Your source for credible news Issue no 041
October, 2021
Harrowing tale of Rwandan in Uganda that soldiers illegally detained, tortured, and robbed on concocted accusations
NEWS
If the Kampala regime wants to mend relations with Rwanda, they know what is required Page 2 NEWS
Latest act of dumping of innocent Rwandans a reflection of Kampala regime growing desperation Page 4 OP - ED
Museveni sets off terror bombs to justify deploying troops to DRC Page 6
OP - ED
Obed Niyonkuru is among the 48 Rwandan nationals most recently dumped at the Kagitumba Border Post. However, his story is one of an innocent Rwandan that grew up in Isingiro District in Western Uganda, and never broke any laws. In the end he too would fall victim to the Kampala regime’s hostility towards Rwanda, Rwandan nationals, or Ugandans with Rwandan roots. Page 3 Get a free copy of our e-paper
Stay Connected www.virungapost.com
The fact of Kinyarwanda-speaking operatives working with Uganda’s CMI reported again by most recent victims Page 7
NEWS
Issue no 041 October 2021
2
If the Kampala regime wants to mend relations with Rwanda, they know what is required By Alex Muhumuza Propagandists of Ugandan Military Intelligence, CMI, are now resorting to disguising themselves as “Rwandans” on their websites so as to whine about so-called “border (or ‘boarder’ as they like to call it) closure.” Last Friday Bob Atwine – one of the numerous CMI-funded anti-Rwanda trolls – penned a long tirade in the Commandonepost propaganda outlet, but under the pseudonym “Jean Damascene Habumuremyi.” The purpose for this piece of misinformation – titled “An open letter to Paul Kagame on closure of the border and the continued ‘guhangana’ – was to pretend that he was a Rwandan from Byumba asking the president of Rwanda “to open the boarder” (sic). It’s the most weird thing to read. The so-called open letter from this supposed Rwandan “Habumuremyi”, only regurgitates CMI propaganda talking point. Even more weird is how the tirade is filled with insults against the Rwandan leader. Assuming someone from Byumba was requesting the President for something, how would insults help? Other than that, the fact is, all the whining by the Museveni regime about “boarder” closure shows
how much pain the regime is feeling from Rwanda’s decision to advise Rwandans to avoid crossing to Uganda as their safety and security couldn’t be guaranteed. No border was ever closed, as a trip to any of the gazetted border points will show. People come and go. Buses or passenger vehicles from all over east Africa enter and leave, with the only difference that very few Rwandans cross to Ugandan any longer, heeding the advice to not deliver themselves to CMI abductors and torturers. As a result Ugandan traders and businesspeople have lost the Rwandan market, purely because of the activities of Museveni who has been nursing plots to destabilize Rwanda through use of proxies like Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC. It is this hostility against Rwanda, with CMI harassing Rwandan nationals as part of the scheme to destabilize Rwanda, that the Ugandan regime has to address, because however much propaganda they concoct nothing will change. Rwanda advised its citizens against travel to Uganda after Kigali’s repeated complaints to Kampala about harassment of her citizens – mainly arbitrary arrests, illegal detention, moreover incommunicado, torture, extortion, and so on – fell on deaf ears. The Museveni regime
obviously thought Rwandans were just helpless little people to mistreat as they pleased. They have found out the hard way how mistaken they were. Now that the economic toll has really bitten them, they are trying all sorts of funny tricks – like pretending they are Banyarwanda pleading with the Rwandan leadership to open the border (that never was closed), even as they hurl insults Rwanda. The started feeling the bite of economic losses from the word go, on 1 March 2019, when Rwanda announced the travel advisory. The Ugandan economy was estimated to have recorded about US$ 664 million in lost export revenues to Rwanda in just the first seven months. In the meantime Rwanda lost only US$ 19 million. Ugandan towns bordering Rwanda, such as Katuna, Kisoro, Kabale and others became near ghost towns, with the pinch felt all the way to factories in Kampala. Ordinary Ugandans set up a great lamentation, asking the Ugandan ruler to sort differences with Rwanda. Museveni could only advise people to resort to smuggling. “Such advice obviously showed Museveni was out of ideas, and had nothing useful to offer,” an observer remarked.
Today, the frequency with which the Kampala propagandists cry about the border shows how desperate the regime has become on the issue. The only solution for the Kampala regime is to swallow its pride and admit it has done wrong to sponsor anti-Rwanda terrorism, and renounce its plots to destabilize Rwanda. That would be the first step to restoring good relations. Uganda only needs to fulfill the conditions Rwanda set, and that were enshrined in the Luanda MoU mediated by Angola, namely to put an end not only to all activities whose goal is to destabilize Rwanda, but also to persecution and harassment of Rwandan nationals. To read Atwine’s tirade, with its repeated claims that “Rwanda is the one that caused bad relations” is to wonder who these people imagine they are lying to, if not only to themselves. Which anti-Uganda terrorist group does Rwanda work with? Which Ugandan has ever been victimized in Rwanda with lies that they are spies? Which Ugandan has ever been tortured in Rwanda? Atwine’s whining that “Rwandan propagandists abuse Museveni” is even more laughable, but proves one point: bullies can dish it, but can’t take it. So these CMI bullies are feeling the pain, on behalf of their master? So what do they think all the Ugandan troll accounts – composed of several websites like Commandonepost itself, Chimpreports, Spyreports, and countless others, as well as Facebook trolls like “RPF Gakwerere”, Seruga Titus, Sulah Nuwamanya, and all their Twitter accounts – are doing, when they daily mete out gutter insults against Rwanda and the Rwandan leadership? Or they thought, in their usual insolence, that Rwandans would just meekly look on and fail to defend their country against Kampala regime abuses?
Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni, and Abel Kandiho the head of his Military Intelligence (CMI) like to play the victim, falsely accusing Rwanda of responsibility for what they call “boarder closure.” They lie only to themselves.
They were badly mistaken.
Stay Connected
NEWS
Issue no 041 October 2021
3
Harrowing tale of Rwandan in Uganda that soldiers illegally detained, tortured, and robbed on concocted accusations By Patience Kirabo Obed Niyonkuru is among the 48 Rwandan nationals most recently dumped at the Kagitumba Border Post. However, his story is one of an innocent Rwandan that grew up in Isingiro District in Western Uganda, and never broke any laws. In the end he too would fall victim to the Kampala regime’s hostility towards Rwanda, Rwandan nationals, or Ugandans with Rwandan roots. The 31-year-old Niyonkuru narrates that when he grew up he moved to Mengo, a suburb in the Ugandan capital, to forge a life there around 2008. Niyonkuru wasn’t bothered by any fears because he thought Uganda was a brotherly country with Rwanda – since there are many Ugandans that, especially in the years since 1994 have made Rwanda their home. But little did he know that the Museveni regime was bent on destabilizing Rwanda, and that this also meant ordinary people like him would be targeted – just because he happens to be a Rwandan. While in Mengo Niyonkuru had joined Barrack and Blessings, a religious choir, to play piano in a church in Mengo. He was just an
innocent person only focused on building a life for himself while being a good neighbor where he lived. But then on May 23rd, 2021, misfortune befell Niyonkuru. Museveni’s security forces came for him, to abduct him! It happened at around 8 in the morning when men in the uniform of the Ugandan military (UPDF) accosted him at his residence in Mengo and manhandled him. They arbitrarily arrested the young Rwandan, accusing him of “weapons possession”, and alleging that he was “a Rwandan spy.” This is the favorite bogus accusation of Ugandan security forces, most especially the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), against any Rwandan they choose to target. “My house was searched inside out by the armed soldiers. They were throwing everything out and breaking stuff, claiming that they were looking for firearms,” Niyonkuru narrates. He adds that he didn’t know what to do or whom to call, and that they had pinned him to the ground with blows. When they failed to find the
alleged firearms they were looking for, the security operatives handcuffed, blindfolded, and threw a hood on the Rwandan, and threw him into an awaiting “drone.” Niyonkuru’s neighbors and roommate were in total shock of how the young man, a good, church-going neighbor was manhandled; especially so given his usual good nature and politeness. “I was driven to a place which I later learned was the CMI Barracks in Mbuya,” narrates Niyonkuru, recounting a by now very familiar pattern of arbitrary arrest and illegal detention of Rwandan nationals. “The interrogators and torturers in Mbuya who were asking me questions spoke in Kinyarwanda, asking me why I was in Uganda spying for the Rwandan government,” says Niyonkuru, who was badly rattled by the false accusation. He told them he had not even been to Rwanda since he was three years old. They then tried to recruit Niyonkuru into Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC, the main proxy group in Museveni’s plot to destabilize the security of Rwanda, which Niyonkuru
refused to do. After the CMI’s attempts to recruit him for RNC proved futile, they tortured Niyonkuru. He narrates how they beat him, with sticks, with wire cables, starved him in the dungeons, and one time subjected him to electric shock. He spent four months in CMI’s torture dungeons suffering all sorts of physical abuse. “When I was at my breaking point, very luckily for me they decided to transfer me to Mbarara Police Station, where they declared me ‘a prohibited immigrant,’” Niyonkuru says. While at Mbarara Police however, it was only to learn that the soldiers had seized his belongings: his plot of land, three new motorcycles, a piano, and a combined sum of 63,000,000 Ugandan shillings from his bank account, his mobile money account, and cash from his business premises. It is part of a pattern of Ugandan security operatives taking advantage of the Kampala regime’s hostile policy against Rwanda to victimize, and defraud many Rwandans in Uganda.
UPDF soldiers. of recent, Uganda’s CMI is utilizing the military to hunt, arbitrarily arrest, illegally detain, and rob innocent Rwandans
Stay Connected
NEWS
Issue no 041 October 2021
34
Latest act of dumping of innocent Rwandans a reflection of Kampala regime growing desperation
The 48 innocent Rwandans including 10 children dumped at Kagitumba border.
By Patience Kirabo
Mbarara.
Last Saturday at 12:30 PM, Ugandan authorities dumped 48 victimized Rwandans at the Kagitumba one-stop border post. This happened after the innocent Rwandans were arbitrarily arrested and harassed, with many extorted of their money and properties. The dumped victimsinclude 29 men, 9 women, and 10 children, most being accused of “illegal entry” and “illegal stay” in Uganda, and others of “spying for the Rwandan government.”
One of the victims, Emmanuel Kamana 34, had been living in Masaka and was on 12 August this year picked up by the UPDF soldiers while on his way to work. He was forcefully bundled up and driven to the Masaka Barracks where he spent four days without any explanation of his brutal arrest. Kamana was later transferred to Mbuya Barracks, headquartersof the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence headquarters on 17 August.
Ugandan authorities have for long used the false pretexts of “espionage”, “illegal entry and stay”, even “illegal weapons possession”to harass, mistreat, torture, or dump innocent Rwandans in Uganda, all the time in violation of human rights laws or international agreements and laws.
He said that while there.theytortured him with beatings,accusing him of being “a Rwandan spy” – something he found strange but also frightening, as he has never been in any such activities.
The 48 Rwandans were picked from different areas countrywide in Uganda by UPDF, the Ugandan military whose method is arbitrarily arrests. Some were arbitrarily arrested together with their young children, and found themselves illegally detained in CMI’s Mbuya military Barracks, some in Makenke Barracks in
Kamana says the UPDF soldiers also robbed him of his 4 million Ugandan shillings when they were abducting him. They beat me while hanging me upside down, like a slaughtered animal, accusing me of being a spy yet I knew completely nothing about their accusations,” he narrated. Observers say of course the objective of the soldiers was to rob him of his money and property.
“Among other things the Museveni regime’s hostile policy against Rwanda has given his thieving military operatives leeway to victimize Rwandans, with an eye to making some quick money while concocting bogus ‘spying’ accusation,” a Kigali security analyst says. Afterwards, CMI transferred Kamana to Mbarara’s Makenke barracks, and then later to Mbarara Police Station for subsequent deportation – meaning lawless dumping since neither Kamana nor any other Rwandan is ever afforded a court procedure. 71-year old Eliphaz Butera, another of the latest victims was extorted of properties worth Ugx 50 million after two months of illegal incarceration in Mbuya Barracks, one month in Makenke, and three days in Mbarara Police Station cell. Butera was arbitrarily arrested together with his 18-year-old son Samuel Hakizimana who still languishes in Mbuya where they left him. Obed Niyonkuru, 31, too narrates similarmistreatment and abuse in Mbuya, and Mbarara Police Station on concocted accusations of “illegal stay” in Uganda. Niyonkuru was born and raised in
Uganda, in Isingiro District. The UPDF robbed him of Ugx 63 million worth of cash and belongings after they trumped up a charge of “prohibited immigrant” against him. According to testimonies of all thevictim, the Ugandan authorities seized money, belongings, and properties – amounting to a total of a billion Ugandan shillings. That was after they were chased out of their homes and businesses, and others on their way to work. Those who had young children on their way back to Rwanda were jailed together with them, and without observance of standard Covid-19 procedures. Six of the victims were tested at the Rwandan side and found positive for Covid-19 upon testing. They were immediately isolated, and the rest of the group was quarantined at IPRC Nyagatare for further health management. The desperation of UPDF officers for quick money and riches they haven’t worked for is posing a new menace for Rwandans in the environment of Museveni’s hostile stance against Rwanda.
Stay Connected
NEWS
Issue no 041 October 2021
5
Rwandan students abducted were only let go after UPDF officers extorted them for money, even as CMI ordered 6 RUD-Urunana terrorists released from police custody friend of Aimable’s parent managed to persuade the soldiers to release their victims for 400,000 Ugandan shillings. The Ugandan regime has for long been a sponsor of efforts to destabilize the security of Rwanda, and has been working by anti-Rwanda terrorist groups like Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC as proxies in this policy of hostility. Very many innocent Rwandan nationals have fallen victim to Ugandan regime hostility. But even as the two innocent students were getting arbitrarily arrested, CMI was busy intervening for the release of six recruitment agents for the Rwandan terrorist group, RUD-Urunana. The terrorist operatives had been arrested in Kakumiro by police. Aimable Ndayishimye one of the two Rwandan students at Bugema University in Luweero, central Uganda, that were illegally arrested by UPDF soldiers (Monday 18) on their way back home to Rwanda, were only released after UPDF extorted their people for money.
By Alain Mucyo Latest information reaching our news desk is that the two Rwandan students arrested yesterday, Monday 18, in Mbarara, southwestern Uganda, were only released after their people gave money to Ugandan military officers. The students, Ndayishimye Aimable 27, who hails from Rubavu District, and Kabahizi Marie, 25, of Gasabo in Kigali have been doing their studies at Bugema University in Luweero District in central Uganda. Problems for them started when they were coming back home, when they came upon a roadblock manned by UPDF soldiers at Mbarara. Three UPDF soldiers stopped their bus (a Jaguar company bus), and forced the two Rwandans to move out. They then drove them off to Makenke Barracks, on no charges other than saying they were “going to Rwanda while the borders are closed.” But Rwanda never closed any borders other than strongly advising its nationals – beginning
in March 2019 – against crossing to Uganda as their safety couldn’t be guaranteed.
The latest is that the six RUD-Urunana terrorists have been released on orders of CMI. After Aimable and Marie were released they disclosed that in Makenke Barracks they had
found one Rwandan family, composed of six of members, who too were arbitrarily arrested on their way to Rwanda. They disclosed that the vehicle of the family was parked in Makenke with luggage inside. The students also said that most of UPDF officers who handled them in Makenke speak fluent Kinyarwanda. Uganda security organs, most notably CMI, continue to harass Rwandan nationals with abductions, followed by illegal detention, incommunicado, and are allowed neither family nor consular visits. Many have been tortured for lengthy periods of time, with some losing their very lives. Many others are dumped, in continued illegal acts by Uganda, which so far has shown it respects neither local, nor international laws. Yet others are robbed of their property, or have to pay extortion funds.
Ndayishimye, a student in accounting, went to Uganda in January 2019, the same month as Marie Kabahizi went. They went legally, through Gatuna Border. Also when Ndayishimye and Kabahizi were coming back their travel documents were valid. “This means the soldiers that abducted them had no reason but to harass, and extort them,” a source familiar with the case told us. Their ordeal in Makenke Barracks – the headquarters of UPDF 2nd Division which works with Ugandan Military Intelligence, CMI – lasted for five hours, but were lucky that the parent of Aimable sent a friend in Mbarara to Makenke Barracks to plead for the release of the students. “It was like a hostage negotiation,” our source revealed. UPDF officers were extorting the victims for a sum of one million Ugandan shillings to release them. But, our source says, the
Marie Kabahizi one of the two Rwandan students at Bugema University in Luweero, central Uganda, that were illegally arrested by UPDF soldiers (Monday 18) on their way back home to Rwanda, were only released after UPDF extorted their people for money.
Stay Connected
OP-ED
Issue no 041 October 2021
36
Museveni sets off terror bombs to justify deploying troops to DRC By Alex Muhumuza On Saturday, October 23, a bomb blast in Kamamboga on the outskirts of Kampala, killing three people and injuring others. Many people expressed sympathy for what they perceived to be a “terror attack” as official statements, including by President Museveni, stated. But then another bomb blasted off on Monday, October 25, in Lungala, off the Kampala-Masaka highway, killing a woman and injuring three people. People began to smell the rat. Dr Kiiza Besigye, a former victim of state conspiracy, posted on his Twitter handle “TERRIBLE! It’s beginning to look intriguingly familiar! Heartfelt sympathy and prayers to the bereaved families and injured. God bless Uganda,” the retired colonel tweeted on the day of the blast. While the second blast confirmed to Ugandans that something fishy was taking place, they were speculating at the aim of the terror attacks. Some speculated that additional flimsy charges would be raised against opposition Members of Parliament who, at the moment, are detained and tortured in attempts to frame them for the machete killings (Bijambiya) that claimed the lives of Ugandans in recent months. They speculate that Museveni hopes to use the attacks to justify the arrest of former presidential aspirant, Bobi Wine, who has insisted that the arrests of MPs are meant to silence opposition. Others like Karamagi Andrew, a Ugandan writer, have speculated that “Yes, false flag attacks by the NRA Junta, intended to justify the removal of bail for capital offences…with the real target as opposition leaders, supporters, and other dissenting voices,” Karamagi wrote on his Twitter on the day of the second blast. Of course, all this is possible and, knowing Museveni, one does not rule out the other. But the main reason is access to DRC. Denied permission to deploy in
DRC Early this year, President Museveni met his Congolese counterpart, President Felix Tshisekedi, to presumably help build roads inside Congo that would “facilitate trade” between the two countries. However, Ugandans were quick to mock their president saying that he should first fix the potholes in almost every road in Kampala before he goes to fix roads in Congo. Others reminded Museveni that he had yet to pay the damages that were rewarded to the DRC by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) of $10 bn in 2005 that has now accrued interest that makes the debt anywhere close to $25bn. Instead of promising to build roads for the DRC, Museveni should just pay Congolese so that they build the roads themselves, many people reasoned. Of course, like then, Museveni only wanted to return to
the DRC to loot the country dry for its timber and gold. Museveni proposed to deploy troops to the DRC “to fight ADF terrorists,” and protect the so-called roads, which he was supposedly preparing to build. Knowing Museveni’s past deeds in his country, Tshisekedi refused. Not one to give up, Museveni insisted and had his propaganda media abuse Tshisekedi when the latter could not accept. On September 2, 2021, Museveni invited Ambassadors stationed in Uganda whose countries seat on the security council as permanent members. He pleaded with them to pressure Tshisekedi into allowing Uganda to deploy troops on DRC. Obviously, the ambassadors had no basis to make such a demand against a sovereign country. They needed some
form of justification and Museveni thinks that, in the terror bomb blasts, he has found it. But something remains fishy. The terrorists claimed responsibility for the first blast meaning that they would have been eager to do the same for the second attack on the Masaka highway. This leaves Museveni with the responsibility to tell people who set off the second terror blast. Finally, Museveni hopes to use the DRC territory as a base to continue destabilizing Rwanda now that the groups he was supporting there were dismantled by Congolese troops. If Museveni is allowed to send his troops to the DRC, a war with Congo is inevitable, with the potential to involve the entire region.
Stay Connected
OP-ED
Issue no 041 October 2021
7
The fact of Kinyarwanda-speaking operatives working with Uganda’s CMI reported again by most recent victims By Melodie Mukansonera It has once again been illustrated how Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, CMI, works with Kinyarwanda-speakers. The latest to report this are two Rwandan nationals, Aimable Ndayishimye and Marie Kabahizi that were abducted in Mbarara by soldiers of UPDF 2nd Division – a group under Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence, CMI – and detained at Makenke Barracks in the town. The two, both students of Bugema University in Luweero, central Uganda, were arbitrarily arrested on Monday this week at a roadblock in Mbarara. They were pulled off a Jaguar company bus as they were coming back to Rwanda, and driven off to Makenke but were released five hours later after soldiers extorted them for 400,000 shillings. The first thing they revealed to the media after they were out was that their interrogators spoke fluent Kinyarwanda. “Those men were Banyarwanda, without a doubt!” said Aimable. Both him and Marie described how their interrogators spoke fluent Kinyarwanda.
They had observed the same thing that many Rwandan that have ever survived CMI’s torture dungeons have. CMI works with Rwandan operatives. Those that closely follow news know how this came about. When Ugandan president Museveni embarked on his (long failed) plan to destabilize the security of Rwanda, back in in the 90s, he connived with Kayumba Nyamwasa in the plot. That continued after Nyamwasa became a fugitive in South Africa where he founded RNC, and when RNC worked with Museveni’s security agencies to recruit for the terror outfit. For this, RNC worked hand in hand with Museveni’s security agencies, specifically CMI. One method is to source recruits from refugee camps with Banyarwanda concentrations. “Other than the few traitors that Nyamwasa took with him, this is how RNC gets its Kinyarwanda-speaking operatives,” said a security source that spoke off record, adding, “that’s how CMI’s project to destabilize Rwanda is infested with those that speak Kinyarwanda.” It came to light long ago how
CMI head by Abel Kandiho
closely intertwined CMI is with RNC when, in December 2017 Kayumba Rugema, a nephew of Kayumba Nyamwasa together with two men kidnapped Rwandan citizen Fidele Gatsinzi in the Ntinda suburb of Kampala. Rugema, a highly violent fellow that regularly directs violent invective against the leadership of Rwanda on Facebook, is a well-known RNC operative. He was working with CMI agents when they abducted Gatsinzi, who was in Uganda to visit his son. With Rugema frothing around the mouth, the three men bundled the elderly Gatsinzi into their vehicle of dark-tinted glass, handcuffing and blindfolding him as they drove to Mbuya CMI headquarters. Rugema – who subjected Gatsinzi to shouted interrogations with accusations of “spying for Rwanda” as they beat and subjected him to electric shock – however only was one of the Kinyarwanda speakers at Mbuya. Gatsinzi, who was so badly tortured that when they dumped him at Gatuna after two weeks he couldn’t walk, described all this. There are many Kinyarwanda speakers at CMI Mbuya headquarters.
RNC head Kayumba Nyamwasa’s operatives long ago infested Ugandan Military Intelligence, CMI
The fate of Gatsinzi – an innocent man that suffered for no other reason than that the Ugandan regime was in bed with an anti-Rwanda terrorist group – was echoed by that of one Damascene Muhawenimana. Damascene, 37, had travelled to Kam-
pala with his mother in February 2019 to look for Damascene’s brother who had gone missing in the Ugandan capital. But once in Kampala, CMI operatives abducted him. Damascene’s inquiries about his brother, one Kwizera, had taken him to the police station of Kajjansi in the outskirts of Kampala. At Kajjansi, where he arrived at midday and disclosed he was from Rwanda and that he was looking for his brother, they told him to come back at 5pm. When he did, it was only to be violently bundled into a vehicle by four men. The next thing Damascene knew, he was in a dungeon with the men beating him the way someone beats dried beans. Damascene said these were RNC people in the CMI-run torture dungeon. Other Banyarwanda he found detained there, some on the verge of death, told him so. In fact his interrogators spoke Kinyarwanda. “They accused me of being a spy! I told them I was only looking for my brother,” Damascene said. “My surprise was how well they spoke Kinyarwanda; as well as me!” The recent revelations of Aimable and Marie only reconfirm what has for long been known: when it comes to the plot to destabilize Rwanda, CMI is RNC, and RNC is CMI.
Stay Connected
Engage with us and many other Virunga Post readers on our social media platforms
VirungaPost