Your source for credible news Issue no 032
May, 2021
“We were abducted into forced slave labor on Museveni’s property,” Rwandan victims
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Uganda’s CMI abducts young Rwandan woman in yet another provocation by Kampala Page 2
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Ugandan propaganda website issues false claims about two legally deported Ugandan women Page 5
OP - ED
The majority of the 17 Rwandan nationals whom Uganda’s authorities dumped at Kagitumba Border Post on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 following weeks of torture in CMI dungeons have disclosed how Uganda’s security operatives exploited them with harsh, hard labor without any remuneration. Ten of them actually were exploited in quasi slave conditions for the interests of Ugandan Page 3 President Yoweri Museveni. Get a free copy of our e-paper
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New report pins Tribert Rujugiro on illicit dealings, terrorism financing Page 6
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How Michela Wrong’s propaganda and misinformation aligns with Kampala’s, re: allegations about Rwigema’s demise Page 8
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Issue no 032 May 2021
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Uganda’s CMI abducts young Rwandan woman in yet another provocation by Kampala
Jennifer Byukusenge, a student of Mount Kenya University, Kigali, was abducted by agents of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) while visiting her mother in Kampala.
By Patience Kirabo A young Rwandan woman, Jennifer Byukusenge has been abducted by Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), making her family frantic with worry. Byukusenge, a final year student at Mount Kenya University in Rwanda, was abducted by CMI agents last week on Monday, 05 April. According to reports, she currently is languishing in the agency’s torture dungeons at its Mbuya Military Barracks headquarters. The victim had gone to Uganda to share with her mother the good news of her upcoming nuptials and preparations. She had flown to Kampala by Rwandair a couple of days before, on the Third of this month. Jennifer’s mother, Mariam Mukamusoni who is a resident of Kampala breaks down in tears when narrating her daughter’s ordeal. Apparently the CMI agents abducted her, as they usually do, without informing Jennifer what she was supposed to have done. They just took her in handcuffs and with a hood
over her head and detained her incommunicado, without informing her family.
But then, according to Jennifer’s parent, the CMI operatives came with her daughter, to her house on 07. “They had her handcuffed like a criminal on Wednesday, two days after abducting her,” narrates the mother. “They brought her to the house searching for only they know what!” According to Mariam, her daughter was in a terrible state, looking bad. “She told me she had already been tortured!” narrates the mother. She says that during the search, they confiscated Jennifer’s travel documents and left, with her again back to Mbuya. According to the young woman’s mother, in a testimony to the high commission, her daughter cried begging for her help during the search. She said she could not bear the torture and pain inflicted on her. Byukusenge, who is reported to be three months pregnant, told her mother that she was seriously beaten and tortured while the officers interro-
gated her, forcing a confession out of her “about her mission in Uganda,” Mukamusoni narrated. “But what mission did my daughter have, it is all just a terrible lie!”
It has long become a habit of Uganda security operatives to persecute Rwandan nationals on concocted charges of “spying” or “kidnap”, “illegal weapons possession.” Ever since Kampala took a hostile stance against Rwanda through partnership with terrorist groups like RNC with the goal to destabilize Rwanda, innocent Rwandans have borne the brunt. A countless many have been abducted, illegally detained, tortured, and afterwards, dumped at the borders. Others have died in torture dungeons. Observers have repeatedly pointed out how Kampala just breaks the law with these abductions, whose victims are never charged in court, or told why they get arrested in the first place. Jennifer is the latest victim. Her family sent a message of distress to the Rwandan High Commission in Kampala, yesterday morning (Monday 12). The Em-
bassy has quickly sent a note verbal to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uganda requesting an urgent intervention into the case of the victim. “We know the Ugandan authorities usually have no respect for international conventions, and are likely to just ignore the note verbale as they have done others in the past,” said an observer of security trends. The activities of Kampala show they think they can break laws with impunity forever. An agreement, the MoU of Luanda in 2019 is specific – among other things – that mistreatment, including abductions, torture and others, of nationals of one country by another has to end. Kigali has never mistreated a single Ugandan civilian in Rwanda. On the other hand Ugandan security forces have violated the rights of thousands of Rwandans for the past four years, just because they can. The abduction, and ongoing mistreatment of Jennifer is yet another of Kampala’s endless provocations.
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Issue no 032 May 2021
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“We were abducted into forced slave labor on Museveni’s property,” Rwandan victims “We were only Rwandans at the farm, and we began with the work of uprooting shrubs, digging into the roots of trees, and stacking up charcoal, as the main labor. We were slaves; nothing else can describe this. There was no question of quitting. We were prisoners!” Nepo says, his voice sounding very weary, but relieved to at least be still alive. Some died working in the horrendous conditions of constant physical abuse and very little, very poor quality food – mainly kawunga (maize meal) with dried beans full of weevils. Of the seventeen Rwandan victims of Ugandan security agencies recently dumped at Kagitumba, ten of them endured a period of forced labor, with no pay, at Museveni’s Kisozi cattle ranch in Gomba.
By Fred Gashema The majority of the 17 Rwandan nationals whom Uganda’s authorities dumped at Kagitumba Border Post on Wednesday, May 5th, 2021 following weeks of torture in CMI dungeons have disclosed how Uganda’s security operatives exploited them with harsh, hard labor without any remuneration. Ten of them actually were exploited in quasi slave conditions for the interests of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni. These ten victims that include Jean Pierre Badahunga, Jean de Dieu Nshimiyimana, Joseph Ntagisanimana, Cassien Mugimba, Jean Nepo Nzahumunyurwa, Daniel Dusabimana, Cassien Rwasa, Felicien Mpakanyi, Semakata Mutura, and Edison Nshimiyimana give harrowing accounts of the forced labor they endured on Museveni’s properties. That was before being taken for further torture in Mbuya Military Barracks. Some of the slave labor they were subjected to, working none-stop from dawn to dusk, included cutting down trees to burn the logs in kilns for charcoal. They would then arrange the charcoal in piles, while clearing all the shrubbery and undergrowth of the wild areas in a forest bordering the Kisozi-based cattle ranch, which is owned by Museveni in Gomba District. The men worked with very little food and anyone that complained of
hunger received severe kicks by the guards. Recalling these terrible ordeals to journalists in Kigali, Jean Nepo Nzahumunyurwa, 47, says he does not know how they survived. They worked until their hands split! It all began when the victims, who were legally resident in Uganda, were lured by recruiters (who turned out to be agents looking for free labor for the Kisozi ranch) who deceived them with promises of good pay, and that working for the president would be a great privilege. “We couldn’t believe our ears as we were told of that job!” Nzahumunyurwa recalled. After traveling miles to Kisozi and reaching the ranch, Nzahumunyurwa, who was a resident of Rukungiri District in western Uganda, says he caught up with dozens of fellow Rwandan nationals who had been drawn from
various areas across Uganda. These were all legal residents in Uganda that saw nothing to be scared of in being offered a job on Museveni’s ranch. “Soldiers guarding the farm ordered to photocopy our respective IDs and other coupons that are issued by the LCII chairman. “The soldiers said we would hand our original documents to them and remain with the copies,” Nzahumunyurwa narrates. He goes on to say that things abruptly changed as they were taken into a labor camp that already “looked very scary.” There were no proper houses. Only grass huts guarded by men with weapons. Any of the recruits that asked a question about payment received several strokes on the spot! They quickly realized they had been trapped into a forced labor camp. Their documents had been confiscated. They had nowhere to run.
Ugandan president Museveni at one of his ranches
Nzahumunyurwa underscored they were exploited in the slave labor camp for about five months, until Easter eve, this year, when they were all taken to the nearby Kajjumiro Police Station and slapped into the jail for four days. Their torture continued. They were incommunicado. They had never talked to their families ever since being lured to Museveni’s ranch. From Kajjumiro Police they were transferred to Kanoni Police Station where they were locked up for six more days. They were never told why they were being locked up. It wasn’t until they were driven to Mbuya Military Barracks, CMI headquarters, that they were told they were “spies sent by Kagame!” Recounting the ordeal experienced while in Mbuya torture dungeons, Jean Nepo and fellow victims told of the by now familiar torture techniques used by CMI in its notorious Mbuya dungeons. They would sometimes be hanged by their thumbs, suspended by ropes from wooden beams. Mostly they would be whipped with bits of electricity wire. Sadistic torturers repeatedly battered them with rifle butts, all with the purpose of forcing them to admit they were “Kagame’s spies.” Rwandan nationals continue to suffer abuse in CMI dungeons and dozens of others are still working as slaves on Museveni’s property.
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Uganda dumps 17 innocent Rwandans, including Byukusenge against whom CMI concocted accusations of “spying” By Patience Kirabo Yesterday at the Kagitumba Border Post Uganda dumped 17 Rwandan nationals – 14 men and three women – following unlawful detention and severe torture while in custody of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence. The victims, debilitated and weak, arrived at the border at midday and were received by Rwandan immigration officers. They were without proper deportation documents. Among the three women was Mount Kenya student Jennifer Byukusenge who was arbitrarily arrested by Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), detained and tortured at its Mbuya Military Barracks headquarters since early last month, on April 5. Her abductors accused her of “espionage” but produced nothing to show it. Jennifer suffered abduction, torture, and was deprived of her rights on the basis of nothing.
The other abductees include: Mukeshimana Esperance 21, Nyiraneza Gaudance 31 and her husband Uwimpfura, Jean D’Amour 32, Pastor Mpamo Assuman 50, Badahunga Jean Pierre 42, Niyonteze Theogene 46, Nshimiyimana Jean De Dieu 29, Ntagisanimana Joseph 21, Mugimba Cassien 52, Nzahumunyurwa Jean Nepo 47, Dusabimana Daniel 38, Rwasa Cassien 60, Mpakanyi Felicien 39, Semakata Mutura 58, Nshimiyimana Edison 23, and Bategejo Ramazan 27. All the victims were arrested between the months of January and April this year. They were abducted from different districts in Uganda, detained for days hopping from one police station to another, and then transferred to Mbuya Military Barracks for torture. They were all unlawfully jailed allegedly for “illegal stay” in Uganda and being “Rwandan spies.” As their usual way of conducting
business, the Ugandan government did not present any of their victims before a court to be tried for the alleged crimes they were brutally detained for. The Ugandan regime continues to prove a hostile stance towards Rwandan nationals when it randomly abducts and proceeds to illegally detain many for no wrongdoing. Even after continued talks to mend the two countries’ frosty relations – which in the first place was caused by the constant harassment, abductions, illegal incommunicado detention, and torture that untold numbers of Rwandans have been subjected to while in Uganda – the Kampala regime has remained two-faced, and underhanded in what it says and does. According to the Luanda MoU, acts of abduction such as CMI’s, against Rwandan citizens were to have ended right after it was signed in August 2019. Up to this day, Uganda’s security operatives
have continued to persecute Rwandans countrywide. This is mainly due to their alliance with negative elements bent on destabilizing Rwanda, first and foremost Kayumba Nyamwasa and his Rwanda National Congress (RNC). Uganda has carried on with sheltering and facilitating the recruitment, training, and arming of Rwandan terrorist groups. The harassment and victimization of innocent Rwandan nationals by CMI is done in partnership with RNC in Kampala, with resident RNC agents Sulah Nuwamanya and Prossy Bonabaana being some of the interrogators. Their victims, when they are dumped, usually have no belonging except the clothes they are wearing. This is despite the fact most are people that had property and money before their ordeals with CMI. One of the reasons they get victimized, it has long emerged, is to deprived them of their property and/or money.
The innocent Rwandans dumped Wednesday, midday at Kagitumba Border.
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Issue no 032 May 2021
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Ugandan propaganda website issues false claims about two legally deported Ugandan women By Jean Gatera Softpower, a propaganda website run by Sarah Kagingo and sponsored the Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), recently used the case of two deported Ugandan young women – Birungi Monique, 25 and Kansiime Liliane 26 – to attempt to draw false parallels to the plight of Rwandans living in Uganda. They did this in an article titled, “seeking work in Rwanda declared illegal as two female Ugandans are deported.” But according to official information, both women were intercepted by security officials after crossing illegally into Rwanda, in the Kivuye Sector of Burera District on 15 this month. Three days later, 18April, Rwandan authorities legally deported them via the Cyanika Border Post. They also had no travel documents or identification papers,
making them undocumented illegal border crossers. Security officials took them to a COVID-19 quarantine center to be quarantined and tested prior to their deportation. By their own admission in the Softpower article, the two Ugandan nationals recognized that they were declared prohibited immigrants by competent authorities. The propaganda outlet even quotes one of the women stating that she thought she could “just live in Rwanda.” Although Rwanda is known for its openness to legal migration, no country that operates on the rule of law would tolerate those illegally crossing through porous borders. On the other hand, Ugandan security agencies, CMI in particular, have kidnapped hundreds of Rwandan nationals in the last three years and never accorded
Birungi Monique was also legally and with due process deported by Rwandan authorities despite CMI propaganda to the contrary.
them due legal procedure. Many have been illegally detained, suffering torture – up to 3 years in some cases – in prisons, dungeons, or filthy cells. They are well-established Rwandans legally living in Uganda. They are students. They are visitors on social visits. All have suffered the same harassment. Two years ago, the Uganda ministry of foreign affairs admitted that Uganda held hundreds of Rwandan nationals. They revealed that they would release 130 Rwandans, but said that over 300 would not be released under the pretext that the latter committed capital offenses. With the Softpower article they are trying to draw false parallels with the harassment of Uganda against innocent Rwandans. “Furthermore, their article fraudulently misinterprets the EAC treaty, going as far as defending violent smugglers that defied Rwandan law enforcement officials!” commented a reader. Kansiime Lilian was legally and with due process deported by Rwandan authorities despite CMI propaganda to the contrary.
Softpower ignores that if any
Ugandan is arrested in Rwanda it goes through lawful procedures, with arrest warrants and explanations for arrest. Not abductions or arbitrary arrests. For instance, a dozen Ugandans detained at Nyagatare Police Station were accorded the benefit of a consular visit, Juliet Namirimu Kiggundu, a Ugandan diplomat in Kigali, talked and accessed Ugandan smugglers under arrest. Also, there are thousands of Ugandans living and working in Rwanda notably in the education sector, small-scale manufacturing and car repair sectors. The desperate actions by Kampala to find moral equivalences will not yield any fruits, law analysts say. The Luanda MoU itself is not in their favor. “The Ugandan authorities are long past the point whereby they proved their interests align with breaking the law, and thus they continue to persecute innocent Rwandans among other things,” said a media analyst in Kigali.
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Issue no 032 May 2021
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New report pins Tribert Rujugiro on illicit dealings, terrorism financing
Retired Major Habib Mudathiru with some of his co-accused, among them 25 men who fought alongside him in an outfit belonging to Rwanda National Congress (RNC). A new report has pinned dissident Rwandan businessman Tribert Ayabatwa Rujugiro on using proceeds from illicit trade to fund terror groups.
By The New Times The report, released this month by Counter Extremism Project, entitled, ‘An Unholy Alliance: Links between Extremism and Illicit Trade in East Africa’ says that regional stability is increasingly threatened by the continued existence of illicit markets and trade fueled by corruption. The Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is an international policy organization led by a renowned group of former world leaders and diplomats operating out of Germany, New York and London. According to the report, in the East Africa region, illicit tobacco trade has been singled out to fund extremist groups, with the exiled Rwandan businessman Rujugiro at the centre of this. “In East Africa and its surround-
ing regions, illicit tobacco has been found to fund extremist groups in DR Congo, while also financing corrupt practices throughout the region,” the report reads in part. Rujugiro has been using illicit proceeds from his company – Pan African Tobacco Group – to fund Rwanda National Congress (RNC), a terror group that has bases in DR Congo. RNC was created by Rwandan dissidents with an aim of violently overthrowing the Rwandan government. In December 2018, a UN Group of Experts noted that the RNC was responsible for terror attempts and threat in Rwanda and DR Congo. With the funding of Rujugiro, RNC co-founded an outfit called
P5, which for the past couple of years maintained militia bases in eastern DR Congo. Top members of the outfit such as Habib Mudathiru who headed its operations until he was captured and sent to Rwanda in 2019, have admitted to plotting acts of terrorism against Rwanda. Recruited in Uganda, Mudathiru was captured by the DR Congo military during an offensive against illegal armed groups. He has since been tried and was recently sentenced to 25 years after he pleaded guilty. He was captured with 25 of his fighters, who also entered a guilty plea and received varying sentences from the Military High Court. Besides being a recruitment base for the militia group, Uganda has also emerged as the regional
base of Rujugiro’s tobacco trading and is said to enjoy favors from the political leadership in Kampala. Indeed, the report noted that organised crime syndicates are routinely facilitated by some corrupt members of the region’s political class. Through his trading name, Meridian Tobacco Company, Rujugiro in recent years opened a manufacturing plant in northern Uganda, which produces the Supermatch brand. He also owns large plantations of tobacco in the region, which have been used as a recruitment base for Rwandans to join the RNC-backed militia group in DR Congo.
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Issue no 032 May 2021
>> From page 5 The same region where Rujugiro operates his tobacco business in Uganda, also has a refugee camp for Rwandans, which has been cited as a major recruitment base for Rwandan militia groups. Mudathiru told the court he was recruited from the same camp. Business malpractices Because of this protection from politicians within regional countries, the report said that Rujugiro has been cited in a number of business malpractices, as mentioned in the report. In 2012, a Kenyan tobacco manufacturer launched a lawsuit against one of subsidiaries of his holding company, PanAfrican Tobacco Group, accusing the company of counterfeiting its flagship brand, Supermatch, and selling it cheaply on the East African market, according to the report. “The same illicit network also
facilitated the smuggling of cigarettes back into Uganda, a process known as ‘roundtripping’, with tax evasion facilitated by corrupt customs officials on both sides of the Uganda-Congo border,” the report reads in part. Rujugiro, also pleaded guilty to tax evasion and fraud before a South African court in 2009 and fined $3.7m. He has also previously had run-ins with Burundian authorities over financial crimes ranging from money laundering, smuggling and tax evasion. The report’s authors proposed that effective combatting of illicit trade and extremism requires a comprehensive regional approach, without which national-level interventions are doomed to fail. “The East African Community (EAC) has a significant role to play in this regard. As well as driving harmonization of market standards, the regional body must pressurize member states to adopt key measures designed
to enhance enforcement cooperation,” the report read in part. This would require regional East African Community governments to act on information presented by counterparts on extremist activities in the countries unlike the case currently. For instance, in recent years, Rwanda has informed Uganda on activities by Rujugiro and his counterparts aimed at destabilizing the region but little has been done. “It is evident that crime, corruption, extremism and illicit trade are inextricably linked in East Africa. Therefore, to combat the extremist, criminal and corrupt dangers facing the region it is imperative that national governments and appropriate regional bodies adopt an approach which treats illicit trade as an equivalent security threat. Illicit trade, extremism, crime and corruption must be seen as a composite whole. This can be achieved through, among other measures, closer harmonization of legal penalties,” the authors further
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observed. About the report Counter Extremism Project (CEP) is a not-for-profit, international policy organization headquartered in Germany aiming to understand growing extremist groups worldwide and inform counter strategies. CEP has extensively worked to expose extremist organisations and their financiers as well as avail a database of information about those with links to such extremist groups. The body is made up of experts with varied backgrounds formerly working as government officials, policymakers and statesmen working to develop the best strategies and practices to counter extremists. CEP has previously published reports to expose the working of extremist groups including Boko Haram in Nigeria, Islamic State among others.
Rwandan dissident Tribert Ayabatwa Rujugiro.
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OP-ED
Issue no 032 May 2021
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How Michela Wrong’s propaganda and misinformation aligns with Kampala’s, re: allegations about Rwigema’s demise There was nothing more to it than that. Even former members of Habyarimana’s forces, the ex-FAR, that were involved in that incident – and that have been re-integrated in Rwanda and demobilized – have confirmed it.
By Alain Mucyo Anyone that’s familiar with the attacks of Uganda’s propaganda media outlets against Rwanda will notice that the individuals that have been instructing them to do with what mud to sling against Kigali also must have talked to Michela Wrong, moreover extensively, in her hit job of a book against the Rwandan leadership. The book is a compendium of allegations by a vast assortment of self-declared enemies of Rwanda – leaders of terrorist groups (one of her main stars being Kayumba Nyamwasa, cofounder with Patrick Karegeya of the RNC) and their families, genocide suspects, thieving former RPF cadres that went into self-imposed exile, international rights organizations like HRW whose politically motivated venom against Rwanda always is self-evident, European revisionists of the Genocide Against the Tutsi, and anyone else she could find to badmouth Kagame. But one person funded Wrong’s project, and he sits in State House Entebbe, Uganda. We have it on good sources that the Museveni regime paid Michela Wrong good cash, in dollars, when they commissioned her hit job against the Rwandan leadership. We have it on good sources that generals of the Ugandan military passed her the cash in face-to-face encounters – a method of payment that leaves no trails of the kind wire transfers do! Wrong’s book, Do not Disturb, which revolves around the murder of Patrick Karegeya in a Johannesburg Hotel at the beginning of 2014 is one “guilty” verdict against President Kagame for that crime, though in the normal, fact-based world that crime still is the subject of intense speculation. For one, his friend and partner in RNC Nyamwasa could have disposed of him. After all they had some pretty violent quarrels
The Museveni regime however has been at the forefront of pushing conspiracy theories, all pointing the finger at President Kagame, and no amount of facts will ever dissuade them.
Sources say Ugandan President Museveni paid British writer Michela Wrong for her hit job book on the Rwandan leadership.
over control of their terror organization, which intensified after the murder – something that Wrong of course never mentions. In the British writer, Museveni found the perfect willing tool to fund the hit job that’s sent tongues wagging over the past month. One can imagine, Museveni rubbing his palms in glee, no doubt thinking how much value he’s gotten for his money. Their problem is that the lies have begun to unravel, steadily. Carefully go through this fictitious book – infused with enough reporting of real events, real individuals, and places to make it seem factual – and you will be struck by how closely it hews to Kampala propagandists’ favorite anti-Rwanda smears. Several pages for instance are devoted to accusing the RPF of killing its own first commander, the revered Gen. Fred Rwigema, as we see from pages 207 to 216. But Wrong completely underplays the facts of Rwigema’s death as told by RPF fighters that were actually there: the likes of James Kabarebe, Sam Kaka, Caesar Kayizari and others who have steadfastly maintained that Fred died as a result of a freak accident of war – a bullet fired from a fleeing enemy reconnaissance armored vehicle that hit the tall commander in the temple.
On 13 October 2019 for instance the state owned New Vision newspaper published a center-spread article with the following banner headline: “I was there when Gen. Rwigema died – former RPF commander.” It is an article full of fabrications. To begin with, the so-called “commander” on whose words New Vision based the article, one Michael Mupende, wasn’t anywhere near where Rwigema died. How could that be of he wasn’t even an escort of any of the RPA high command? Mupende is just one of the countless rumormongers paid by Kampala to peddle anti-Kigali lies. He slowly rose in his units, years after liberation, and attained the rank of major. The records show that Mupende embezzled RCA (ration and cash allowance) funds for soldiers, entrusted to him in a management capacity, during RPA’s war against x-FAR and Interahamwe militias holed up in DRC. At the time he was the deputy commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion, contrary to the misinformation of Uganda that he was a “commander.” When asked
to produce a missing US$ 18,000 of RCA funds, Mupende couldn’t. So, rather than face accountability, Mupende deserted. He bolted to exile, to Europe via Uganda first. The man had his reasons to slander Rwanda, and in him Museveni had found another useful tool. Using people like these is part of a pattern of his regime’s propaganda methodology, one that Michela Wrong happily deploys. She seeks the words of senior Ugandan officials that were nowhere near Rwanda, leave alone at the frontline, to cast doubt on the true version of the events. She quotes some unnamed Ugandan officer that claims, “killing Fred is the kind of behavior one would associate with them (RPF leadership).” Wrong goes as low as quoting individuals like Noble Marara – a former soldier of the RPF that went into exile due to his uncontrollable impulses of indiscipline. “Anyone that tells you the death of Fred was a normal event is just not right,” Marara claims, insinuating it was Kagame that was responsible. But who is this Marara? The fellow was a secondary school student in western Uganda when the RPA launched its war. In other words another nonentity that only someone bent on writing the worst kind of smears will interview. This obsession of trying to blame Rwigema’s death on President Kagame isn’t a new one in Kampala. They, and multitudes of others bent on weaponizing it care very little about glaring counter-evidence, such as the fact Kagame, then a major, was thousands of kilometers away in the United States attending a military course when the tragedy occurred. Wrong is over-eager in peddling it in her revisionist account of Rwanda’s most recent history.
Ugandan President Museveni
One thing is for sure: Museveni will gladly pay for more of such smears.
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OP-ED
Issue no 032 May 2021
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Ugandan military brass behave as hooligans since the law applies not to them to book. “Impunity is the natural right of high-ranking officers of the Ugandan regime’s military!” a Kampala commentator said. A notorious example was when Maj. Gen. Matayo Kyaligonza, Uganda’s ambassador to Burundi got out of his monster SUV and slapped a traffic policewoman in the face. Her crime? She had stopped his car for making a wrongful U-turn. Kyaligonza’s bodyguard also assaulted the woman, before they got back into their vehicle and left. There were zero consequences for the high-ranking UPDF man for acting like an utter hooligan, moreover in full public view. Kyaligonza’s hooliganism, however, is mild compared to what other high-ranking generals of the UPDF have done. One had guns in house which he regularly utilized to terrorise civilians. One time he shot the tires of a couple of trucks. He was not using his gun to fight an invading enemy, but to shoot vehicles belonging to civilians. The man even shot a tractor, causing a farmer to flee in terror.
UPDF Maj. Gen. Matayo Kyaligonza (in white shirt) slapping a police woman while Kyaligonza’s soldier bodyguard manhandles her.
By Alex Muhumuza On Wednesday this week “theinformer.ug” website, one of the dozens of Kampala-based outlets of propaganda and misinformation posted an article with an alarmist headline about Rwanda. “Army generals Muhire and Ibingira rotting in prison over Covid-19 protocols violation”, it said. It was the usual approach by any of the media on the payroll of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) whose brief is to distort, or twist any development from Rwanda and put the most negative spin on it. First of all, why the word ‘rotting’?, asked an observer.
“Ibingira and Muhire are alright where they are detained. They’ve been under detention only a few days. They receive visitors!” added the observer, asking: “so what is it that is ‘rotting’ about them?” The fact is, no one in Rwanda is above the law, something that the “theinformer.ug” fails to inform its readers about. Generals Ibingira and Muhire (Rtd) are not above the law. Even the title of the website’s article says it (they violated Covid-19 protocols) before it veers into sensationalist negativism. One of the generals broke national anti-Covid-19 rules by travelling across the country to attend a wedding with a group of people. Another decided to host
several of his friends to drinks at his guesthouse. Such activities are prohibited as part of overall national efforts to prevent the pandemic’s spread. In Rwanda, generals of the military hold themselves up to the highest codes of discipline, and are expected to be exemplars of obeisance to laws. In Uganda, on the other hand, it would be very strange if a general were to be arrested and detained for breaking the law. “It is almost unheard of!” several Ugandans contacted by this website said. UPDF generals commit crimes, very often and very openly in Uganda, but none is ever brought
But after each incident the UPDF general just went back to his house and had more booze. There were no investigations into those acts. UPDF brass get drunk in bars and fight and violate every law secure in the knowledge that “I am who I am!” said one of our Kampala sources. The Rwandan military, on the other hand, is a highly disciplined force whose individual officers – from top to bottom – consider it a complete disgrace, and a loss of face to be implicated in any act of indiscipline. “It is telling that even on the very rare occasion an RDF officer is caught on the wrong side of the law it is something like violation of Covid rules,” a reader in Kigali remarked. “Compare that to UPDF Generals like Kyaligonza!”
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OP-ED
Issue no 032 May 2021
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Ugandan propaganda wildly creates false equivalences following President Kagame’s remarks rassment for Kampala. Police, which did not seem to be in on CMI’s schemes at the time, charged the over 40 suspects with terrorism. The evidence against them was such that even Museveni had to acknowledge what they were up to.
By Alex Muhumuza Kampala’s propaganda outlets have jumped on recent comments by President Kagame (after he re-assured Rwanda that their house is secure and well fortified) to resurrect a litany of old, long-disproved accusations against Rwanda. The goal of this most recent onslaught of misinformation, led by the likes of Chimpreports and joined by “commandonepost.com”, “skynews.com” as well as a number of Facebook misinformation peddlers, is to distort what President Kagame said while attempting to sanitize the Kampala regime’s very real hostile acts against Rwanda. Chimpreports goes further than others in dredging up the most discredited falsehoods while also playing propagandist for Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC. Observers won’t be surprised by this since the website’s chief editor, Giles Muhame, is known to be on the payroll of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), which leads Kampala’s propaganda and misinformation war against Rwanda. In an article titled “Kagame: Rwanda building strong defense over Uganda threat”, published Monday this week, the most blatant lie is that “Kigali has falsely accused Uganda of working with groups to destabilize Rwanda.” Chimpreports claims that, “matters (between Uganda and Rwanda) worsened three years ago when Kigali began accusing Uganda of helping dissident general Kayumba Nyamwasa, claims Kampala denied.”
position of lies, aren’t very creative in their attacks. Everybody knows that their master works with Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC (and not only RNC but with the genocidal FDLR, RUD-Urunana, FLN of Rusesabagina, and other proxy groups) in his endless schemes to create instability in Rwanda. On the other hand, Kigali has never been in bed with equivalent groups to bring harm to Uganda. This fact leaves Kampala propagandists with no choice but to create the wildest false equivalences. The claim that Rwanda works with the ADF rebels, not backed with a single fact, is one example. Kampala, however, has been exposed as working with RNC in
countless ways and the evidence has always been there for all to see. In one incident in 2017 Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) was caught red-handed when Uganda immigration and border police intercepted a bus full of young Rwandans whose final destination was RNC training camps in Minembwe, eastern DRC. The story that emerged was that, working with agents of RNC in Uganda, CMI was facilitating the recruitment of these young Rwandans from refugee camps, procured them false papers, and was in the process of sending them to the training camps – where RNC was preparing its armed terrorist groups. That incident was a huge embar-
Ugandan President Museveni
RNC operatives like Pastor Deo Nyirigira – whose church in Mbarara was a recruitment center for RNC membership in western Uganda – felt so empowered they created an “RNC Uganda Province”, to openly carry out their anti-Rwanda subversion.
As if to compound this insult to its readers’ intelligence, in the very next sentence Chimpreports relays the concocted allegation that “Kigali supported DRC-based ADF rebels with logistics, intelligence, and military intelligence”, adding that Kigali “dismissed it as false.” So, if it was dismissed as false why repeat it? Uganda’s propagandists, who always have to work from a
But that’s only a tip-of-the-iceberg story. RNC operates in Uganda with complete freedom and impunity, even using CMI facilities to illegally detain and torture Rwandans whom they either want to forcefully recruit, or rob of their money and property.
Maj. Gen. Abel Kandiho of CMI, tasked with running a propaganda and misinformation campaign against Rwanda through outlets such as Chimpreports and Commandonepost.
So tight is RNC with Uganda’s rulers that when the terror group’s chief financier, Tribert Rujugiro, built a tobacco factory in the country’s West Nile region, Museveni’s brother Gen. Salim Saleh, who handles his (Museveni) business interests, was gifted a fifteen percent stake in the firm. The firm was also a front for RNC recruitment.
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OP-ED
Issue no 032 May 2021
Rwanda in 2019 in Angola as part of efforts to re-normalize relations – this should long ago have stopped.
>> From page 5 Museveni himself has been exposed as having met, at Entebbe State House, with senior RNC officials, which he shamefacedly admitted after the media reported it. It just goes on and on. Kampala resident RNC agents Prossy Bonabaana and Sulah Nuwamanya, for instance, operate behind a shell NGO to run cadreship cells in several parts of Uganda while mounting a ceaseless campaign of vitriolic propaganda against Rwanda. This is despite the fact that under provisions of Ad-hoc committee meetings to implement the MoU – signed between Uganda and
Chimpreports – further displaying Ugandan propaganda’s lack of inhibitions in repeating debunked lies – in reference to Rwanda’s complaints against Uganda’s harassment of Rwandan nationals, claims that “they (CMI) were crushing espionage rings created by Rwanda to destabilize Uganda.” It is another claim that grossly insults people’s intelligence. Over the past four years, it is estimated that Ugandan authorities have brutally dumped a lot of Rwandans at the borders following ordeals in torture dungeons,
prisons, or cells. It is estimated 2000 Rwandans have been dumped in this way. They were victims of a campaign of arbitrarily arrests and illegal detentions. Most often they were accused of “espionage”, or “running kidnap operations for Rwanda”, or “illegal possession of weapons”, or “illegal entry.” The first question this raises is, how can this many people be “spies” or “kidnappers”, or “possessors of illegal weapons”? None of these people was ever tried so that CMI or any of the others could produce proof of their accusations. According to lawyers for Rwandan victims of security agencies
in Uganda, the accusations invariably are concoctions with not a shred of evidence. So many suffered horrendous physical abuse and torture in illegal detention (incommunicado), with none of them ever being allowed their rights to consular visits, on trumped up charges. So many have suffered trauma as a result of the abuses. This shameless treatment of innocent Rwandans is ongoing, up to now with untold numbers in CMI dungeons, “safe houses”, or prisons in various parts of Uganda. Ugandan propagandists just carry on falsifying reality.
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