Your source for credible news Issue no 033
June, 2021
Ingabire knows better than most that impunity has no place in Rwanda
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Rwanda welcomed Congolese fleeing Nyiragongo, but CMI propaganda chose to smear Rwanda Page 3
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Forget The Guardian, the world will soon wake up to Michela Wrong’s propaganda technics Page 5
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Ms. Victoire Ingabire wants peace and justice in the Great Lakes Region like everyone else, but the mechanisms she proposes to achieve the two are completely ineffectual as her utterances recently quoted in the Chatham House show. In a blanket comment carried by the publication, she said that “A culture of impunity in some Great Lakes countries continues to be a problem”. By picking on impunity, Ms. Ingabire thought she had found an easy credit to earn. This is because if indeed impunity was to be a culture in any country, that would be a big problem. However, her analysis severely lacked in fact and accuracy, making it look like mere hearsay. Page 2 Get a free copy of our e-paper
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Continued persecution: Rwandan man beaten and burnt to death by Ugandan mob Page 7
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Museveni should stop the diversions; he is the one killing Ugandans Page 8
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Issue no 033 June 2021
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Ingabire knows better than most that impunity has no place in Rwanda
By The Newtimes Ms. Victoire Ingabire wants peace and justice in the Great Lakes Region like everyone else, but the mechanisms she proposes to achieve the two are completely ineffectual as her utterances recently quoted in the Chatham House show. In a blanket comment carried by the publication, she said that “A culture of impunity in some Great Lakes countries continues to be a problem”. By picking on impunity, Ms. Ingabire thought she had found an easy credit to earn. This is because if indeed impunity was to be a culture in any country, that would be a big problem. However, her analysis severely lacked in fact and accuracy, making it look like mere hearsay. Let us for example take a closer look at the “impunity in some Great Lakes countries” she picked on to see if we can make sense of it. You will agree with me that whenever Ms. Ingabire points a finger accusing governments in the region of any wrongdoing, the Kigali Administration will be first on her mind. It
is in Rwanda where she tries to remain relevant in opposition politics, and so it is, even on this impunity rhetoric. Not only would that be extremely unfair, but it would also be entirely misleading, like Ingabire herself would testify. Eleven years ago, Ms. Ingabire was arrested after she used highly divisive and charged language at the Kigali Genocide Memorial. Here is what she said, and I quote: “I agree that there was a genocide by Hutu extremists against the Tutsis, that is the reality. The people who did this need to face justice. But there were also other crimes against humanity, including the killing of Hutus”. Bang! In judicial proceedings which followed, prosecution was to successfully have her convicted by court in 2012, of treason and Genocide denial. She was as a result sentenced to a jail term of 15 years in prison, which she served for less than half before being pardoned. Now that she is free, one wonders whether she is not beginning to take matters for granted thus confusing scenarios. If Ms. Ingabire thinks giving her
mercy is impunity, she should come out clearly and say so. Otherwise in Rwanda impunity is fought with all the will power, and no one knows it better than Ms. Ingabire. I will point out another example close to her heart. Back in 2011 when Ms. Ingabire was being prosecuted in court, one of the strongest of evidence against her in the treason part of her case, was the close ties she had with one Paul Rusesabagina. On the basis this too, seeing that ten years later Rusebagina on his own is now battling in courts of law the very charges of treason, surely Rwanda should not appear on Ms. Ingabire’s list of countries where impunity is a problem. Ms. Ingabire still quietly sympathized with Rusesabagina and the cause of armed rebellion up until the time he was arrested. All along FDU-Inkingi had believed together with RNC of Kayumba Nyamwasa and MRCD of Rusesabagina and Twagiramungu, that FLN forces could overthrow the government in Kigali. But after a series of catastrophic military and political
setbacks on the battlefield, in diplomatic circles, and in courts of law, they have lost hope. That is why Ms. Ingabire has now quickly changed tact. She has suddenly taken up the position of championing peace talks. Too little too late, even her own sympathizers have admitted. Last but not least, Ms. Ingabire in the same Chatham House Publication said that the “International Tribunal Court for Rwanda was established to prosecute those responsible for crimes committed in the 1994 genocide, yet the court has only judged crimes committed against Tutsi”. Is this a point she misses or truth she ignores? The focus of the tribunal are the 1994 crimes of Genocide, which was committed against the Tutsi. It is not the tribunal’s problem that in her mind she strongly feels there was a double genocide. How else would she still demand that members of RPA are tried for a crime they helped stop – genocide? It seems she has learnt nothing.
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Rwanda welcomed Congolese fleeing Nyiragongo, but CMI propaganda chose to smear Rwanda By Jean Gatera When Nyiragongo, one of the most dangerous volcanoes on earth, erupted and lava leaked towards the DR Congo town of Goma last Saturday late in the evening, Uganda’s intelligence propaganda outlets saw it fit to launch their usual hostile propaganda against Rwanda. The event, a potentially catastrophic one for over 600,000 residents of Goma, did not stop theinformerug, one of the outlets sponsored by Ugandan Military Intelligence (CMI) from plagiarizing a BBC news story and adding a clickbait title: “Rwanda Closes its border as DR Congo evacuates her citizens to safer places.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Rwanda opened its border and even mobilized its resources to assist the fleeing population of Goma. Naturally, both DR Congo and Rwanda have evacuation plans for their cities and towns in proximity of the highly active volcanic region. When the Congolese fled, Rwanda took them in. Close cooperation between authorities ensured that most residents of the neighboring border towns enjoyed simplified procedures to cross. Studying or working in Rubavu, Rwanda,while living in Goma, DR
Rwandan people! Thanks to the President Paul Kagame for ordering the opening of the border to allow the panicked population to pass,” wrote Dominique Mpundu, a Congolese lawyer and writer, generating over 1400 likes and 385 retweets.
Residents of Goma, DRC , flee into Rwanda where the border was opened for them
Congo, or vice versa is very normaland common practice. Contrary to CMI propaganda when the emergency was declared and an order to evacuate Goma issued, thousands instinctively fled to the Rwandan town of Rubavu. They knew that although the border was closed as a Covid-19 measure, their brothers in Rwanda would open their doors. The initial estimate stated that between 3500-7000 crossed into Rubavu for safety. On hearing the evacuation order in DR Congo, Rwandan authorities immediately prepared from themselves to welcome and assist their neighbors in distress; schools, churches, stadiums,
emergency services were all mobilized to face Nyiragongo in solidarity. But Informerug and Facebook misinformation specialists like “RPF Gakwerere” (managed by one Obed Katureebe who has an office in the Ugandan Communication Commission) began to circulate fake news that Rwanda had closed its border to those fleeing from the advancing lava. Fortunately, current advances in technology debunked their fake news as Congolese took to social media to thank Rwanda for the extraordinary show of solidarity despite the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. “Thank you to the
International organizations also recognized and thanked Rwanda. UNHCR, the UN agency for refugees, wrote, “When Mount Nyiragongo erupted last night just outside of Goma in the DRC, thousands of Congolese fled for their lives. UNHCR is grateful that Rwanda opened its borders to allow many into the neighboring town.” The “informerug” website, in using its click bait title, forgot to change the content to mask their plagiarism, writing, “A resident who talked to our reporter Zacharie Paluku.” This was a lineclearly stolen from a BBC article. “The real motive behind the Ugandan intelligence propaganda is that solidarity between Rwanda and DR Congo hampers their plans to destabilize Rwanda”, a reader observed. “They support a network of terrorist organizations like RNC, FDLR to loot Congo and hope to use the region as a launching pad for attacks on Rwanda,” he added.
In the British newspaper, Ingabire should have called for the extradition of genocide fugitives living in the UK By The Newtimes The Guardian’s decision to embrace and give platform Hutu-Power figures and their talking points has attracted the attention of Rwandans. Recently a convict criminal, Victoire Ingabire, was allowed to mislead the public regarding her conviction in Rwandan courts. Her article, “My story proves Rwanda’s lack of respect for good governance and human rights,” comes in the midst of a series of publications revising historical facts around
the genocide against the Tutsi. This has left Rwandans wondering why The Guardian, a British newspaper, seems determined to lend a hand to the growing denialist movement in the West. While many are willing to believe that western newspapers uncritically embrace “freedom of speech” or would acquiesce to the suggestion that The Guardian’s editors are simply ignorant and too lazy to fact-check when it comes to reporting on Africa, in general, and Rwanda in this
case, this dubious defence wouldn’t stand scrutiny upon learning that dissenting voices, mainly from Rwanda, have been denied the opportunity to debunk the lies peddled against their country on the same platforms where misrepresentations, omissions and fabrications enjoy immunity. Indeed, if freedom of speech was the cause they claim to be defending, the logic would apply to both sides of the argument. However, the refusal to publish anything that contradicts the current anti-Rwanda narrative
clearly indicates a malicious intent on the part of those in charge at The Guardian. But let’s ask the basic questions that the editors at The Guardian should have asked. Who is Victoire Ingabire and what is her story? Ingabire Victoire Umuhoza is the daughter of Therese Dusabe, a genocide convict who enjoys impunity in the Netherlands. Dusabe was accused, among other genocide crimes, of
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>> From page 3 having killed Tutsi women who came to give birth at the health centre of the former Butamwa Commune (current Mageragere sector) where she was a nurse. In August 1998, only 5 months after President Bill Clinton’s visit to Rwanda, Ingabire Victoire, walking in the ideological footsteps of her mother, took the helm of the Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR), a “political” party formed in Mugunga – in former Zaire – refugee camps by the masterminds of the genocide against the Tutsi and whose armed wing was made of ex-FAR and Interahamwe militias. Among the founding fathers of RDR were the notorious genocide masterminds, Theoneste Bagosora, Ferdinand Nahimana and others who led the Cameroonian branch of the party and were later convicted by the International Criminal Court for Rwanda (ICTR). During his visit, President Clinton referred to this group which was, only five months later, to be led by Victoire Ingabire in these terms: “In the northwest part of your country, attacks by those responsible for the slaughter in 1994 continue today.” In 2009, Ingabire Victoire’s new “political” party, FDU-Inkingi, itself a splinter group of these genocidal outfits, was pinned by a UN group of experts report for its ties to the FDLR, the genocidal armed militia which the United States lists as a terrorist group. Later, in 2010, the vice-president of FDU, Joseph Ntawagundi, who had returned in Rwanda in Ingabire’s company was caught up by his past. Facing damning testimonies, including that of his own wife, he pleaded guilty to direct participation in the Tutsi genocide for having called for the killing of eight persons. It is worth noting that, at the time of Ntawangundi’s arrest, Ingabire Victoire defended her vice-president tooth and nail, claiming that the charges were politically motivated. On the 15th of October 2010, The New Times reported the arrest of Victoire Ingabire “on suspicion of being involved in subversive activities. Ingabire was arrested after she was
implicated by Maj Vital Uwumuremyi, a former rebel commander in the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) who was intercepted trying to sneak across the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) – Rwanda border.” Further evidence of Ingabire’s connections with genocidal groups roaming in eastern DRC were provided by Dutch authorities after a search had been conducted at her house in the Netherlands.
It is also worth noting that this evidence was damning enough to prompt Ingabire’s husband, Lin Muyizere, to petition The Hague Court in a bid to block the transfer of the incriminating documents to Rwanda. In November 2011, the Dutch embassy informed the Rwandan ministry of foreign affairs that the Court in The Hague had dismissed Muyizere’s petition. “The judge ruled that the objections of Muyizere were not admissible. This means that all legal obstacles for sending the said evidence to Rwanda have been cleared,” read the Dutch embassy’s note verbal in part. On December 13th, 2013, the Supreme Court increased Victoire Ingabire’s jail term from the initial eight-year verdict of the Hight Court to 15 years, after it found her guilty for, among other crimes, forming armed groups to destabilise the country, and minimising the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. What Ingabire omits to the say in her misleading piece is that both she and the prosecution had appealed the first sentence, which the prosecu-
tion found too lenient. All this information is available in the public domain if The Guardian was a newspaper that serves the truth. Moreover, Ingabire insists on her condemnation for genocide minimization because she knows that her audience in the West remains, to date, unable to identify with the pain on Rwandans and their outrage towards Ingabire’s despicable comments at the Gisozi Genocide Memorial. On
that fateful day, Ingabire equated the planned mass murders of a more than a million Tutsi to the crimes attributed to the RPF, echoing the double genocide theory peddled by genocide masterminds before, during and after the genocide against Tutsi. Clearly, Ingabire has no defence to offer when it comes to her association with genocidaires and her plans to launch an armed struggle to overthrow the Rwandan government. This is why her story in the Guardian omits these details. It reads as if she was born in 2010, had only exercised her freedom of speech when she was arrested and convicted, and had no criminal background to answer for. No one believes that editors at The Guardian are unable to fact-check Ingabire’s assertions, whether on her condemnation, the impressive economic strides made by Rwanda since 1994 or on the state of human rights. On this particular issue of human rights abuses, the modus operandi remains the same. Allegations
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against the government, with no evidence to back them, are treated as established facts. However, if we were to stick to established facts with the aim to safeguard commonwealth values that The Guardian supposedly shares, everyone would agree with British MP Andrew Mitchel’s views that “Britain harbours a guilty secret which should worry all decent people who care about its role in the world.” Indeed, if we truly care about common values, shielding genocide fugitives, as Britain does, isn’t something to be proud of but something that everyone should condemn. If Ingabire truly cared about commonwealth values, she would call for the extradition of the five genocide fugitives living in the UK whenever given a platform in a British newspaper. If she was principled in her defence of Human Rights, she would even call for the extradition of her own mother, a genocide convict whom many believe she helped escape to the Netherlands. She would also seek forgiveness for her involvement with mass murderers, starting by those who controlled refugee camps in Zaire and were launching murderous attacks on Rwanda. But, evidently, this is really not about common wealth values. It’s about rewriting the history of Rwandan under the guise of human rights concerns and Ingabire Victoire is fronted as yet another anointed “hero” fighting the Rwandan “dictatorship” after the resounding failure of the “Hollywood hero” project. Ironically, on the Hollywood “hero” too, British Courts agreed with the views of many Rwandans. On the evidence presented by Paul Rusesabagina in defence of four genocide suspects living freely in the UK, Judge Antony Evans didn’t mince his words. “In reality what it [Rusesabagina’s testimony] did was to expose the background to this evidence and show that the evidence was not of an independent expert, but rather of a man with a background strongly allied to the extremist Hutu faction, and as such cannot be considered as independent and reasoned,” Judge Evans ruled. The question is: Will The Guardian and regime change sponsors ever learn?
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If Mozambique has arrested Ntamuhanga, let him be extradited to face justice in Rwanda By Alex Muhumuza Unconfirmed reports suggest that fugitive Cassien Ntamuhanga has been arrested in Mozambique and that he could be extradited to Rwanda Ntamuhanga was serving a twenty-five year jail term for formation of a criminal gang, conspiracy against the established government, and complicity in a terrorism act when he escaped from the Mpanga prison in Southern Province in 2017. He had barely served three years of the sentence when he broke jail, finding his way to Uganda from where he was facilitated to fly to Mozambique. “From there he fooled the authorities that he was a bona-fide refugee,” according to sources.
Fugitive Cassien Ntamuhanga.
While in Mozambique Ntamuhanga resumed his criminal subversive acts forming a group called “Abaryankuna” with the same goal as other terrorist groups like RNC of destabilizing the security of Rwanda. Abaryankuna, in collaboration with FDLR, killed innocent Rwandans inside the country and terrorized others in Mozambique.
raised against him in absentia, Ntamuhanga was convicted and just recently, on May 6, was found guilty of facilitating terrorism activities through one Phocas Ndayizera and thirteen others. Ndayizera who was arrested in November 2018 was accused of plotting to manufacture improvised explosive devices using dynamite with intent to use accomplices to detonate them in crowded places, and installations like power plants and fuel depots.
For these and other crimes
Court sentenced him in absentia
to an additional 25 years. Once in Maputo Cassien Ntamuhanga had fallen in with elements of FDLR based in the Mozambiquan capital. The deadly genocide fugitives have been killing anyone they suspect of not being with them in their violent anti-Rwanda agenda. In 2012 they abducted and killed Theogene Turatsinze, former head of the Rwanda Development Bank.
businessman Louis Baziga who was head of the Rwandan diaspora association in Maputo. They eliminated him for being someone positive about his country. Whether Ntamuhanga has been arrested or not, it’s a matter of time that that the long arm of the law catches up with him. No amount of propaganda by his friends in Europe and the region will stop this.
Then on 23 August 2019 FDLR and Abaryankuna elements killed
Forget The Guardian, the world will soon wake up to Michela Wrong’s propaganda technics By The Newtimes If Michela Wrong had hoped that her recent book would change the world’s perception of Rwanda, it appears President Macron’s visit rained on her parade. Wrong’s “The world is slowly waking up to Paul Kagame’s brutal actions in Rwanda,” falls short of elaborating on what “world”, beyond her narrow definition, she is referring to. The Guardian is complicit because what should have been an opinion piece based on facts looks more like a desperate attempt to attach her hostile views of Rwanda to the world. It is, in the
classical sense, what one would call propaganda hit job. First, there is the repeated use of “anonymous western” commentators to give a veneer of legitimacy to her talking points. There are anonymous European diplomats, analysts and development officials who apparently cannot disclose their identities for reasons that only the author knows. But given her hostility towards Rwanda’s leadership, one can rightly assume that these sources are not just anonymous; they are fictional. Without them, the hit job falls flat since only two characters are left in the rest of
the fiction. One is Gerard Prunier, a French journalist who revealed his direct participation in a regime change project aimed at overthrowing the Rwandan government back in 1998in one of his book titled “Africa’s World war”. The second is none other than David Himbara, a disgraced and self-exiled former official with an axe to grind, a narcissist who spends his days on the internet slandering the Rwandan government. Wrong had to invent the anonymous analysts, European diplomats and development officials in
order to create the impression that more and more people, beyond the usual circles of Rwanda bashers, are buying into her narrative and that they are “waking up” to whatever distortion of facts and history she wants to sell. Second, there is a cynical attempt to use the ethnic card to mobilize hostility towards Rwanda. “The fact that many of the regime’s targets have not been members of the Hutu majority but Kagame’s own Tutsi minority – many of them formerly
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>> From page 5
trusted insiders at that – has not gone unremarked in the west,” Wrong claims while inadvertently revealing her narrow definition of the “world”. Indeed, if the world is circumscribed to the West, then, clearly, President Macron, a western leader, is not dancing to Wrong’s tune. Moreover, the fact that Wrong projects her own racism – which espouses Hutu-Power ideals as demonstrated by British investigative journalist Linda Melvern – onto Rwandans has not gone unremarked in Rwanda. Yes, Diane Rwigara, Kizito Mihigo, Kayumba Nyamwasa and Patrick Karegeya – Wrong’s self-declared “seductive handler” whose “smooth honey” she fondly describes in her book – have all been charged in Rwandan courts. All, Except Diane Rwigara, were convicted. And, as it should be in any country governed by the rule of law, their ethnicity was irrelevant to the courts. As for assassination attempts on the lives of some amongst those, we are still waiting for Wrong to
provide the evidence implicating the Rwandan government. So far, it has been one unfounded allegation after another, and The Guardian, a supposedly reliable newspaper, seems unwilling to hold her to account. Third, there is the constant attempt to blame the RPF for the tragedy that befell the Democratic Republic of Congo. But Wrong is unable to blame Rwanda without departing from her racist lenses. For instance, in reference to the refugees that were held in hostage by genocidaires in Zaire’s refugee camps, Wrong quotes Gerard Prunier who affirms that “You can kill hundreds of thousands without it having much international impact, but jail an elderly mother, and it changes forever the way allies see you.” The fact that Wrong and Prunier are allowed to distort the context in which historical events took place speaks to all that is still bad about their “world”. Twenty-seven years is not long enough to forget about how that “world” looked the other way while more than a million Tutsis were murdered. The same world looked the other way
while genocidaires were being re-armed in those camps and launching attacks on Rwanda with the stated intention to finish the “work”. Yet, Wrong thinks that Rwanda – and not her “world” and the genocidaires it protected and still protect from prosecution –is to blame for the deaths that occurred during the dismantling of the refugee camps in which people were made human shields as genocidaires openly reorganised to complete the genocide. But we know better, don’t we? The moving testimony of Rwandan Senator Marie-Rose Mureshyakano was a timely reminder of what we should hold dear. Her testimony gives informed insight into what actually happened in former Zaire. “I told you how Inkotanyi (RPA soldiers) rescued me… I told you how they rescued my husband who was in critical condition and took us to Mbandaka airport and then took us back to Rwanda in a plane… Inkotanyi saved me from my Hutu identity. I felt like they would kill me because I was a Hutu. They changed my identity
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because they showed me their uniqueness,” Senator Mureshyakano recalls. It is this uniqueness that Wrong disputes from the vantage point of her racism because she is unable to conceive Rwanda and Rwandaness beyond ethnic labels. Indeed, in the lenses of genocide deniers, Rwanda was and will remain the belligerence of tribes. As President Kagame said during the press conference held jointly with his French counterpart, “Rwanda could easily have remained a failed state. Some may even have felt vindicated by that. Others actually worked to make sure that Rwanda failed.” Rwandans know where, in those categories, to place Michela Wrong, although she might need to work harder if she wants other countries to join the U.S and the UK governments in the rewriting of Rwandan history. We are used to the lectures on human rights and can easily accommodate them. But no country is powerful enough, to change the historical facts around the Genocide against Tutsi.
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Continued persecution: Rwandan man beaten and burnt to death by Ugandan mob By Patience Kirabo A Rwandan man, Bazambanza Munyemana has been gruesomely killed in Uganda: another casualty of the policy of harassment and persecution of innocent Rwandans in Uganda by the country’s security forces or local authorities. His body was retrieved yesterday, June 06, around 1 PM at the environs of the Uganda-Rwanda border, dumped by his assailants who had beaten and burnt him to death. The late Bazambanza, 21, hailed from Burera District and had been living and working in Butandi, in the neighboring Kabale District of Uganda for more than four years, until he was attacked by a mob that included his boss at his home. He was brutally beaten with huge sticks and burnt while naked – an act of inhuman torture. “The fact that the local authorities in Kabala did not intervene either to save the Rwandan national or to investigate his death signals complicity,” said a border official that preferred anonymity. The assailants of Bazambanza upon realizing that he was dead decided to tie up his body, drove it close to the Rwandan border at
Burera District, Kivuye Sector, Nyirataba cell, Kanyenzugi village and dumped it there. They did everything in broad daylight and with full impunity.
Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) and their operatives, arbitrarily arrest Rwandans either working, traveling to, or visiting people in Uganda.
The victim’s body was found by community members in the Kivuye Sector, and alerted authorities who took his corpse to Butaro Hospital for autopsy as investigations proceed.
Stories have been rampant of the torture the Rwandans that fall into the hands of the security agencies suffer, some even dying. Now the persecution of Rwandan nationals seems to have become decentralized, whereby any Ugandan feels empowered to harass, torture, brutalize or take their lives, commented our source.
Due to the Kampala regime’s hostility towards Rwandan nationals in Uganda, even ordinary Ugandans are taking matters into their hands, mimicking actions of their government. They have seen or heard of how security organs of their country, like the
“After all there are no repercussions for the injustices, so why wouldn’t ordinary Ugandans that
may feel the need to commit some crime against a Rwandan, such as the killers of Bazambanza, do?” Another case in point is the one of Felicien Mbonabaheka who was murdered while trying to help another Rwandan who was being beaten by a mob of Ugandans. The assailants chopped off his head and legs, cut out his backbone, and later hastily buried him without notifying either his relatives or the Rwanda government. To this day, nothing has been said by the Kampala regime regarding the brutal killing of the late Mbonabaheka. Rwandan authorities have kept warning people against crossing to Uganda since their safety cannot be guaranteed. Kampala has shown no commitment to implementing its commitments as outlined in the memorandum of understanding signed in August 2019 in Luanda as part of efforts to normalize relations between Rwanda and Uganda. It specifically prohibits harassment, persecution, and all sorts of extralegal mistreatment of Rwandan nationals in Uganda.
The late Bazambanza who was so inhumanly murdered in Uganda.
New Vision joins rights groups in ignoring lack of security in Kampala to highlight “lack of space” in Kigali By Jackie Mbabazi Uganda’s New Vision publication on Tuesday 1 June 2021 reported on the arrest of Karasira Aimable, a Rwandan YouTuber based in Kigali whom Rwanda Investigation Bureau is holding responsible for denial of Genocide against the Tutsi. Entirely true. Then New Vision went on to say that “Kigali has often come under fire from rights groups for cracking down on free speech and misusing laws on genocide denial to round up critics.” True and false. It is partly true because indeed
rights groups for a living endlessly harangue Rwanda. But it is outright false and pretentious to say that they do so because Kigali cracks down on free speech.For starters,what the administration doesis simply to enforce the laws as enacted. For information, hate speech and denial of the Genocide against the Tutsi are outlawed in Rwanda. Now those who for racist reasons or other motives equally sinister have deliberately refused to find this legislation appropriate given the country’s recent tragic history, go on to label the justice system in Rwanda flawed.
Flawed is something else though. It is the agenda. Rights groups have an unrighteous mission to crack down on Rwanda, and to that inconvenience, the country long gotten used as it is not new. For long most of them have been known to operate like false prophets. They come to Africa in “sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.” Refer to Matthew 7:15.Now in New Vision they have a newfound willing partner in crime. So, what should we say here?Are we to forgive New Vision for naively playing into the hands of Africa’s repression agents, or we
shall castigate the Kampala regime’s mouthpiece for beingsinfully picky? Because how the paper chose to point their guns at the innocent Kigali, resting peacefully far south western of Kampala when the situation in their city was restless beats my understanding. See, that morning Museveni’s Transport Minister, Gen KatumbaWamala, had been violently attacked and wounded by gunmen in a shooting that left his daughter and driver dead. May their souls rest in peace.
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what Mzee said when late Ibrahim Abiriga was assassinated just over a year later, late afternoon of 8 June 2018?
>> From page 7 And may peace reign in Kampala, God we pray, as peace has been ever more elusive in Uganda’s capital for years now. This New Vision can really decide to be quite choosy on stories to highlight. Selecting the minor incident of a Karasira someone lawfully arrested in Kigali, when a couple of kilometers from their offices there was mayhem as a Minister shot and injured by criminals was evacuated to the hospital by boda-boda was amazing. A former Inspector General of Police and former Army Commander, this unfortunate military generalof the mighty UPDF, had been brutally attacked. And to make matters even more intriguing, Uganda’s Commander in Chief was only later to say in a tweet, a mere tweet, that his government already had “clues to those killers”, calling them “pigs” and “terrorists”. Whether New Vision was playing along, helping the Head of State to play it down, let that be your call. But still the question begs: Who are these killers? Well, if the killers are terrorists, it might be tricky flashing them out. But if they are like pigs, then pinning them down in their pigsty should not be that difficult. Problem is that there is a history to this, the gun violence targeting very senor Ugandan citizens and the President’s casual reactions whenever they have occurred.It
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To the above questions, analysts have said there are two possible answers. That either it is true Uganda’s security has been seriously compromised like President Museveni once admitted, or someone on the President’s behalf keeps a list of who to eliminate when. My take is that both scenarios could beat play. It is characteristically common for authoritarian regimes when losing it to look within and find real or imaginary traitors. No prizes for guessing what they do next – eliminate.
Gen. Katumba Wamala bleeds after the attempt on his life earlier in the week. The state owned New Vision newspaper scandalously chose to focus on a none-event in Rwanda when such serious issues are plaguing Uganda.
is a history of failure. Every time it happens the abundant-hut-statesman responds in either a confused or confusing style, or both. Because while he desires to pass the calming message of assurance that his forces are in full control of the situation, he ends up sounding like he had fore knowledge about the attackers but could do nothing to prevent the attack. Helpless they arethese brothers you would be forgiven to sadly
conclude. In the end Ugandans do not know what to exactly make of it all. You hear them asking legitimate questions such as: ‘so are the authorities always going to behave like things are under control after lives have been lost?’ Was this piggery answer to the growing city insecurity questions not what the President gave when former Assistant Inspector General of Police, late Andrew Felix Kawesa was gunned down on the morning of 17 March 2017? Is it not
It is the real story which understandably compromised New Vision will not have space for lest the editors face the chop. And herein lies the reason for frustration. When seasoned journalists are not allowed to write the meaty stories of the land, they will be forced to look outside the landto find something. Which they did, poor editors, and they landed on a Karasira non-starter tip. Hopeless as it were, parroting the rights groups claim that Kigali lacks space for free speech, instead of highlighting Kampala’s lack of security, they still gave it space. Come on New Vision. You can at least do much better than forgetting should not be throwing stones since yours too is a glass house.
Museveni should stop the diversions; he is the one killing Ugandans of the most prominent members of a troll army; a misinformation machine on social media and websites regularly deployed against Rwanda by Kampala.
By Alex Muhumuza Following the attempted assassination of Uganda’s minister of works and transport, Gen. Katumba Wamala, during which one of his daughters and his driver died in the morning of yesterday, June 1, Kampala’s agents of misinformation namely “RPF Gakwerere” aka Obed Katureebe, and one Titus Seruga wasted no time posting wild allegations that “it was Rwanda behind the attempt.” Katureebe and Seruga are some
Using his trademark insults against the Rwandan leadership on Facebook, Obed Katureebe – who is on the payroll of SFC under the control of Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba – wrote a string of outright fictions about how “DMI” of Kigali had “carried out the operation.” Ugandan ruler Museveni (left) and Maj. Gen. Abel Kandiho of CMI (right)
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OP-ED
Issue no 033 June 2021
Muhammad Kirumira in August 2018, and even with the earlier killing of Joan Kagezi in 2015. The Ugandan ruler would go public to blame “a neighboring country”, to be echoed by his various propaganda organs.
>> From page 8 Seruga, a fellow based thousands of kilometres away in Brussels who is paid by CMI to tarnish Rwanda, yesterday was on his page smearing the President of Rwanda that he was “behind the attempted assassination of Wamala.” This was at the same time as Obed Katureebe was posting similar allegations. Someone in Kampala clearly had triggered the agents of misinformation.
But there is never a report to show how this neighboring country was involved in any of the crimes. Other than that, none of the countless high profile crimes that have been perpetrated on Museveni’s watch has ever been solved.
Logic easily defeats them. How could they know who was responsible for a crime before police or some other security had arrived on the scene to conduct even a preliminary investigation? For the Kampala trolls, blaming Rwanda for serious crimes committed in Uganda is a long-standing modus operandi; it began with Museveni himself. When former Uganda Police spokesperson AIGP Andrew Kaweesi was killed, together with his bodyguard and driver by two gunmen on a motorcycle, (in similar fashion to the killers in the Katumba incident) that very evening Museveni was on television claiming that “a neighboring country” was involved. That is coded language for Rwanda. Everyone knows when Museveni or his trolls refer to “a neighboring country” in a malevolent way, they mean Rwanda. But how could Museveni blame
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Museveni through Maj. Gen. Abel Kandiho have turned scapegoating Rwanda into a favorite tactic using propagandists like Obed Katureebe aka “Rpf Gakwerere”,(right) and Titus Seruga (left).
Rwanda for a crime only a few hours old? A thorough investigation in such matters usually takes some few weeks at the very least. The answer is that Museveni was scapegoating Rwanda to deflect attention from himself. A simple examination of facts will show it is Museveni who has been killing Ugandans, and is killing Ugandans. In the case of the Kaweesi murder – in the Kulambiro suburb of Kampala on 17 March 2017 – for instance, the assassins were so confident in their impunity they shot the spokesman of Uganda Police only about 300 meters
away from a police station. Secondly credible eyewitnesses have said the weapons they used weren’t AK47s “which can be obtained by any criminal.” Kaweesi’s killers used the sophisticated M4 rifles – of the kind used by Museveni’s SFC. Also, though Museveni pledged that there would be “a painstaking investigation into the crime”, no report of any investigation has been made public. The same cycle repeated with the killing of former Arua Municipality MP Ibrahim Abiriga in June 2018, and the assassination of former Buyende Police DPC
Why would that be if he is in command of the machinery of state and all its capacity to solve crimes, including all the vaunted CCTV cameras installed all over Kampala? The answer is obvious: it is Museveni that’s been eliminating Ugandans. A BBC documentary a few days ago is just one of the many that’s pinned him. But he’s been behind the demises of countless Ugandans: those he’s perceived to be a threat to his power; those he reportedly owed big sums of money to; those seen as an impediment to dynastic ambitions for his son succeed him; many for supporting the opposition, and other reasons. Rwanda is just a very convenient scapegoat; one that Museveni long ago chose to pursue a hostile, aggressive stance against.
The “Pigs” killing people in Uganda are Museveni’s pigs, Kampala propagandists only drag in Rwanda as a diversion By Jean Gatera One of the many Kampala propagandists, Charles Kazooba who runs a website called Skynewsug.com has published an article speculating on who might be behind high profile assassinations in Uganda. The article – published three days after the assassination attempt on Minister of Public Works and Transport Gen. Wamala Katumba – lists a series of scenarios on the causes of insecurity. Kazooba then fictitiously adds Rwanda-Uganda tensions to his listthereby pushing the propa-
ganda of the real culprits of insecurity in Uganda. That is, the regime of President Museveni. Reacting to the attempt on Katumba, Museveni as he always does in such incidents referred to the assailants as “the Pigs” killing Ugandans. Thus he tries to extricate himself from responsibility. But it doesn’t work with Ugandans. Many took to social mediato indicate they know who the real killers (of Kaweesi, Abiriga, Kirumira, Annie Kagezi, several Muslim clerics and others) have been all along. The “pigs” are “People In Government Security”,
Ugandan social media decoded. “Why after all, has there never been anyone brought to book?” they ask. Why has Museveni’s security agencies, equipped with all the resources of a state, never solved a single one of the high-profile crimes? Assailants riding on motorcycles, as in the case of the late Police spokesperson AIGP Andrew Kaweesi killed him just a few meters from a police station, using rifles of the sort used by Museveni’s Special Forces Command.
Ugandan regime. He points to corruption and succession battles as possible causes. In 2005, Gilbert Bukenya, the then Vice President of Uganda, came out to say that the “mafia” was after his life. Evelyn Anite, the State Minister of Finance for Investment and Privatization, also sounded the alarm that her life was in danger because of the “mafia”. It is also in the public domain that the latest victim, Gen. Katumba, had been receiving death threats.
But Kazooba also speculates about internal wrangles in the
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OP-ED
Issue no 033 June 2021
tions, one quickly sees that whenMuseveni talks about“pigs” they are his own. They must be operating within the Ugandan security apparatus.
>> From page 9 Kazooba in this way inadvertently confirms that the problem is an internal one, in Uganda! In his article, he also elaborates on a possible Islamist terrorist organization, ADF, as being behind the attacks. But then, dubiously, he adds the diversion that “ADF has Rwanda’s support.” It’s an allegation with nothing to support it. There are serious contradictions between Kazooba’s theories and facts. It has come to lightfor instance that the weapon used in the Katumba attack was an ADF gun used to kill Maj. Kiggundu,in November 2016. The weapon was left at the crime scene 5 years ago, according to Kazooba. Strangely, Museveni, in his
On the Rwanda-Uganda crisis, the author states that Rwandans living in Uganda have faced persecution but waters it down to “arrested hundreds of Rwandan nationals for espionage who were then deported them back to their country.” This is pure Kampala regime misinformation, and the facts show it. Ugandan president Museveni
state of the Nation address on the 4th of June 2021 revealed that the same gun was used on Katumba.In other words, a weapon recovered by Ugandan security in 2016was used to again in 2021! With such revela-
Thousands (not hundreds)of Rwandan nationals have over the past four years been abducted by Ugandan intelligence, held incommunicado in secret detention facilities. They were variously accused of “espionage”, “illegal weapons possession”, “kidnap”,
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and others. What Kazooba omits to mention is that none was ever given a chance to defend themselves in court. They were just tortured to confess to the concocted charges, and very many dumped at the borders, moreover following pressure from Rwanda. They were victims of a policy of anti-Rwanda hostility by Kampala, of which misinformation – such as that “Rwanda has worked with ADF” – is part of. Kampala and its security organs, mainly CMI which is in charge of a propaganda and misinformation against Rwanda, have been scapegoating Kigali to deflect from the high-profile assassinations that Museveni is responsible for. This time not even a child is falling for it.
CMI propaganda tries another attempt to deflect attention away from Museveni, with hoax story of “Rwandan soldiers invading Uganda” By Jean Gatera Two Kampala-based propaganda websites, Chimpreports and Watchdoguganda.com both under the control of Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) have published allegations that a local authority, Rukiga District, is reinforcing its border patrols “to stop Rwandan soldiers that are crossing the border in pursuit of smugglers.” This is another of the manufactured lies of CMI against Rwanda evidently. They published it but offered no facts to back it up. According to this story, the “cross border raid” was led by a Rwandan Defense Force Captain and two escorts chasing waragi (illicit gin) traffickers. But, very conveniently, the CMI propaganda outlets do not say who that so-called captain is. “In fact if one were to ask Giles Muhame the chief editor of Chimpreports, it would turn out this is the same case as his fictitious claims in April 2019 that Rwandan soldiers had crossed to Uganda looking for food and drink,” laughed a reader. After publishing that story, Muhame was repeatedly pressed by Rwandans on social media to post video or even pictures of the alleged incident, but he never
could. He had deliberately published an outright falsehood to tarnish the Rwandan military under instruction of his CMI paymasters. “We can be sure it is the same with the alleged Rwandan captain and his two escorts,” said a security official. The latest “Rwandan-soldiers-crossing-to-Uganda” hoax by the CMI misinformation machine has been published in the midst of a chaotic security situation in Uganda. Since the assassination attempt on Uganda’s minister of public works and transport Gen. Andrew Wamala Katumba on the June 1, Museveni’s hand, and his security forces in the deaths of Ugandan, have
become more undeniable. The country’s citizens have become more outspoken and more determined than ever in denouncing him. International news organizations like BBC are publishing devastating exposures of the Museveni regime’s criminality against Ugandans. In desperation, Museveni’s propagandists have been ordered to cook up more lies against Rwanda in continued attempts to deflect attention away from their own criminality. Chimpreports and Watchdoguganda.com’s invasion hoax also mentions Covid-19 control, yet another catastrophic situation in Uganda. With 1247 new cases reported on the 5th of June, the
Ugandan Military Intelligence (CMI) director Abel Kandiho has been orchestrating Kampala’s anti-Rwanda propaganda and misinformation campaign using outlets like chimpreports. Their latest lie is that “Rwandan soldiers crossed into Uganda”.
CMI article pretends that the Rukiga District is trying to reinforce its border patrols to control infections from Rwanda which only had 43 cases on the same day. So, that’s two lies in one story. Museveni’s catastrophic failures in managing the Covid-19 pandemic in his country are coming back to bite him. The COVID-19 surge in Uganda has been attributed to a combination of factors, including corruption – Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa’s daughters for instance has never accounted for humongous funds to deliver oxygen, which she has never done – laxity, and incompetence according to publicly available records. Just recently during Museveni’s swearing-in ceremony, to give only one example, hundreds upon hundreds of people crowded together very tightly, with no masks or any other precautions. Museveni was the one that had ordered it, knowingly exposing Ugandans to danger. Now the hospitals are overflowing with Covid-19 patients. But CMI propaganda wants people to believe Covid-19 is crossing from Rwanda to Uganda. “Quite honestly these people have something wrong with them,” commented our source.
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