In 1980, Yoweri Museveni was close to joining the list of fallen soldiers had Fred Rwigema delayed for two minutes. Museveni was going to be killed along with his entire family by government soldiers, then under Milton Obote.

This was during an incident in Kireka, a Kampala suburb, where the Museveni family ran into a roadblock. Immediately, Museveni knew only one person, Rwigema - not his half brother Salim Saleh or any other so-called Ugandan fighters - was capable of extracting him from the jaws of his would-be killers.

True to his word, Rwigema swiftly mobilized an intervention force. It moved and was in place within no time to save Museveni and his family from being lynched.

 

Rwigema’s popularity in Uganda was not merely gifted to him. It is one that he acquired strictly by merit. First, as the substantive army commander of the National Resistance Army (NRA) for the entirety of its armed struggle, a period during which Museveni spent most time away in Sweden with his family.

 

Like Rwigema, Rwandans fought selflessly for the NRA, and together with their Ugandan brothers and sisters liberated Uganda in 1986. Hundreds lost their lives.

The Rwandans who fought in the NRA bush war gained popularity for their outstanding military skills and discipline. It is a fact generally known by all Ugandans. The people in northern Uganda can testify to this more than others. There is this popular joke among northerners in Uganda that their cows last felt secure when the Banyarwanda were still within the ranks of NRA, in the late 1980s.

Rwandans are known to have been gallant warriors of the NRA. Many paid the ultimate price for Uganda's liberation as they endured lifetime injuries.

What followed the liberation of Uganda remains a mystery to Rwandan fighters. Not only were they quickly disregarded by their Ugandan comrades, but also, they were regarded as a threat.

The bitter-sweet news for Museveni

Come October 1990, Museveni was both happy and annoyed by the departure of Rwandans from the NRA. The attack of Rwanda by the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA), an army from his army, caught Museveni totally unaware.   It was no good news for him because he still wanted the seasoned Rwandese fighters in key strategic positions because they were more competent than their Ugandan compatriots.

Museveni got into panic mode as soon as he got information that the Rwandans in his ranks, having exhausted all other options for peaceful repatriation, had attacked Rwanda to depose the Juvenal Habyarimana regime.

Museveni first got the news of the RPA's attack from Habyarimana himself, when the latter asked Museveni why he had invaded Rwanda. Ironically, they were sharing a hotel in the US where they had gone for a UN conference.  Little did Habyarimana know that Museveni too was equally surprised, and shocked. The fact that Maj. Gen. Rwigema moved forces to the border without being detected is yet another clear testimony that Rwandans controlled key military positions and the intelligence network of Uganda. 

Museveni who always makes reference to the bible, conveniently forgets what it says in Luke 6:33: If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that…

In 1990, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front/Army waged war against Habyarimana’s regime, Museveni had the ultimate task of reconstituting his Presidential Protection Unit. This is because of the fact that the biggest percentage of this unit were Rwandans who had just joined their own liberation struggle.

One of Museveni’s inner protection circle was Capt. Charles Muhire who at the time was the operation and training officer of the PPU. Another was Capt. Charles Ngoga who was the company commander of the unit.

Museveni was left vulnerable. Instead of negotiating the terms of his securitization with the departing fighters, he resorted to sabotaging their quest for liberation. At the very beginning, he ordered for roadblocks to be set up on the Kampala-Mbarara highway, apparently, to arrest Rwandan soldiers who were joining the RPA and got them charged with desertion.

Later, he conspired with France and promised its then President, Francois Mitterand, that he was going to talk to the “boys” and ask them to stop their military offensive against Mitterand’s erstwhile ally.

Museveni never gets embarrassed

Being well acquainted with the plight of Rwandans, the refugees in Uganda and those in Rwanda who were suffering all sorts of human rights abuses, one would have expected Museveni to use the opportunity of meeting with Mitterand to raise these gross human rights abuses by Habyarimana. But Museveni did the opposite.

He continued to sabotage the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) liberation struggle by giving the latter false hope that he would support them, which he ended up not doing.

In the recently published Muse Report, it is indicated that Museveni often promised his support to the RPF but never honored it. As RPF fighters advanced towards Kigali, Museveni must have given up on his hope that they would fail and come back to Uganda as he wished.

He made a final attempt by blocking the supplies of arms purchased by RPF members that were transiting through Uganda. This he believed, would cripple RPF’s war effort and consequently lead them to failure. Little did he know that the determined young fighters were, as usual, ahead of his treacherous gambit and managed to navigate through the situation.

When, finally, the RPF liberated Rwanda, it was certainly not good news for Museveni. He knew he was not going to see his most trusted protectors coming back to Uganda, as refugees. He also knew that he had exploited them for years and had not recognized the sacrifices they made. 

He had to devise other means. And this is when he started to craft the narrative of placating himself as the ‘commander behind the curtains’. It is how the RPF turned out to be sweet for the Ugandan President.

Further, Museveni expected to reap political and economic benefits from Rwanda.   The departure of Rwandans from the NRA again saved him from the pressure of the Bahima commanders who, for long, had complained about Rwandans occupying senior positions in the NRA. Museveni surely remembers how Rwigema was supposed to be the Minister of Defense, on merit, and how questions of him being Rwandese denied him that position.

After 1994, Museveni continued to use the same deceitful narrative to position himself as the strong man of the region, the fierce commander behind the liberation of different countries within the Great Lakes Region. This was a miscalculation on his part. He underestimated those he considered ‘small boys’, the same people who handed the presidency to him.

Secondly, he must have been very short-sighted not to realise how exposed his military had become following the departure of the Rwandan fighters.

In 1995, when Uganda was faced with insurgency, the departure of Rwandan officers from the NRA was greatly felt especially when Museveni urgently requested the military support of Rwanda to secure key installations in Entebbe, Jinja and Kampala for a year.

A robust force of Rwandans was immediately dispatched and it secured the Entebbe airport, the strategic radar at Nsamizi, Owen falls dam and some major factories. Museveni feared an air raid on Uganda by a neighboring country and an attack of Joseph Kony’s group in Jinja and Kampala; two strategic cities.

 

With his continued acts of betrayal on Rwanda, facts have proven that they never get old like us human beings do. Museveni still has a chance to renounce his support to Rwandan terror groups like RNC and FDLR, which has resulted into the bad blood in relations between Uganda and Rwanda. 

Here is an important saying in Kinyarwanda I want to convey to Museveni and I am sure he understands it well: Utatiye igihango, kiramusarika.