Misinformation on Rwanda-Uganda issues kills spirit of Muhoozi’s Kigali sojourn

When Lt Gen Muhoozi Keinerugaba travelled to Rwanda, on January 22, to meet President Paul Kagame, as a special envoy of his father, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, majority citizens from both countries expressed joy and optimism, envisaging an end to the three-year frosty relationship between their two countries.

The optimism expressed after the Muhoozi-Kagame meeting created a kind of ceasefire in the media, especially social media where users turned their usually hostile attacks and counter attacks to positive commentary about good Rwanda-Uganda ties. However, for unknown reasons, Ugandan media outlets such as ChimpReports, continue to misinform the public, by deliberately distorting facts on what caused the deterioration of relations, and reasons for the recent effort to break the deadlock.   

An article by ChimpReports published February 5, titled: “Inside Story: Why Rwanda’s Kagame Agreed to reopen Border,” is a case in point. It misleads readers on many issues.

ChimpReports was the first to report that Muhoozi was set to visit Rwanda, before other main stream media in Kampala picked the story.

ChimpReports was a mouth piece of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) under Maj Gen Abel Kandiho who was transferred to South Sudan soon after Muhoozi’s trip to Kigali.

One puzzling question now is whether, even under the new CMI leadership, ChimpReports could still be serving the anti-Rwanda interests of Kandiho and associates.

On the issues between Rwanda and Uganda, Giles Mahame writes that, “Relations between Uganda and Rwanda had blossomed until 2007 when president Museveni appointed army officer Abel Kandiho as head of military intelligence. Rwanda perceived Kandiho, a seasoned spymaster who tracked down the masterminds of the July 2010 Kampala bombings using an abandoned sim-card, as anti-Rwanda.”

The latter statement is a typical script of Kandiho’s concocted lies that Rwanda was involved in the July 2010 Kampala bombings.

“CMI always tried to link Rwanda with all security lapses to justify their continued support of anti-Rwanda government terror groups,” a Kigali based security analyst told The Great Lakes Eye. 

Secondly, the relationship between Rwanda and Uganda did not deteriorate simply because Kandiho became the CMI boss. Such an assertion is diversionary.  Rwanda always tabled complaints with evidence of Uganda’s support of anti-Rwanda terror groups like; FDLR, RNC, RUD-Urunana, and others.   The issue Rwanda had with Kandiho was the inhuman violation of the rights of Rwandans who travelled to Uganda; their arbitrary arrests and torture, on false allegations that they were spies.

On the arrest of Rene Rutagungira in 2017, Mahame alleges that Rutagungira had long been suspected of  “conducting espionage and   assassination missions inside Uganda and that information obtained from his cellphone, led to hundreds of raids and arrests of suspected Rwandan spies. “It’s said Kandiho uprooted Rwanda’s sleeper cell network in Uganda,” Mahame concludes. Could Mahame be glorifying and justifying    his paymaster’s actions because his contract is in limbo and he wants it renewed?

The lies of Rwanda spies in Uganda were Kandiho’s fiction. When Rutagungira and others were produced in Makindye military court, can Mahame tell his readers if there were any cases of assassinations inside Uganda that were brought against them? Was there any evidence of espionage? They were released because there was no evidence linking them to espionage. 

Why would Mahame lie that Gen James Kabarebe opened war on Uganda by abusing Ugandan generals at public fora? This is an indication that there are elements like Mahame who have thrived on trading anti-Rwanda narratives through ChimpReports and would be happy to continue their business despite visible steps taken to normalize relations between Rwanda and Uganda.    

On Tribert Rujugiro’s involvement with Uganda, Mahame labors to justify that Uganda had no choice but to support the businessman because his tobacco factory in Arua, “directly employed over 352 workers and empowers 1,500 small farmers.”  Rwanda’s concern is that the proceeds from the same tobacco industry are used to sponsor terror activities against Rwanda, not that Rujugiro was creating jobs for Ugandans. The distinction here is clear.

Mahame rightly noted that Museveni admitted “accidentally” meeting Charlotte Mukankusi and Richard Gasana, both members of RNC. However, Mahame, misinforms readers that it was Rwanda that leaked the information. The Uganda government owned newspaper, the New Vision, on March 10, 2019, leaked a copy of a letter Museveni wrote to Kagame explaining circumstances under which he met Mukankusi whom he admitted asked for support to RNC.

Mahame regurgitates old propaganda claims that Rwanda supported the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) against Uganda. To the contrary there is first hand evidence where the leader of ADF, Jamil Mukulu, publicly revealed that ADF was getting support from the Ugandan government.  “Reports also indicated that Rwanda tried to influence Uganda’s 2021 election outcome by supporting the opposition,” Mahame states.  Again, this was Kandiho’s creative fiction because there is no evidence to support the claim.

Lastly, the insinuation that the use of long range weapons and war planes to attack ADF bases in DRC was aimed at sending a warning to Rwanda is also telling.  This is meant to create the impression that UPDF has superior firepower than Rwanda Defence Forces. Military strategists tell a different story.

 Kagame did not reopen the border because of pressure, or fear. No Rwandan emissaries were dispatched to Kampala with special messages. Yet the reverse is fact.

The border was opened because of the promise, by Muhoozi, to remove all issues that led to its closure in the first place. ChimpReports is, therefore, now acting as a spoiler of the good political will expressed by Rwanda and Uganda.

They are, possibly by design, trying to smoother the spirit of Muhoozi’s Kigali sojourn. How they would benefit is a story for another day.