Rwanda-Uganda crisis: RNC agents orchestrated arrests of ADEPR Church members

The mass arrest of 40 members of the ADEPR Church earlier this week in Kibuye – a rundown neighborhood in Kampala – by Ugandan security forces on spurious allegations that they were “DMI spies”, was masterminded by agents of Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC, this newspaper has reliably learnt. The two agents are Frank Ruhinda and “Pastor” Busigo, both deeply involved in anti-Rwanda activities sponsored, facilitated, and enabled by Kampala. Information gathered from persecuted church members of ADEPR who preferred to testify in confidence due to security of their arrested colleagues, is that in the past days Ruhinda and Busigo have been frequenting the church in Kibuye with plans to turn it first into a hotbed of hate for the Kigali administration, and then into a source of recruits for fugitive Kayumba Nyamwasa’s RNC negative forces. According to those knowledgeable about RNC’s operations in Uganda, the group – having suffered a bad military rout in the neighbouring DR Congo in the past month by Conglese forces, FARDC – is desperate to recruit and rebuild. But when the RNC men tried to bring their politics in the church – with unwelcome talk about “change in Kigali”, or “the need for able-bodied young men to join the struggle”, the congregation’s leadership told them there was no place for such agendas in the church. Furthermore, according to our sources, Ruhinda and Busigo had been bothering random church members, “to share with them ‘any strategic intelligence’ they may have.” It is said that the Christians told them that “Rwanda had had enough wars and bloodshed”; and that “it was not only seriously wrong for any person to be promoting activities likely to lead to bloodshed in a house of God, but they ought to know how much Rwandans hated, and were tired of war.” This rejection, according to our sources in the congregation, “angered the two men, who warned the church leadership that ‘you will see bad things!’” Observers of RNC activities in Uganda have remarked how RNC for all intents and purposes has become integrated into Kampala security organs, most notably, the notorious military intelligence, CMI. Rwandans that have suffered torture in the dungeons of CMI Headquarters at Mbuya Military Barracks have repeatedly testified how Kinyarwanda-speaking men are the main interrogators, and torturers of Rwandan abductees. It is said that after failing to make any headway in their intentions for the ADEPR Church, the RNC agents then unleashed CMI upon the Christians in Kibuye. The raid that swept up all the worshippers on Tuesday took place around midday – when congregants were in prayer. Eyewitnesses said three civilian vans of the type most used for public transportation in Uganda and three police light trucks, of the “panda gari” type arrived and parked in front of the building which hosts ADEPR in Kibuye. Men in civilian clothes together with uniformed policemen then got out of the vehicles and cordoned off the entrance. As a multitude of people watched, a number of the security men entered the church, up one floor, and ordered everyone out. The worshippers obeyed, filing out slowly, walking down the stairs. Each person that came out was ordered either into a van or a panda gari. They included men, women and children. After everyone was in the vehicles, they sped away to an unknown location. Afterwards Kampala-based misinformation websites and blogs like “CommandPost”, and mainstream publications like Daily Monitor were claiming that CMI and police had “arrested members of Rwanda’s military intelligence.” These allegations took Pastor John Karangwa, the legal representative of the ADEPR in Kigali, aback. “How can our Christians be called spies? On what basis?” he asked. “First of all,” Karangwa said, as quoted in local Kigali media, “It is obvious that the security forces targetted ADEPR only because it has that Rwandan name. But I want to tell you that even Ugandans are members of our church. Ours is an evangelical mission to convert people of all nationalities to Christ.” Since the Museveni regime adopted its policy of hostility against Kigali, by sponsoring groups like RNC as anti-Rwanda proxies in the neighboring DR Congo, a lot of innocent Rwandans have badly suffered. RNC, a terrorist organization that among other things was behind a series of grenade attacks in Rwanda that killed seventeen civilians and injured or maimed up to 400, has full use of CMI facilities. The purpose of the victimization of innocent Rwandans falls in three broad categorizations. To torture victims for whatever information they might have about Rwanda’s security forces. To torture others into agreeing to be recruited into the RNC, and to punish those that have refused to be recruited, or contribute money and materiel to RNC. Roger Donne Kayibanda, whose story went viral on social media after he fell into the hands of CMI in the Kisaasi suburb of Kampala in January this year, had travelled there to attend the marriage of his brother. While relaxing with friends over a few drinks the next thing he knew, he said, five men had surrounded him and ordered him, “come with us!” When Kayibanda tried to resist, the men manhandled him to their vehicle of dark-tinted glasses, and threw him inside. They shoved a hood over his head so that he couldn’t see a thing. They then fastened handcuffs on his wrists and took him to the notorious CMI’s dungeons in Mbuya. “There was a lot of crying in that place; it was very frightening!” he later told journalists while thanking his lucky stars that he had gotten out of there alive. “There was appalling torture in there, and the men interrogating us spoke in fluent Kinyarwanda,” he testified. “Those men were RNC operatives,” said the educated-sounding Kayibanda.” They would want to know about Rwandan security forces, and when one said he knew nothing, it was more beatings! Ruhinda and his colleague left the country to go into self-exile after Nyamwasa and his henchmen had openly declared war on Rwanda.

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Rwanda-Uganda crisis: RNC agents orchestrated arrests of ADEPR Church members