Hungry for Truth, Peace and Justice

Rwanda: Jackson Rwahama, the notorious killer

By Radio Katwe
July 2, 2007
Kampala

Colonel Jackson Rwahama came to Uganda as a refugee during the 1959 social upheavals in Rwanda. He is an older cousin to Paul Kagame.

In terms of education he is a grade two primary school teacher. He joined the Uganda Army in the 1960s and was a Captain in the 1970s Uganda Army as well as being an agent in the notorious State Research Bureau.

He was a Captain in the Uganda Army in the early days of Amin's reign of terror and was attached to the Simba Battalion in Mbarara.

He after became a Lt. Colonel and was promoted to battalion commander of Gaddafi barracks in Jinja.

Jackson Rwahama had a driver called Kabera in the 1970s when he was a District Commissioner in Ankole district. At one time he was also a District Commissioner for Kikagati.

He abducted and killed many Ugandans among them a Muluka chief called Eric Kakeira of Kaina, Kayonza, Rushenyi district. He was abducted from his farm in broad daylight and taken by Rwahama and has never been seen since (presumed dead).

Rwahama had also bought some land in the same neighborhood but abandoned it after the 1979 war with Tanzania.

He killed a prince of Rwanda called Jacques Rwigemera with his revolver. He fired five bullets into his head.

Those in the know say that Rwahama was the man who killed Nekemia Bananuka the UPC administrative secretary, Patrick Ruhindi who was a lawyer and from the Ankole ruling family and some other prominent Banyankole in 1972 after the aborted invasion from Tanzania.

In 1978 when the Uganda Army of Amin invaded the Kagera Salient in northern Tanzania, Rwahama is one of the men who led the invaders and looted cattle and destroyed buildings in Tanzania.

After Amin's fall from power in 1979, Rwahama took refuge in Burundi until the RPF invasion of Rwanda in 1990. His brother was living as a refugee in Burundi where he earned an income by teaching in primary schools in Bujumbura.

When the NRM captured power in 1986, Kakeira's children registered a case of abduction at the C.I.D. headquarters and a file was opened. Remember Kakeira had been abducted by Rwahama in the presence of many witnesses.

Rwahama's driver Kabera (who happened to be in the NRA by then) was arrested and interrogated, he confessed that he took part in the abduction of Kakeira, but to everybody's surprise, the CID never followed up the case.

Rwahama joined the RPF when they invaded Rwanda in 1990 and he fought all through that war.

The Directorate of Military Intelligence of the RPA was led by Colonel Kayumba Nyamwasa. His deputy was Captain Stephen Munyandinda. Lt. Col. Rwahama was the third in command. The man in charge of DMI operations was Lt. Bosco Rumenera.

Major Dan Munyuza and Lt.Col. Jackson Rwahama bear the full responsibility for the lives of young Tutsis we (RPA) eliminated at the Training Wing of Gishuro, Byumba.

During the RPA fighting, Rwahama organized many bank robberies in Rwanda supposedly to raise money for the RPA's war chest. A similar tactic had been used by Musevenis NRA who also robbed a lot of money from banks to fund their guerilla war.

When the RPF took power in Rwanda in 1994 Rwahama became the Commander of the Military Police. He also became the Chief Judge at the Military Court. In a reshuffle of security heads, Lieutenant-Colonel Jackson Rwahama later became the commander of the Reserve Force.

He started to kill Hutus and seized their houses.

There was a Hutu businessman who had a paint factory but had fled to Belgium as a refugee. When he returned to Rwanda after the war, Rwahama was living in his house and he was forced to share his house while Rwahama was constructing a huge building at place called Remera. This building is one of the most prominent in Kigali today and is better known as the MTN Centre.

For this building Rwahama used Hutu prisoners as free labour and those prisoners were sleeping in shipping containers behind the building. He has now grown very wealthy and owns many other houses in Rwanda.

President Kagame once appointed Rwahama to be the military attache at the Rwandan embassy in Tanzania but the Tanzanian government rejected him because of his well known involvement in the looting of Kagera and killing of Tanzanians in 1978 as mentioned above.

When it came to killing the Hutu moderate politician and former interior minister Seth Sedashonga, Kagame could not trust another person except his cousin. So according to information we have, Rwahama the deputy director of Military Intelligence in the RPF government organized some men to fly to Nairobi and assemble at the Rwandan embassy.

These are the men who gunned down Sedashonga on Saturday 16 May 1998. At that time Kenyan police told a press conference that they had arrested two Rwandans and a Ugandan in connection with the murder. That is what we can release on Rwahama. There is some more we shall bring you this weeks because we are checking it first.

Related Materials:
WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Rwanda April 6, 1994

Coming to a New Understanding of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 11:34 PM