With yesterday’s Sunday Vision publishing of a front page article with a screaming title, “ARRESTED RWANDANS LINKED TO HIT SQUAD”. Ugandan government’s level of despair in framing Rwandan citizens – to justify the bullying and mistreatment of the latter – has achieved unprecedented levels.
The article referred to the 40 members of the ADEPR Church congregation in Kampala’s Kibuye neighborhood who were arrested as they were in prayer by the CMI (Ugandan Military Intelligence).
This occurred on July 24, and the congregation included males, females, and babies.
The Vision on Sunday wrote that “highly placed security sources revealed they (the Church members) were trailing some Rwandans in Uganda and others who live in other countries but visit their relatives.”
The publication added that members of the church “were disguising themselves as Pentecostal believers, but were instead ‘trailing a renegade Rwandan army officer’.”
Analysts in both Kigali and Kampala wondered what kind of spies would come together in such a large group-40 of them-in one location, mostly in a foreign country.
“It stretches credibility to imagine such a thing happening; what kind of foolish “spies” would those be? It’s just impossible!” this is a remark many on Twitter and other social media echoed, one observer said.
The raid on the church was carried out in the Museveni government’s standard operating procedure of safety organizations.
They just pounced on the church group and-without warrants of arrest or any other legal proceedings-ordered them to wait for vehicles and took them away.
That kind of lawless abduction has been done to Rwandans by CMI, ISO and others, most notably over the previous two and a half years.
Not even family members will be informed where their relatives were taken, almost invariably.
While in custody, such individuals will be indicted by Ugandan officials and media before they have had the facilities of a lawyer or even a opportunity to defend themselves in court.
Accusations of the Kampala government against Rwandan people are constantly merely concoctions to justify their victimization, the record demonstrates.
Security institutions today will label someone as a “spy ;” next week the charge will change to “illegal entrant ;” and another time it will be “illegal possession of weapons.”
According to observers, another concoction has joined the lexicon according to the Sunday Vision: “member of a hit squad”!
“It is a wonder that Ugandans have not yet died of embarrassment with the things their government’s agencies or institutions do,” said a Kigali-based analyst.
“How many times have these mouthpieces of Museveni declared that such and such people are ‘spies’, yet there never is a trial to prove it?
“Now look at this New Vision and how it is publicly tarnishing an entire church, calling them hit squads when no legal process has indicted them of anything!” added the analyst.
Obviously, the state document took its dictation from the very security agencies that persecute Rwandans, and its indications from high-ranking authorities, another observer said.
It cited Ofwono Opondo, Uganda’s government spokesman, “The government of Uganda was not targeting but rather weeding out criminal elements within.”
The words of Opondo echoed those of Foreign Minister Sam Kutesa when he spoke to Kampala’s diplomatic corps on 17 May this year,”Uganda expects Rwandans who visit Uganda to be law-abiding. Anyone who breaks the law will be dealt with in accordance with the law.”
However, Uganda’s administration has shown no Rwandan that has broken the law. In August 2017, CMI kidnapped businessman Rene Rutagungira, a Rwandan national in Kampala’s Bakuli area, and charged him first of “espionage”.
In Kampala security agencies ‘ trademark bumbling, they altered the charge to “kidnap.” In Makindye Military Barracks, where he was allegedly badly tortured, they detained Rutagungira.
They produced him at the General Court Martial in breach of his freedoms as a civilian, according to the Ugandan Constitution, after several months in prison, and a writ of habeas corpus in court against CMI.
But he was not convicted on anything by the court. They decided to continue to lock up in full breach of the law that stipulates that anyone against whom they have no case should be released.
The instances of Rwandans victimized in such a way were piling up.
In May last year, two Rwandan businessmen, Emmanuel Rwamucyo and Augustin Rutayisire, were arrested by a feared GISO (Government Internal Security Officer) in the Mbarara region, Mukama Moses Kandiho – who happens to be the younger sibling of CMI Chief Brig. Gen. Abel Kandiho.
He said they were “involved in a plot of robbery.” Mukama Kandiho summoned Maj. Mushambo, the UPDF’s Second Division Counter-Intelligence Officer, and the two Rwandans were tortured in the Mbarara Army Barracks before they knew it.
Rwamucyo had 140 million Ugandan Shilling, according to members of his family, which he was about to deposit in a Mbarara bank. The cash was taken by the security men.
Upon arrest any suspect should be searched and any material evidence uncovered with him should be registered in accordance with global standards. That never occurred when it came to their cash with the two businessmen. It’s the same with all CMI kidnapped Rwandans.
This is another reason, according to analysts, that Rwandans are never tried in court. The charges against them will be bogus, and they will be charged in court with no proof.
They only torture them in dungeons of the CMI. After a few weeks in Mbarara, Rwamucyo and Rutayisire would be transferred to the CMI headquarters and the accusation had changed from “involvement in a robbery plot” to “illegal possession of weapons”.
The same occurred to Moses Ishimwe Rutare, a Kampala Rwandan businessman who came out of a church service in December 2018 to answer his phone.
Unknowingly, he ambled next to Abel Kandiho’s residence where he was requested to disclose his identity by CMI men.
They whisked him off to their torture rooms in Mbuya when it was found that he was a Rwandan, accusing him of “espionage.”
Rutare was subjected to two months of inhumane treatment in Mbuya, but when he was released it was only to say that he was charged with “loitering.”
A similar thing happened in the Ugandan capital to one Claude Iyakaremye, another Rwandan resident.
They abducted him and accused him of “espionage” only to reconfigure the statement to “illegal firearms possession.” The man is still in the dungeons of horror of the CMI.
“It is beyond belief what Museveni’s people are up to really,” said a senior journalist in Kigali.
“No wonder Rwanda took the step to advise her nationals not to cross to Uganda again!”
The Ugandan security agencies ‘ complete disregard of the law is demonstrated by the reality that CMI refused to comply with instructions from the Uganda High Court to release innocent Rwandans in their custody.
Journalist in Rwanda has copies of court orders to release twelve Rwandans in its possession that the agency has ignored.
One such release order-signed by Kampala High Court Judge Ssekaana Musa on behalf of Vincent Habimana, a detainee-signed, among others, to Brig Abel Kandiho reads:”I, Justice Ssekaana Musa, on this 26th day of July, 2019, hereby direct, that the said Habimana Vincent be released immediately from the custody of the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) generally, and the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) in particular.”
Today is August 5, and Habimana still is in CMI detention. It is the same with the cases of the other 11 copies of whose release orders journalists has seen.
In a new twist to the case of the 40 arrested ADEPR Church members, yesterday, Sunday 4, it came to light that CMI had – without making it public – released nine of them.
According to sources, it turned out that CMI had unknowingly arrested agents of Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC, who happened to be among the members of the church.
CMI had taken all of them, thinking they were usual innocent Rwandans they victimise with impunity, according to our sources.
“You can be sure that with Kampala being the headquarters of RNC, and a major centre of RNC recruitment something like this was bound to happen!” said the source who requested anonymity so as to speak freely.
“After they realised that some of the 40 people were undercover RNC people, they stealthily released them! Next, you will hear that some Rwandans have been dumped at the borders.
“You can be certain it is because they aren’t RNC members!” said our source, adding: “That is how criminally complicit Kampala has become with armed groups sworn to destabilise Rwanda.”