The agenda behind Uganda’s weaponising of the death of Gen. Fred Rwigyema
Kampala’s current trend of weaponising the death of Rwandan hero Maj.
Gen. Fred Rwigyema against the current leadership of Rwanda has taken
on a completely new dimension.
This was apparent in the publication in yesterday’s Sunday Vision of a
two-page story with the headline: “I was there when Gen. Rwigyema Died –
Former RPF Commander.” The Ugandan state paper’s revisionist piece,
which enjoys pride of place on pages 4 and 5, is peddled as a “true
account of events” by one Maj. Michael Mupende, a former Rwandan
soldier.
The central claim of the story is that President Kagame was behind the demise of the first commander of the RPA.
This follows the feting earlier this month by high-ranking Ugandans
and their papers of Rwigyema, heaping praise on him, “in a way that
heavily insinuated he was the good guy, and Kagame the bad one,” said a
Kigali observer. “They have been using Rwigyema’s demise to sow
disaffection for the Rwandan leadership, and it has long been an agenda
by now,” he added.
That is how the New Vision is quoting some obscure man, Mupende –
someone the facts show he wasn’t around when Gen. Rwigyema died –
claiming the President of Rwanda killed the hero, according to this
observation. Mupende tells many demonstrable lies.
The paper quotes him saying: “I personally did not see the person who
pulled the trigger, but from what his (Fred’s) bodyguards shared with
me later, the suspects were among them. They said it was an officer who
had been entrusted to carry the ‘sniper, silenced rifle that Rwigyema
always possessed within his security.”
Mupende continues with his claims that, “apparently, Rwigyema had
been convinced by someone he trusted that there were new junior officers
who would be a resource to him during the struggle. These people had
been newly deployed into his security detail.”
Conveniently for the writer of the hatchet piece against the Rwandan
president, Mupende mentions no names, even as he insinuates he was “very
close to the action.” After all he admits he didn’t see the person that
did it!, a reader laughed.
Mupende does not mention a single name of those he alleges were deployed close to Rwigyema.
Neither does he mention how anyone could just deploy unknown junior
soldiers to someone at the level of Major General; moreover one of the
least naïve commanders the region has ever known. Above all, if the New
Vision were interested in fact checking, it would find out that Mupende
was a none-entity who was nowhere near the frontline when Fred died.
The New Vision however only is too happy to publish more of his
allegations, that “the officer who performed that operation was killed,
‘to avoid future leakage of information’”.
A Kigali analyst upon reading the article exclaimed, “As far as lies
go, this is as shoddy as those one will find in the numerous anti-Rwanda
websites! But then it no longer is surprising; the New Vision long ago
became like all those obscure websites with their endless mudslinging
against Kigali.”
Anyone that’s remotely familiar with the struggle of the RPF will
know that Maj. (at the time) Paul Kagame was away attending a military
course at Fort Leavenworth, USA. Anyone interested in facts rather than
rumors, innuendos and conspiracy theories knows that Fred Rwigyema was
hit by fleeing enemy fire and died immediately.
The escorts of Fred that survived the war know how he died. His
comrades know it.
“Rwigyema was standing on a small hill watching
retreating Habyarimana forces through his binoculars when enemy fire
killed him with a single shot.” Generals like Sam Kaka, Caesar Kayizari
and others have been emphatic on that point.
Those are the facts as recounted by those that were there when that calamity struck.
To turn around and blame President Kagame, or anyone else in the RPA
that day – 29 years after the event – only further exposes the Ugandan
regime’s determination to escalate anti-Rwanda hostilities, of which a
campaign of propaganda and misinformation is one.
To get an idea what lengths the Kampala regime will go to, it is enough to look at the quality of its “witness”, Maj. Mupende.
This man was an officer in the Rwandan Military during the war
against the Interahamwe, Ex-FAR in DRC, deployed in Kabinda, in the
Kasai Orientale Province. That was in 2000 to 2001, sources say. Here,
Mupende reveals himself a liar in small as well as big things. “In March
2000 I was deployed in DRC as a commanding officer for the 3rd
Battalion,” he claims.
But the record shows he only was the deputy commander.
Around that time, his dubious character began to reveal itself.
During an administration and policy meeting, subordinates questioned him
on management of RCA funds – rations and cash allowance for soldiers.
Mupende, according to his colleagues then, failed to account for funds
amounting to US$ 18,000.
It was later established that he had given the money to his wife to
run their personal businesses. Subsequently the issue was reported to
army headquarters. When the soldiers were being recalled to Rwanda,
Mupende must have detected that upon arrival in Kigali he would be
questioned and made to account for the lost monies.
That’s when, our sources tell us, the man escaped to Uganda, where he had people waiting for him across the border.
“He lies that he was the commanding officer when he was second in
command and also claims in the paper that there was a plan to eliminate
him and that’s why he escaped; but he only did so to escape
accountability for embezzlement,” laughs a former fellow military
officer. Similarly, those who were there when Rwigyema died say that
Mupende was nowhere near the frontline where Rwigyema fell and so there
is no way he can know this so called first hand account of his death.
Obviously this is a man with many reasons to slander, smear and mudsling Rwanda.
Also, he is the kind of person that Ugandan intelligence agencies,
most notably CMI, always are fishing for; to give them platforms to hurl
their anti-Rwanda mud. On the other hand our sources add, it can’t have
been very hard for Kampala regime officials to toss a few dollars at
Mupende – who is living a hard life somewhere in the US currently and
has since joined Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC– to publish his fabrications.
“To understand how Museveni’s people can so shamelessly use Fred
Rwigyema’s death, even as they hypocritically proclaim “love” for him,
one has to know that there is no depth to which they will not sink to
advance their long-term plot to pave way for a puppet regime in Kigali,”
said a Kigali writer that preferred anonymity.
It is by now a long open secret that the Ugandan ruler’s preferred
puppet government in Kigali would be that of Kayumba Nyamwasa and his
RNC, and the defamation that “Kagame killed Rwigyema” is part of that
goal – sowing hate, disaffection and mistrust of the Kigali leadership
as part of it.
Museveni’s credibility problems become more glaring when one
considers how from the earliest times as head of the NRA guerrilla
group, he eliminated even the closest colleagues. People like Hannington
Mugabi, (shot when he and a group of others were playing cards by
someone that mysteriously never was tried, because he acted on
Museveni’s orders), Sam Magara, Kazahura, Bwende, (a faithful informant
in Luweero), and on, to people like Andrew Kayiira whom he had murdered
in front of his family!
Rather than creating fictitious stories of Rwigema’s death, Museveni
will have more credibility if he tells people about the deaths of Gen
James Kazini, Brig Noble Mayombo, AIGP Felix Kaweesi, SSP Muhamad
Kirumira, and of course Aronda Nyakairima.
Museveni is a well-known cynical individual; a backstabbing,
traitorous individual for whom murder comes almost as second nature!,
long time observers have written repeatedly about the Ugandan ruler.
“His problem is that he now tries to project that on the Rwandan
President, something not likely to fool anyone!” observed
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