Your source for credible news Issue no 008
September, 2020
“Hollywood product” Rusesabagina finally gets his day of reckoning
NEWS
Outrage as excommunicated priest Nahimana peddles falsehoods on president health
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Kampala propaganda repeats allegations that their officers “spied for Rwanda”, again with nothing to back it up Page 8 Rusesabagina, whose Hollywood myth was a facade behind which he hid to lead terrorist groups, faces media cameras yesterday at RIB offices
In a major breakthrough in the fight against terrorism, Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has arrested Paul Rusesabagina, a known denier of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and leader of outfits including MRCD/FLN and PDR-Ihumure largely made up of perpetrators in the genocide against Tutsi and genocide deniers Page 2 Mukwege and Co fear the truth more than they fear Kabarebe
In shocking development, top genocide perpetrator Kambanda publishes denialist book
“Afrique positive” published an article titled General Kabarebe’s claim on the UN Mapping Report, Rwandan refugees, and Dr. Mukwege. Its author, Masako Yonekawa, rather than provide evidence to counter Gen Kabarebe’s position, Yonekawa only regurgitates the revisionist history Mukwege has been promoting even before he got the attention of the Nobel Prize Committee in 2018. Page 6
The prime minister of “the interim government” of Rwanda at the height of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, Jean Kambanda, has month published a book in French, “Les Interahamwe du FPR: Au cœur de la planification du génocide au Rwanda”, with the aim to transfer responsibility for planning and executing the genocide to those who put an end to it, the RPF.
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Uganda backed RUD-Urunana militia leader Col. Mpiranya killed Page 10
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Issue no 008 September 2020
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“Hollywood product” Rusesabagina finally gets his day of reckoning
Rusesabagina, whose Hollywood myth was a facade behind which he hid to lead terrorist groups, faces media cameras yesterday at RIB offices
By Hannah Rugema In a major breakthrough in the fight against terrorism, Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB) has arrested Paul Rusesabagina, a known denier of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi in Rwanda, and leader of outfits including MRCD/FLN and PDR-Ihumure largely made up of perpetrators in the genocide against Tutsi and genocide deniers. “Rusesabagina is suspected to be the founder, leader, sponsor and member of violent, armed, extremist terror outfits operating out of various places in the region and abroad,” the Rwanda Investigation Bureau said in a statement. According to the Bureau, Rusesabagina has been subject of an International Arrest Warrant for charges of serious crime including terrorism, arson, kidnap and murder, perpetrated against unarmed, innocent Rwandan civilians on Rwandan territory,
including in Nyabimata – Nyaruguru district in June 2018 and in Nyungwe – Nyamagabe District in December 2018. Rusesabagina has repeatedly been implicated by previously arrested terror suspects, including FLN spokespersons Callixte Nsabimana, who pleaded guilty to several attacks in Southern and Western Provinces. He disclosed he worked closely with Rusesabagina. Reports indicate that Rusesabagina formed the Mouvement Rwandais pour le Changement Démocratique (MRCD) in December 2016, with the National Liberation Forces (FNL) as its military arm. FLN also was in the so-called “P5” umbrella – along with outfits such as Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC, the genocidal FDLR and RUD-Urunana among other illegal armed groups based in DRC. In 2011, Rwanda prosecution said it had evidence showing that Rusesabagina funded terror
activities in Rwanda pointing out that Rusesabagina, through Western Union money transfer, was sending funds to top commanders of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). The funds were to facilitate recruitment of fighters for a new terrorist organization known as Coalition of Democratic forces (CDF) which would then be a military wing of the FDU-Inkingi. Last month, Rwanda paraded over three hundred suspects that belonged in different terror groups funded by Rusesabagina, including members of FLN, RUD-Urunana, FDLR, and MRCD. “Those suspected of killing and wreaking terror on Rwandans, those suspected of masterminding, sponsoring or financing terror against Rwandans, will be brought to justice,” tweeted Justice Minister Busingye Johnston following the announcement of the arrest of the high-profile fugitive.
Paul Rusesabagina earlier in the 2000s rose to fame as a result of what many have termed “Hollywood mythmaking”. That followed the 2004 film, Hotel Rwanda, supposedly based on his “heroic work saving hundreds of Tutsis” that fled into the Mille Collines Hotel where he was the manager. But hundreds of witnesses interviewed in books like Inside the Hotel Rwanda by Edouard Kayihura and Kerry Zukus, have completely contradicted the movie’s depiction of events. Many have denounced the film as an outright work of fiction. Kayihura, co-author of the book, was one of the refugees in those harrowing days at the Mille Collines. “Rusesabagina was a profiteer, and a politically ambitious Hutu Power sympathizer who extorted money from those who sought refuge, threatening to send those who did not pay to the Genocidaires,” wrote Kayihura.
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“Uganda must be answerable for my torture”, Rwandan mother By Patience Kirabo Rwandan torture victim Drocelle Nyirarudodo, one who was hacked and brutalized with her daughter by Uganda’s security agents merely for being Rwandan, is planning to sue the Ugandan Government in the East African Court of Justice. It is the aftermath of the inhuman treatment she suffered in Uganda, December last year that has prompted her decision to seek legal action. The 40-year-old mother and her daughter Aimerance Uwimana 14, were mercilessly tortured for alleged “illegal stay” in Uganda. They were both on their way returning to Rwanda after a short visit to their relatives in Kisoro District. Nyirarudodo was beaten, hacked in the head, face, back and her daughter was beaten and stomped on, and were both dumped and left to die at the border.
far from the healthy and hardworking mother she used to be. “I can barely stay home without having someone watch over me and for that, I believe those violent security officers in Kisoro must be held to account.” Nyirarudodo is the latest victim to demand the Ugandan government to assume responsibility for the barbaric acts inflicted on her. Her case will follow that of nine Rwandans who sued the Uganda government in the EACJ for their illegal detention, torture, and abuse at the hands of the security
agents of Uganda. A few of the victims have since died and their families have vowed to pursue their case in the quest for their relative’s deserved justice. There is the case of Felicien Mbonabaheka who was hacked to death in cold blood by a machete welding gang and hurriedly buried by police in Kisoro District January this year. A sign that Uganda endorsed victimization of Rwandan nationals by hunting them down, unleashing their wrath on them, and murdering them just because
of their nationality. Harassment by Ugandan security forces targeting Rwandan nationals has often taken the form of arbitrary arrests of abductions with accusations either of “espionage”, or “illegal weapons possession”, “illegal entry”, and others like that. Following such abductions, the victims have most often been subjected to illegal detention, being held incommunicado, and sustaining physical abuse and torture.
The inhuman treatment and violent actions left Nyirarudodo with impaired health, blurry vision, persistent dizziness, and severe anxiety that she barely does much independently, hence her pursuit of a lawsuit. She has been struggling with her painful condition but thankfully Rwandan authorities have been on hand to help. The government has helped in her medical needs together with her daughter. “My daughter’s health was deteriorating and I had no means to help her. If it were not for the government’s swift medical aid, care, and treatment, I don’t know what I would have done,” she said. Thankfully for her and family, her physical wounds are all healed and her head is stitched up perfectly as a result of the medical care for which she never was charged. But she has psychological scars. “I can’t think of Uganda without having nightmares,” she reveals. Also, though physically she looks healed, she laments that she is
Drocelle Nyirarudodo was battered by security agents in Uganda.
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Issue no 008 September 2020
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A “virtual conference” of Europe-based negationists choke full of falsehoods of last time’s meeting, “fundraising for their anti-Rwanda activities since they are suffering economically due to the COVID19,” said our source. In their resolutions Rwanda Bridge Builders claims “to have found that measures taken by Rwanda to deal with the Covid-19 do not address the serious problems of Rwandans’ but rather support the interests of the RPF-Inkotanyi.” This prompted ridicule as “the propaganda of individuals completely bereft of thinking. Worldwide Rwanda has been lauded for its efforts in combating Covid-19, what are these terrorists talking about?” laughed a reader. It is well-known that since the first case of coronavirus was identified in Rwanda, even before any foreign aid was provided, the government never ceased to urge anyone in the country, Rwandan or not, to reach out to authorities if they bore the symptoms to get tested and treated, all costs covered by the government. In addition, the government provided daily food to the most vulnerable during lockdown and the city of Kigali had availed a toll-free number 3260 one could call to get food support in case of any food scarcity during the COVID-19 lockdown. “All these efforts by the government are what these anti-Rwanda negativists choose to ignore,” laughed our source. Rwanda has received plaudits worldwide for it’s successful handling of the Covid-19 menace, yet Diaspora based propagandists attempt to attack Kigali even on that
By Joan Karera Something called “a virtual consultation framework meeting” by its organizers was held late last week, with the aim to hurl a lot of false accusations against Kigali, as sources that observed it said. The group, “Rwanda Bridge Builders” is a collection of genocide denialist groups, negativist, pro-terrorism organizations, and genocide revisionists all devoted to anti-Rwanda activities. They met by “virtual video conference” purportedly to review, the “press-
ing issues facing Rwanda”. Among the 39 groups represented were various terrorist armed groups aimed at destabilizing the security of Rwanda, most notably like Jambo asbl, Rusesabagina’s MRCD, Ingabire’s FDU-Inkingi, and others. Even though the meeting was called under the guise of “discussing together” what they allege are “pressing issues facing Rwanda”, informed sources say these claims were just a cover.
“Terrorism was, and always is the real objective with them,” said our source. Reports say in May 2020, Rwanda Bridge Builders held a meeting to carry out a fundraising which ended up in misunderstandings, causing most attendants not to follow the meeting at the last minute. Organizers this time had to conceal the real agenda of the meeting saying that they will be discussing the “pressing issues facing Rwanda”. But in reality it was a continuation
They so-called virtual conference was said to have carried on in that vein, making all sorts of falsehoods in line with their usual, long discredited anti-Rwanda propaganda. Security analysts say that other than disseminating their ideologies of hate, the main motive of such conferences is to deceive their backers in the West, with all kinds of untenable lies, with the goal of more funding. “At some point, however, the lies will dry up,” said an expert on the workings of these Europe-based groups.
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Issue no 008 September 2020
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Ugandan mercenaries and the Covid-19 factor world to be during a pandemic,” he said. Reports indicate that Uganda is one of the top armed mercenaries’ exporters, something has raised many question marks in the international community, analysts say.
A couple of Ugandan mercenaries. Mercenaries deployed by Uganda’s ruling elite are becoming another factor in the spread of Covid-19.
By Hannah Rugema Roughly three hundred Ugandan mercenaries said to have been risking their lives in Afghanistan with no help from home, are waiting to be repatriated to Uganda after testing positive for Covid-19. According to the Stars and Stripes website some of the mercenaries, working as guards at a US base in Afghanistan, were at increased risk of contracting the virus which can lead to severe respiratory illness,
clotting disorders and sometimes death. According to the report, the Ugandan guards are highly at risk because of their work, which includes interacting with and searching locals coming onto the base. Concerned with the number of Ugandan mercenaries in the Middle East, one Ugandan veteran who served in Iraq as a mercenary told this website that the pandemic risks worsening the situation of mercenaries who usually return home with physical and psychological injuries. “It is the most dangerous place in the
Also, Uganda’s political and military elite have come under the international spotlight for their reported involvement in several mercenary activities across the Great Lakes, and the Horn of Africa regions. Kampala-based sources have for years said Ugandan mercenary forces have become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world and that “a big factor behind this is the widely reported corruption of high-ranking Ugandan officials.” These are said to operate security export companies in the Ugandan capital. An example of such a firm is Saracen Security which Gen. Salim Saleh, President Museveni’s younger brother is said to own. These firms have been criticized
in many UN reports, including a 2002 United Nations Security Council report among other things for training rebel paramilitary forces in the DRC. Another report titled “Doing Business out of war says Ugandan army commanders have mobilized mercenaries “to exploit economic opportunities in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.” “One can imagine a situation where Ugandan mercenary forces are moved around, to places like DRC, or Somalia with further risk of spreading Covid-19,” said a prominent Kampala critic that requested anonymity to talk freely. Our source further added that even children are employed as mercenaries in conflicts in the region and abroad, something that, according to knowledgeable sources, “concerns the Ugandan security elite in no way at all.” In recent years it has been reported that Ugandan children were forcibly recruited as mercenaries in conflict regions.
Outrage as excommunicated priest Nahimana peddles falsehoods on president health By Fred Gashema Former Catholic priest turned genocide negationist Thomas Nahimana on September 27, 2020 peddled a claim that was quickly exposed as a forgery and outright lie, that “Rwanda’s president had passed away.” But the claim was quickly endorsed by members of anti-Rwanda groups among them RNC and others. Nahimana, known as a notorious revisionist of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, voiced his lies in an interview with Vox Africa-France Television, but his allegations were soon exposed as completely bogus when the president was seen chairing a cabinet meeting, to review Covid-19 preventive measures and made some appointments
among other decisions. “This failed priest is obviously out of his mind!” said social media accounts, mocking Nahimana as they indicated a number of big events the president has been attending.
ince, fled the country in 2005 to France after stealing large sums of money meant to cover medical insurance for poorest children at Muyange Parish where he worked. After arriving in France Nahimana initiated a negativist
group “Ishema” and the divisive website ‘Le Prophete’. Rwanda’s Catholic Church has since then disowned and excommunicated the priest over his negativist ideologies.
Nahimana was over the weekend a guest on a number of anti-Rwanda online radio platforms and YouTube Channels to try to peddle his allegation that the head of state “passed on in the last six months”. Commentators point out that Nahimana assertions are nothing other than the usual propaganda that always tries to portray a negative image of Rwanda, through outright fictions. Nahimana, who hails from the former Cyangugu Prefecture, now Rusizi District in Western Prov-
Failed Catholic priest and Genocide denier, Thomas Nahimana has been peddling lies about Rwanda.
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Issue no 008 September 2020
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Mukwege and Co fear the truth more than they fear Kabarebe lenged for their alliances and positions, and dubious allegations, Yonekawa, and her friends will find many who do not agree. Obviously, as a commander on the field, General James Kabarebe is one of the most knowledgeable army officers on the matter at hand. But the fact that those making wild allegations want to accuse without having to face scrutiny means that what they are after is not the truth, which raises questions about their true motive. Among their key motives is the one suggested by Kabarebe in his contribution to the discussion they misrepresent, which is why they want to shut him up. By The New Times “Afrique positive” published an article titled General Kabarebe’s claim on the UN Mapping Report, Rwandan refugees, and Dr. Mukwege. Its author, Masako Yonekawa, describes herself as a member of the Japanese NPO RITA-Congo, and claims “to counter-argue about Gen. Kabarebe’s allegation of the causal relationship between Rwandan refugees’ repatriation and UN Mapping Report, as well as Dr. Mukwege’s intention” for his advocacy. But rather than provide evidence to counter Gen Kabarebe’s position, Yonekawa only regurgitates the revisionist history Mukwege has been promoting even before he got the attention of the Nobel Prize Committee in 2018. At the onset, Yonekawa’s credibility comes into question as she repeats the bizarre claim that Gen. Kabarebe threatened Dr. Mukwege. Anyone who understands Kinyarwanda (and clearly this excludes her) would know that at no point during his contribution did he threaten Mukwege. If Yonekawa really wanted to know what Kabarebe said she would have consulted an interpreter, one who was not part of the circles which are hostile to Rwanda’s government and are spreading this fake claim. What is true, however, is that
General Kabarebe denounced these same circles which, with the complicity of Doctor Mukwege, intend to use the latter’s newly-minted fame and the international reach it provides him to try to intimidate Rwanda on the basis of a UN draft report that was leaked to the press in August 2010; a report whose allegations were withdrawn from the final report published in October 2010 as its authors failed to substantiate them (allegations).
Indeed, Yonekawa is no exception to the rule in joining this caravan of propagandists whose bulk is made up of revisionists and deniers of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Yonekawa fails to mention this when she recklessly refers to the “UN Mapping Report of 2010,” when she means the draft, not the final report. Only a dishonest, agenda-driven individual would ignore the final report and keep preferring its shoddy, never adopted version.
In her view, the principal actor responsible for mass killings from 1990 is not the government that conducted the genocide against Tutsi, but the liberation movement that stopped the genocide. Again, these are the motives that Gen Kabarebe was unmasking with precise clarity that Yonekawa and her fellow revisionist lunatics now see as a threat.
Similarly, it is bizarre that Yonekawa and company choose to describe General Kabarebe’s thoughts as a threat to the life of Dr. Mukwege. They are happy to “counter-argue” Gen Kabarebe’s claims but they want to deny him the right to respond to the invented allegations leveled against Rwanda in the court of public opinion. Brandishing the Nobel Peace Prize as an attestation of Dr. Mukwege’s integrity is like trying to claim that Alfred Nobel – a man who became rich manufacturing instruments of death was a man of peace. If that is the basis of arguing that Mukwege and his supporters should not be chal-
As the saying goes, the devil is in the details. Only a shameless revisionist would dare to describe the RPF as “the principle (sic) actor responsible in mass killings from 1990 onwards”, as Yonekawa writes in her article.
In other words, the threat is not towards Mukwege; the truth that Kabarebe was stating is the threat that provoked his denouncing by Yonekawa, Judi Rever, and the Jambo offspring of a long line of genocidaires. Yonekawa is not done, however. “Refugees have categorically refused to return to Rwanda due to their strong fear and trauma of the RPF,” she affirms, without explaining why more than 3,200,000 refugees were repatriated from Zaire, Burundi, Tanzania, and Uganda between 1994 and 2003, the vast majority on a voluntary basis. Moreover, more
than 600,000 refugees were repatriated during what UNHCR described as the “largest and swiftest “repatriation in memory just after the dismantling of the mammoth refugee camps just across Rwanda’s border in Zaire by the intervention of the RPA (Rwandan Patriotic Army). This intervention was conducted when it emerged that international actors had failed to disarm the genocidal forces which not only controlled the camps but were rearming, conducting recruitment and military training in the camps, launching attacks inside Rwanda, and killing genocide survivors and any refugee, primarily used as human shields, who dared to return home, as described in an amnesty international report. These attacks were waged by those whom Yonekawa, for reasons underscored by Gen Kabarebe regarding people like her, does not consider as “the principle (sic) actors of mass killings from 1990 onwards.” Here’s what the situation was like according to the Amnesty International report based on the declaration of the chief of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office in Rwanda who stated publicly on 14 April 1995: “Dozens of people have been killed in these attacks from across the border since the end of January…It was reported yesterday that there was another incursion that resulted in casualties…The motivations for the attacks vary…[and include] killing as a punishment of people who have returned to Rwanda without permission of the refugee camp authorities…[and] killing of people who appear to be cooperating with the Rwandese government, for example, those who have handed over their weapons or have given information about who took part in the genocide…” Like all revisionists, Masako Yonekawa fails to mention that many of those who still refuse to return today participated in the killings during the genocide against the Tutsi in 1994 and fear to face justice.
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Issue no 008 September 2020
>> from page 6 Nonetheless, as FARDC keeps up its operations in eastern Congo against armed groups such as the FDLR, some combatants and their dependents continue to throng to Rwanda. In other words, there are no more threats against Dr. Mukwege than there are against Rwandan refugees. What Ms Yonekawa chooses to falsely call refugees are diehard remnants of the FDLR and other hardcore genocidaires fearful of being forced to return to Rwanda and their inevitable day in court to answer for their roles during the genocide. Undeniably, there are two factors
preventing any real refugees there might still be from returning home. First, a constant drumbeat of propaganda that aims to keep these refugees in fear in which the shoddy 2010 draft mapping report (leaked before its final version was published) is the central argument in this propaganda. It cements the invented narrative beloved of the genocidaires and their supporters like Mukwege, Rever, Yonekawa, and similar genocide deniers and revisionists, that the RPA targeted civilian populations in Zaire on the basis of their belonging to the “Hutu ethnic group”. As a result, the propagandists keep telling them that being a
Hutu is enough to get killed by the government in Rwanda. However, the proponents of the leaked draft mapping report fail to explain why so many refugees, including genocide perpetrators, were repatriated and now live peacefully in Rwanda. Second, what’s taking place is a hostage situation like the one described by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office in 1995. When refugees succeed at escaping from the jaws of fear and control of their captors and attempt to repatriate, they face reprisals and a death sentence from the terror groups still operating in eastern DRC. Moreover, when military operations – like the ones currently
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conducted by the FARDC – threaten to completely wipe out these terror groups, a gaggle of politically-driven NGOs, which view instability as the essential milk cow on which to build careers and get rich, attempt to resurrect the leaked mapping draft report to stoke hostility towards any cooperation between the governments of DRC and Rwanda. Such attempts to cooperate have been sabotaged time and again. This is the real threat they see in Gen Kabarebe. Mukwege and Yonekawa are merely playing their part in this conspiracy. Source: The New Times /
Rwanda
In shocking development, top genocide perpetrator Kambanda publishes denialist book killings against Tutsi civilians.
By Joan Karera
Kambanda, who is currently serving life sentence in Mali, on May, 1, 1998 was the first to plead guilty at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to the six counts which were contained in the indictment against him.
The prime minister of “the interim government” of Rwanda at the height of the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi, Jean Kambanda, has month published a book in French, “Les Interahamwe du FPR: Au cœur de la planification du génocide au Rwanda”, with the aim to transfer responsibility for planning and executing the genocide to those who put an end to it, the RPF.
Kambanda’s confessions at the ICTR were for his participation in the genocide, conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to genocide, complicity in genocide, and crimes against humanity, plus his infamous speech that guns should not be for the military personnel only but rather everyone should use them for ‘personal defense’.
“It is highly unprecendented for a convict of an enormous crime like genocide to publish a book; this is shocking,” a Rwandan social media commentator said. While describing himself on the cover of the book, Kambanda claims he is “a victim of injustice by the office of the prosecutor at the ICTR”, a statement that shocked and brought anger to anyone who knows Kambanda. “What an irony! I was expecting the convict to write his remorse, regrets, haunts of Tutsi blood he has on his hands,” reads a tweet by a genocide survivor. That was after anti-Rwanda campaigners and genocide deniers had started to promote the book on social media by someone that was a top perpetrator of the Genocide. After former president Habyarimana’s plane crash, Kambanda
Genocide fugitive Jean Kambanda seen showcasing a gun as as he incites massacres during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.
was appointed prime minister of the interim government that then proceeded to executed the Genocide that shocked the world as one of the worst in history. Kambanda chaired different meetings that followed-up the execution of the genocide against Tutsi. In a meeting of June, 4, 1994, he wrote in his agenda that in order to defeat the RPF and to accelerate the genocide against Tutsi, 30 additional young men from each of the 145 communes should be
recruited. Kambanda’s agenda was used as one of the pieces of evidence in his trial ICTR trial. A few days later, on June, 9, 1994, Kambanda chaired a cabinet meeting which reviewed the progress of the “auto-defense civile”. “Auto-defense civile” were directives he had issued on May, 25, 1994, aimed at mobilizing Interahamwe to continue carrying out
All these facts are available for even foreigners to see Kambanda is a top genocidaire, commentators said, wondering what kind of people would even publish the book. Observers say the fact only anti-Rwanda campaigners and genocide deniers – mainly FDU-Inkingi, Jambo asbl, among others – are promoting or publicizing Kambanda’s book show “it’s true aim”. “Everyone can see that it is a continuing plan of genocide deniers who have been hard at work to deflect the crime upon the RPF,” said a commenter on Facebook.
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OP-ED
Issue no 008 September 2020
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Kampala propaganda repeats allegations that their officers “spied for Rwanda”, again with nothing to back it up By Alex Muhumuza Ugandan propaganda has repeated the claim that the country’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, CMI, in May this year arrested seven members of Ugandan security forces who are “collaborators of Rwanda.” Once again this claim is backed by nothing beyond mere verbal assertions, none of which stand a moment’s scrutiny. We will get to that. The allegations are contained in a long article posted this Tuesday on the Chimpreports website (well-known as a Kampala propaganda tool whose chief editor Giles Muhame is on the payroll of CMI), which begins that “on Friday May 1, 2020, CMI launched a secret operation aimed at busting what was considered a cell of collaborators of Rwanda within UPDF.”
Reports of this particular CMI “operation” first surfaced earlier this month, on the 11th, not only on Kampala’s propaganda websites and blogs, but also in major mainstream media like The New Vision, Daily Monitor, Observer and others in what was an apparently coordinated campaign. It looks to still be ongoing. The arrested men – 2nd Lt. Phillip Ankunda, a pilot attached to Special Forces Command, 2nd Lt. Alex Kasamula of UPDF regular forces, ASP Benon Akandwanaho, ASP Frank Sabiiti, both policemen, and Privates Samuel Ndwane, Moses Asiimwe Makobore, and Godfrey Mugabi, these three attached to Nakasongola Airforce Wing – all are Ugandan. A big problem for some of them, however, is that they are Ugandans of Rwandan origin.
According to the allegations of CMI, “investigators retrieved photos of Private Ndwane ‘in Rwandan army uniform’, and that it was from ‘way back when Ndwane attended the Ingando Program in which youths with Rwandan heritage are given cadreship courses.’” CMI further alleges that Ndwane “also was found with Rwandan national identity card.” Allegedly others who have been in the same WhatsApp chat group as Ndwane too had Rwandan IDs. This story rings false in so many ways. For instance, Ingando – youth solidarity camps – are for secondary school children. They get to put on army uniforms and play games. Ingando has never been about military, or “espionage” training. “Only someone willfully misinforming the public would claim such a thing,” a reader
commented. Also, assuming Ndwane and others indeed were “spies”, which real spy would keep such incriminating evidence as the national ID of the country he or she supposedly spies for? The truth most likely is the seven men only are the latest victims of a campaign targeting Rwandans, or Ugandans of Rwandan origin by Museveni’s security services. In these years of the Museveni regime, to be a Rwandan, especially one that does not bad-mouth the Kigali administration, is to be suspect. “The most probable reason the seven are in trouble is they must have refused to join in denigration of Rwanda!” a Kigali-based reporter on security matters commented. Further revealing the shallow excuses behind the men’s
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Some of the Ugandan security personnel that CMI alleges “passed secrets to Rwandan agents”. CMI has failed to name even one such alleged agent.
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Issue no 008 September 2020
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>> from page 8 arrests and subsequent efforts to falsely link them to Rwanda, CMI alleges: “the suspects secretly released confidential security information to Rwanda, hence jeopardizing Uganda’s national security. Ankunda and his colleagues worked with Rwanda to infiltrate and compromise the unit that manages Uganda’s war jets.” Yet everything one would need to know about this so-called super secret jet can be found with a Google search. CMI’s games are further exposed. The article continues that, “Uganda’s Su-30MK2 multi-role fighter aircraft boasts enhanced combat capabilities against aerial, ground, and sea-based targets.” According to the article, the so-called “super secret aircraft” allegedly gives Uganda “an edge in a potential military conflict with Rwanda.” Informed Rwandan observers read such things with hilarity. “Uganda having an edge over Rwanda in a military conflict?!” exclaimed one. “In which world do these deluded propagandists live? The only edge Museveni has is over helpless, unarmed People Power members, or Kiiza Besigye – but never over Rwanda, under any circumstance!” Further down the article, there is the dubious claim that “between February and May 2020, the accused persons and others still at large in various places within Kampala city shared information to agents of Rwandan authorities with intention to prejudice the security of the defense forces of the Government of Uganda.” This is where CMI allegations are to be exposed as fabrications. Who are the Rwandan authorities and why don’t they name them? If they can name their own security officers, the next natural thing would be to name whomever Rwandan agents they allegedly collaborated with. In the past CMI has arbitrarily arrested, and quickly paraded Rwandans before the media with accusations “they were Rwandan spies.”
Other Ugandan security personnel that CMI alleges “passed secrets to Rwandan agents”.
In August 2017 for instance they abducted Rene Rutagungira, quickly and publicly proclaiming that “he was the head of a sleeper spy cell in Uganda.” They illegally detained the civilian, a businessman, in military dungeons where he suffered torture for over two years. It turned out Rutagungira was innocent. His attorney in Kampala, Eron Kiiza, kept challenging CMI to show one shred of evidence proving they had a case. CMI did no such thing. They only victimized Rutagungira because Uganda had embarked on a hostile policy against its southern neighbor, with Ugandan security forces granted permission to hunt down Rwandans with impunity. “So, are we to believe these are the kind of people to fail to arrest supposed Rwandan agents that allegedly were receiving secrets from members of the Ugandan military and police?” asked a security analyst that we interviewed for this article. “Museveni’s people are beyond laughable at this stage!” By now every reader must be used to the Ugandan regime’s unending claims of “Rwandan spies in Uganda.” Every sensible reader has been wondering about all the alleged Rwandan spies arrested in Uganda none of whom actually
has ever been proven to be a “spy”. Also, people long ago began to wonder: “what is this thing that Museveni is so scared of that has driven him paranoid, to the extent he sees ‘Rwandan spies’ everywhere?” Ugandan security forces have harassed hundreds of Rwandan nationals. The pattern is always the same. The victims are abducted, and detained illegally and incommunicado. Many have suffered torture resulting into permanent physical and psychological scars. It got so ridiculous that they were even arresting teenage children going back to school in Uganda, old men, and even pregnant women. It was always on charges of “espionage”, “kidnapping”, “illegal weapons possession”, or “illegal entry” for which no one is ever tried. Now, it seems, with no more Rwandans crossing to Uganda – following last year’s advisory by Kigali to its citizens to avoid it – the likes of CMI now have resorted to targeting Ugandans who happen to have Rwandan roots. “One reason for these victimization games is that the likes of CMI now are on a mission to invent fake stories, and keep up the false pretense that ‘Rwanda must be doing something wrong against Uganda,’” our source said. “The game is to maintain a
false equivalence!” For the past three years and over, Kigali repeatedly has exposed the complicity of Kampala in endless acts of anti-Rwanda subversion. Kigali does not make empty accusations, however. It produces concrete evidence. From the start it has named the groups Uganda works with in their mutual goal of destabilizing the security of Rwanda. It (Kigali) has communicated its grievances to Uganda through diplomatic channels, on matters such as the RNC terrorist group sourcing recruits from Ugandan territory, with the full complicity and facilitation of CMI. Kigali has exposed so many things like that. For instance how a senior Ugandan official like Philemon Mateke coordinated the attack (last year in October in Kinigi District) by terrorists of the RUD-Urunana group who killed 14 civilians before Rwandan security forces foiled the attack. It is a well-known story how evidence collected from the scene of the attack – including phone handsets, and testimonies by five captured terrorists – implicated Mateke, and Uganda. Such things drive them (Ugandan regime) crazy, so they keep inventing these stories of “Rwandan spies” and so on, observers remark.
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REGIONAL
Issue no 008 September 2020
10 3
CARTOON OF THE WEEK
Uganda backed RUD-Urunana militia leader Col. Mpiranya killed Makoka, Rutshuru territory in the Northern Kivu. The attack is part of DRC’s continued operations aiming at rooting terrorist groups out of her soil. “This is indeed good news, the death of someone like Mpiranya who took part in the Genocide and continued involving in criminal acts to destabilize both Rwanda and the DRC citizens deserved such a fate,” a commentator reacted on social media accounts. Uganda sponsored terrorist militia leader, Col Mpiranya aka Kagoma was killed by the Congolese army-FARDC
By Moses Gisa The Democratic Republic of Congo army-FARD has killed Col Leo Cyprien Mpiranya, the leader of RUD-Urunana, a Ugandan backed anti-Rwanda terrorist Group operating in the Congolese jungles and Kisoro, Western Uganda. Mpiranya, aka Kagoma, took over the group’s leadership from the slain General Musabyimana Juvenal alias Jean-Michel Africa in November 2019. News of Mpiranya’s death emerged at the break of dawn on Monday, September 31; the notorious terrorist is reported to have been shot dead in the recent battles between his militia group and the Congolese army in
Rwandans were jubilating that Mpiranya’s death is yet another wake-up call to all anti-Rwanda terrorists perpetrating crimes out there. “It’s just a matter of time; they will be caught and brought to book to answer for their heinous crimes,” said someone on Twitter. Prior to the fall out within the genocidal FDLR, Kagoma was among the most wanted for crimes against humanity committed during the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi. Mpiranya has been very influential in anti-Rwanda terrorist groups, together with Col Rugema and former RUD- Urunana leader General Musabyimana- killed in FARDC operations on November 9, 2019. The trio led a breakaway faction from FDLR with help of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military
Intelligence, formed RUD-Urunana militia with a core mission to destabilize Rwanda. Other reports, whose accuracy was yet to be verified, have indicated that Mpiranya could have been killed by his own men after disagreements with his deputy, Col. Emmanuel Rugema alias “The Witchdoctor of the Jungle”. The report alleges that after the death of Gen Musabyimana, the two have failed to agree on the terrorist militia’s future and we’re always caught up in supremacy battles which could have led to Kagoma’s death. Mpiranya-whose wife and four children live in Mubende, Uganda, is a native of the former Commune Rweru, in the former Ruhengeri Prefecture, currently Burera District in Northern Province. He joined the FAR, the army of the genocidal regime in 1992, and fled the country in 1994 at the rank of sergeant. In 1998 Mpiranya joined the Army for the Liberation of Rwanda (ALIR) group, composed of the forces that had perpetrated the Genocide – mainly the ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias. ALIR later became FDLR. In 2003
Mpiranya joined fellow renegade FDLR combatants in the RUD-Urunana faction, at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel; he led its “Douala” and “Samosi” battalions. The death of Mpiranya comes a few days after 24 Rwandan nationals returned home from the DR Congo jungles where they had been held siege by renowned anti-Rwanda terror groups, FDLR-FOCA, RUD-Urunana, and FLN of CNRD-Ubwiyunge. On arrival in Rwanda on August 25, the group, which included 10 combatants, asserted that their decision to lay down arms was a result of good news about Rwanda that they learnt through the MONUSCO-run Radio Okapi, and other internet platforms. The terrorist groups were hard hit by the deaths of their leaders and continue to lose numbers as thousands of their combatants and dependents surrender to the Congolese army. Over 10,000 ex-combatants have returned home and reintegrated into the Rwandan society after undergoing civic education workshops in Mutobo, Mukamira Demobilization and Reintegration centers in Western Province.
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