Ugandan regime’s subversive acts against Rwanda have seen it all by now, our source added. Down the years, Uganda has been caught red-handed as a recruitment, and transit territory for Nyamwasa’s rebels when the latter still had training camps in Minembwe, eastern Congo. Also CMI has long been exposed as working hand in hand with RNC agents in the abductions and torture of hundreds of Rwandan nationals – to forcefully recruit them into RNC as fighters, or contributors of funds. On more than one occasion Kampala has been exposed as providing official, even diplomatic passports to senior members of RNC, FDLR and other anti-Rwanda terrorist groups. “These, and so many other acts of subversion against Kigali, are why there is nothing surprising about latest revelations of what CMI is up to in the refugee camps,” an expert on security matters commented.
Issue no 005 August 2020
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Kampala claims it has arrested Ugandan security officers for ‘spying for Rwanda’, but as usual it backs its allegations with nothing
Some of the members of Ugandan security organizations arrested by CMI allegedly for “spying for Rwanda”. As usual, the Uganda regime only engages in smears since its words backed by nothing.
By Alex Muhumuza In what obviously was a coordinated media campaign, Kampala-based print and online media yesterday, Tuesday 11, ran a sensationalist story alleging that seven members of Ugandan security organs had been remanded for “spying for Rwanda.” From mainstream media establishments such as The New Vision, Daily Monitor, Observer, and others, to propaganda websites like Commandonepost and Spyreports known to be on the payroll of Ugandan Military Intelligence (CMI), they ran the story that the accused were “sharing sensitive information with Rwandan Government agents.” This followed charges against the seven by Ugandan military prosecutors. The media organs reported that CMI arrested the group – among whom “the principle suspects” 2nd Lt. Phillip Ankunda, a pilot attached to Special Forces Command, and 2nd Lt. Alex Kasamula, an officer of the UPDF regular forces – in May, this year. Others arrested were reported to be Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Benon Akandwanaho, ASP Frank Sabiiti, Pte. Samuel Ndwaine, Pte. Moses Asiimwe Makobore, and Pte. Godfrey Mugabi – the last three reported to be attached to the Airforce Wing at Nakasongola as, “students of flight engineering (sic) and aircraft maintenance.” According to Military Prosecution, “between February and May 2020, while at various places in Kampala District, Ankunda, Kasamula, Sabiiti, Akandwanaho, Ndwaine, Asiimwe, Mugabi and others at large shared sensi-
tive information with agents of Rwandan authorities with intent to prejudice the security of the defense forces.” Reading through the articles on the different websites it does not take long to spot the anti-Rwanda scapegoating games. The first question practically jumps off the text: who are these “Rwandan authorities” that the suspects allegedly gave sensitive information to? Observers note that if a country is going to level a charge against another, on a matter as grave as undermining its security, it has to substantiate its allegations. It has to show some proof, and not mere assertions that can be concocted by any shyster prosecutor. Moreover, said a Rwandan government official that requested to speak off the record, Ugandan authorities cannot fob off questions about why they’ve failed to name a single Rwandan of those they allege to have received “sensitive information” with claims that ‘investigations are still ongoing!’ “In such a case they should then wait until they had evidence to present in court before making any claims. But with no evidence the only thing they have done is mudsling Rwanda,” the official added. Also it will be remarked that if the Ugandan authorities – note that CMI says it arrested the seven suspects in May – really had anything to prove wrongdoing by Rwanda, they would have produced it. Kampala has a good example when it comes to a country proving wrongdoing by another.
Rwanda itself. Kigali has on numerous occasions explicitly accused Uganda of engaging in activities or plots to destabilize its security, and it always does so with irrefutable evidence. Kigali does not issue vaguely worded accusations that would only amount to slanders if backed with no evidence. Take the evidence Rwanda presented in December last year to prove that Ugandan authorities coordinated a terrorist attack – by militias of the RUD-Urunana group – in Kinigi in October last year. When the terrorists struck, killing 14 civilians and injuring many others, shortly after which Rwandan security forces swung into action, killing 19 of the terrorists and capturing five alive, the four that managed to escape fled to Uganda. Two months later in December, during the second meeting of the Ad-Hoc Commission on Implementation of the Luanda MoU, the head of the Rwandan delegation (former State Minister in Charge of the EAC Olivier Nduhungirehe) revealed that after the Kinigi attack, an assortment of material evidence, including phone handsets and testimonies of the captured terrorists, was collected. “One Ugandan telephone number appeared to have been in contact with the attackers both before and during the attack. This number has been found to belong to the Hon. Philemon Mateke, Uganda’s Minister for Regional Cooperation,” Nduhungirehe said. A Ugandan minister had coordinated a terrorist attack in Rwanda, and Kigali was telling that to the world, including naming that minister, who couldn’t have acted without the authorization of his boss. “But CMI claims to have ‘intercepted members of Ugandan security forces allegedly passing sensitive information to Rwandans’, yet they, and the military prosecutors are not naming those Rwandans? Why?,” wondered a Kigali-based writer on security issues.
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The answer is only one, he observed. This is yet another concocted accusation of Kampala’s against Rwanda. There is a lot of prior behavior by CMI to illustrate Kampala’s agenda of propaganda, usually executed with gratuitous violence, against Rwanda and her citizens. Operatives of the dreaded intelligence organ on numerous occasions have abducted, and paraded Rwandan nationals to the media with allegations of “spying”, “kidnap” and other charges. In August 2017 when agents of CMI abducted a Rwandan, Rene Rutagungira, from a bar in the Bakuli neighborhood of Kampala, they wasted no time issuing claims (which they never presented with evidence, and never proved) that he was “a spy for Rwanda”; an accusation that soon changed to “kidnapping.” This only is one of countless examples of Rwandans victimized in such a way. Also here have been numerous infamous examples in the recent past when websites or social media accounts on the CMI payroll – like the aforementioned Commandonepost, SpyReports or individual Facebook accounts such one Titus Seruga – have rushed to name Rwanda every time an extra-judicial assassination (each ordered by Museveni, as it turns out) has claimed the life of a prominent Ugandan. When former Uganda Police Spokesperson AIGP Andrew Kaweesi was assassinated in 2017, Kampala propaganda outlets and social media accounts were blaming Rwanda, even in the face of behavior such as Uganda government security operatives removing video from CCTV cameras that had filmed the crime from a nearby supermarket – near the deceased’s home in Kulambiro. The same thing happened when former Arua MP Ibrahim Abiriga was shot dead next to his home in Kampala. Or when former Buyende DPC Muhammad Kirumira met the same fate. In other instances such as the numerous continue to page 9 >>
Issue no 005 August 2020
>> from page 8 killings of Muslim clerics, all crimes of the Ugandan regime, CMI propagandists have reliably deflected blame upon Rwanda. Yet this same regime, so capable of concocting such things, now will not say who the mysterious “Rwandan authorities” are that they allege took sensitive secrets from members of Ugandan security forces? “The fakeness of it stinks, to the
high heavens,” laughed the security expert whose views were solicited for this article. It also reeks of desperation. Even after the Ugandan leadership signed the Luanda MoU – which among other things obliges it to stop working with negative elements bent on destabilizing Rwanda – Kampala has been exposed as stepping up those activities instead. In the wake of this, a pattern has emerged whereby Ugandan authorities issue denials when caught red
handed. Only to be shown to be lying, again, and again. Most recently it has come to light that Museveni earlier this year scolded Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC and all its agents for “not working clandestinely enough”, and as a result getting exposed. It then transpired that the Ugandan ruler blamed “this tendency” (or the fact that RNC is breaking up into rival factions) on what he calls “ideological immaturity.”
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instructed CMI “to conduct cadreship courses for RNC – together with members of RAC, the breakaway RNC faction.” But when such things are exposed in the media, as they were a few days ago, it drives the Kampala regime mad, with anger and embarrassment, and “the default reaction is to manufacture stories about Rwanda,” a source said, adding: “that is what the allegations about those seven fellows is about.”
Subsequently Museveni has
Can’t Museveni live without proxies that destabilize his neighbours? before establishing themselves in eastern DRC. In 2001, Winnie Byanyima openly challenged president Museveni as to why he had resorted to working with such evil human beings: “Uganda is training Rwanda Interahamwe killers,” Byanyima said, before repeating that, “President Museveni was training Interahamwe genocidaires against the government of Paul Kagame.” Ugandan President Museveni has been a common denominator in the destabilisation of the Great Lakes region through proxy groups.
By Jackson Mutabazi President Yoweri K. Museveni has been rumoured to suffer from prostate cancer. However, Museveni has himself been a cancer for the entire region from South Sudan, Burundi, Rwanda, and the DRC. In all these countries, he has violent proxies he sponsors, abets or supports. He is a major cause for the underdevelopment of the region because, rather than focus entirely on their development, countries’ attention and resources are diverted towards containing his proxies. Why is a stable and prosperous region a threat to Museveni? Museveni’s most known proxies are those that seek to destabize Rwanda, mainly of Kayumba Nyamwasa’s Rwanda National Congress (RNC) and Victoire Ingabire’s RUD-Urunana. However, these are only the most recent. Museveni has sponsored the FDLR – comprising mostly of defeated ex-FAR and Habyarimana’s Interahamwe militia both of which spearheaded the genocide of Rwanda’s Tutsi in 1994
Shortly after, in 2005, it was revealed that the then head of FDLR, Ignace Murwanyashaka, was traveling on a Ugandan passport. As he intensified his RNC support, Museveni appointed Minister Philemon Mateke to also enhance links with FDLR and to introduce it to other groups such as the RNC to work together in their shared plan to destabilise Rwanda. Prior to that, in the late 1990s, Museveni had supported Seth Sendashonga with whom he had developed links while the latter was Minister of Internal Security before fleeing the country with Museveni’s help to set up a rebellion against the government he had just been serving. Museveni has also supported Deo Mushaidi (who was eventually apprehended, tried, condemned and is now serving his sentence for terrorism in Rwanda) as yet another proxy. Just last year most of the RNC fighters captured in the DRC and repatriated to Rwanda as well as and RUD Urunana (the armed wing of Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza’s FDU-Inkingi) assailants who were captured after the attack on the night of 3-4 October on Kinin-
gi in northern Rwanda confirmed they were recruited in Uganda, that they have relatives there and that their attack was aided by Uganda, with Minister Philemon Mateke in particular in close contact with the leaders of the attack. In South Sudan, Museveni has been at the centre of the controversy involving the death of Dr John Garang. Some have suggested that fearing a strong South Sudan with a leader he couldn’t control made Museveni determine Garang had to be eliminated. Museveni’s own advisor, Andrew Mwenda, was jailed for saying he had proof of Museveni’s role in Garang’s demise. It is also well known that during the war that broke out in South Sudan Museveni was supporting both sides, manipulating them to extort advantages until the next episode. In Burundi, Museveni has divided the top leadership in that country by dictating to them how they should relate with other countries. After fanning hatred for Rwanda in Nkurunziza, Museveni’s propaganda media has, under his instructions, been fuelling the hardliners with rhetoric meant to pressure the new president against improving relations with Rwanda. In the DRC, Museveni has since the late 1990s supported different proxies that help to facilitate a looting corridor of timber in Ituri, gold and other natural resources. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling confirmed the exis-
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tence of this corridor and the direct benefit for Museveni’s close family from the minerals and timber looted in the DRC. The court ruled in favour of the DRC and ordered Uganda to compensate it with $10bn which it is yet to pay even as the same thieves around Museveni continue the looting unabated. But it is not only the looting that drives Museveni’s mischief around the region. Having run Uganda into a development cul-de-sac as a result of corruption and the sheer incompetency of his relatives and fellow tribesmen he has packed into key positions on nepotistic grounds, Museveni cannot afford to let his neighbours’ own development outshine his. He fears the comparisons Ugandans constantly make with his own catastrophic management of Uganda’s affairs over the last three and half decades. Thus preventing his neighbours’ rapid development that would put his own failures in stark relief is a self-preservation imperative. If he can’t keep up, he must pull them back. Museveni’s strategy has been to create as many proxies as possible so that when one fails another takes over from where the other stopped. He has been doing this expecting that others cannot organise proxies against him. However, he should remember that he is doing exactly what Amin and Mobutu were doing in the 1970s and 1990s respectively. Eventually the region decided it was time to deal with the cancer and removed Amin and then Mobutu.
Issue no 005 August 2020
REGIONAL
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Covid-19 pushes Uganda’s Health Sector to brink of collapse, Kampala sources. By Jean Gatera Uganda’s health sector has been hard-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic and, “despite the rosy official statistics the situation has been bad,” sources in the medical professions have said. But from the start of the pandemic, health experts say, Uganda’s healthcare system was already “in a dilapidated state” and that the added strain is leading to an imminent collapse, according to the experts. It is a situation such as was captured last month when Covid-19 patient Mary Aryona in June this year posted a video on WhatsApp from Masaka hospital where she was suffering with very many other people. The video showed a very dilapidated, overcrowded ward where according to Aryona, “there is just no care.” She said doctors rarely came, and when they do, it is just to drop medications that have no name of labels. The hospital is so crowded that patients are forced to sleep on dirty floors,
many even next to the mortuary.” The Reuters news agency said similar things in a report late last week. “The Ugandan health sector is crumbling. Public hospitals are affected by doctor strikes and corruption scandals,” Reuters said. Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic struck, international reports about Uganda’s response have consistently been of such things as shortages of beds, personal protection equipment, testing kits, and data manipulation. “To say that things have been chaotic here in Kampala is an understatement”, a source in from a hospital in the Ugandan capital told us. “To make matters worse, most measures taken have ended up causing even more harm,” he said, also mentioning a July article by the BBC titled, “Uganda, where security forces may be more deadly than coronavirus.” The report detailed 12 deaths related to police brutality in the name of Covid-19 preventions.
Our source, the Kampala-based doctor, considers himself lucky as, “counterparts upcountry had even more serious challenges.” He points out that in referral hospitals like Arua, in northern Uganda, long ago ran out of PPEs (Personal Protection Equipment). Doctors and nurses are left with very difficult choices,” he added. Local media in Kampala have quoted medics that for instance resort to usage of overalls – “as if they are mechanics,” one said – due to dire lack of the disposable gowns. Faced with shortages of hospital beds, the Ugandan government had announced that it would convert a stadium into a COVID-19 treatment centers. The Ugandan Health Ministry Permanent Secretary announced the plan to a parliamentary committee in April. But plans for the conversion quickly ran into issues, according to a source in the Ministry. “The initial plan was for 4000 beds, but
Delapidated facilities in Uganda’s healthcare sector
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now the new target is for 1200 beds for the stadium. Corruption allegedly is responsible for this drastic reduction, with the resources allocated for the other 2800 beds already having been ‘eaten’, it is said. “The Covid-19 has simply exposed, to an enhanced degree, the long-standing structural weakness in the Ugandan health sector,” said our source. But to present a different face to the world, he said, “Ugandan officials have been manipulating data.” As a simple example he reminds this website of the case this this May when health ministry officials were instructed to reduce the numbers of those infected by the Coronavirus. It was said that a decision had been taken “to remove foreigners from the count.” These and many other gimmicks are how they fiddle with figures “to keep the numbers misleadingly low,” our source concluded.