The News Line
December 3, 20210
In this issue the exiled officer narrates how, between 1990 and 1994, Maj. Gen.Paul Kagame assassinated his bush war comrades deemed dangerous to his quest for absolute power.
►How Members of the High Command Innocent Muvunamyambo and Sam Byaruhanga were eliminated
►An insider’s story of the murders of Col. Charles Ngoga, Lt. Col Wilson Rutayisire and Assiel Kabera
Major General Paul Kagame, while a rebel leader during the 1990-94 war that brought him to power, did not only kill his opponents - the former government forces whom he was fighting, but also killed his own bush war comrades.
According to Lt. Aloys Ruyenzi, most of those targeted were thought to harbor reservations about Kagame’s authority.
“Most targeted were those he thought would question his authority given that he assumed leadership of the then rebel outfit lacking legitimacy because there were many commanders senior to him in the RPA. He wanted to outmaneuver all his bush colleagues and establish himself as the indispensable politico-military figure in the organization,” Ruyenzi says.
Also targeted, the former officer says, were Hutu officers recruited within the ranks of the RPA as well as those who were considered loyal to the late Major General Fred Rwigema- RPA’s charismatic first commander.
Prominent victims
“Notable of those killed under Kagame’s orders include Member of High Command (MHC) Innocent Muvunamyambo, who was killed in an ambush in 1992 by Kagame’s agents at a place called Gahondo,” the former officer claims.
Muvunamyambo was RPA’s General Administration Officer (GAO). Prior to his assassination, according to Ruyenzi, he had been rescued from Ruhengeri Maximum Security Prison by the RPA force which attacked president Habyarimana’s army there, bringing back with them many formerly imprisoned Ex-FAR officers including Major Theoneste Lizinde, Commander Ladislas Biseruka, and Muvunamyambo.
Before his incarceration MHC Muvunamyambo had been the Commanding Officer of former President Juvenal Habyarimana’s presidential guards.
Soon after the ambush, Ruyenzi claims, Kagame ordered the immediate killing of one Bucyana alias Agaba who had masterminded the ambush, fearful that he would later spill the secret.
Also assassinated on Kagame’s orders, claims Ruyenzi, was Member of High Command Sam Byaruhanga, who was shot at point blank range by one Captain Mustapha.
It is said that prior to his murder in 1991, Byaruhanga was Yankee Battalion Commanding Officer and the overall Operational Commander of the Rwandese Patriotic Army.
According to Ruyenzi, who is now exiled in France, Mustapha was assigned to murder MHC Sam Byaruhanga by Jo1 Kayumba Nyamwasa, then head of the much dreaded Directorate of Military Intelligence, on orders of Commander in Chief Paul Kagame.
“Actually, Afande Sam was aware that Kagame disliked him and wanted him dead. He used to tell his confidants that he will not be killed by the enemy, but by his fellow fighters,” says Ruyenzi, who also said that Kagame feared the late Byaruhanga’s military capacity and immense popularity enjoyed within the RPA.
Mustapha, now retired, owns a string of businesses, including a petrol station in Kayonza, eastern Rwanda. Our repeated calls to Mustapha for a comment on the validity of the allegations went unanswered.
Post-1994 assassinations
The former officer, who was tracked down by The Newsline team in the Ugandan capital Kampala, claims killings of RPA officers on orders of then Vice President Paul Kagame continued after the RPA victory in 1994.
Ruyenzi said the most prominent of the post-1994 officers to be assasinated was Lt. Col. Wilson Rutayisire, who was gunned down in Congolese town of Goma by Lt. Col. J.B Murisa, in 2000.
Ruyenzi claims Kagame ordered the murder of Lt. Col. Rutayisire because the latter was against the RPA fighting the Uganda People Defense Forces in Kisangani. By the time of his gruesome death, Late Wilson Rutayisire was the RPA Liaison Officer based in Goma.
“One year before Rutayisire’s murder, Major, J.B. Birasa and Capt. Eddy were also ambushed and killed in Nyamugari in 1999 on orders of Paul Kagame,” Ruyenzi says.
Also killed in the sane year by poisoning was 2Lt. Kiiza, who had been demoted from Member of the High Command and Commanding Officer of the combined mobile force, Ruyenzi adds.
Kagame’s former close bodyguard, who is also Judge Jean Louis Bruguiere’s key witness in the indictments against nine senior Rwandan military officers, also claims Col. Theoneste Lizinde was gunned down in the Kenyan capital Nairobi by Kagame’s agents including Brigadier Gen. Jack Nziza, who was the de facto Rwandan Ambassador to Kenya.
It is of importance to note that Kagame’s former top spy, Col Patrick Karegeya, was also recently in the international news media claiming that President Paul Kagame is responsible for the assassination of Col. Theoneste Lizinde, alongside other dissidents in foreign countries.
Major Alex Ruzindana was also murdered on Kagame’s orders. “He was killed in Nyungwe killing site in 2001. He was lured out of the capital Kigali by Capt. Jean Marie Vianney Butera, a close confidant of Gen. Kabarebe, after convincing him that they were to travel together to the Democratic Republic of Congo to mine coltan,” Ruyenzi narrates.
“In the town of Butare, en-route to DRC, the two were joined by Capt. Tinka, then Brigade Intelligence Officer. When they neared the Nyungwe secret killing ground, which is on Butare- Cyangugu highway, Capt. Butera signaled the standby killing squad in Nyungwe, and they murdered late Ruzindana,” he claims.
Also killed was Col. Charles Ngonga, who, according to Ruyenzi, was administered a deadly poison by Lt. Col.Dan Munyuza - now a top spy in Kagame’s regime.
Major Sebititaweho, Ruyenzi claims, was also poisoned by security agents at Kanombe Military Hospital, on Kagame’s explicit orders. Prior to his death, Major Sebititaweho was in charge of the driving section of the logistics department of RPA.
Also murdered was one Captain Kasozi - a former signaller. Ruyenzi alleges Captain Kasozi was murdered at Kami prison, after being suspected of being an informer to a ‘foreign enemy’.
And, Ruyenzi claims, a one 2Lt. Mbayire was killed in the Nyamirambo suburb of Kigali, in order to conceal information about the assassinations of Col Theoneste Lizinda and Seth Sendashonga.
“He was with Jack Nziza in Rwanda’s Embassy in Nairobi at the time of murder attempt at Seth Sendashonga, and his murder, later, as well as the murder of Col. Theonest Lizinde. He was killed to evade any possible leak of this information,” Ruyenzi says.
The officer also remembers the RPA combatants whose death warrants were signed by President Paul Kagame with ease.
Among those, he says, are Lt. Eppa Rutayisire, who was shot dead in the Rwandan capital Kigali, December 28, 2000; Capt. Serwadda, who was shot dead by Lt. Col. Fred Nyamurangwa on the orders of Kagame in 1995 and Major Rashid Mugisha (kyojo), who was poisoned by security agents at Kanombe Military Hospital, under the supervision of Dr. Joseph Ntarindwa.
Also murdered by Kagame’s killing squad, according to Ruyenzi, is Lt. Dan Twahirwa, 2Lt. Dan Ndaruhutse (Kagame’s escort) and Major Dr. Ndahiro who was killed between Rwamagana and Kayonza in a staged-mnaged car accident.
According to Ruyenzi, Kagame did not only target the real or perceived enemies within the Rwanda Patriotic Army, but also other dissident politicians,
Notable of these is Seth Sendashonga, Rwanda’s first post-genocide internal affairs minister, who was shot dead in the Kenyan capital Nairobi where he had fled. Sendashonga had been earlier wounded in an assassination attempt on his life in Nairobi, which he survived narrowly.
“He was murdered by Kagame’s secret agents, under Brigadier General Jack Nziza, who was Rwanda’s de facto Ambassador to Kenya at that time,” he says. Brig.Nziza is now the Permanent Secretary in the Rwandan ministry of defense.
Ruyenzi says a Member of Parliament, Evariste Burakari, was also shot dead in commune Rutare, Byumba prefecture in 1997 by Kagame’s agent- Capt. Alex Rugira, who was later promoted to a Major.
Also shot dead was Assiel Kabera, a former presidential advisor. Ruyenzi claims the slain politician was shot by a combined force of the Republican Guard and Special Intelligence Services of the police force led by Col. Gacinya Rugumya, in 2000.
Contact:
charlesk@newslineea.com
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Another Kagame aide reveals boss’ secret killing spots
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