There is no doubt that my life has been threatened by the president of Rwanda
Lt Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa and his son
A prominent Rwandan exile accuses the president of being a dictator, imprisoning political opponents and destabilizing East Africa, adding in an interview Thursday that he believes the leader, who he once served, has hunted him and other dissidents around the world.
Kayumba Nyamwasa, once Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s army chief, spoke to The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Thursday after finishing his testimony as a witness in the trial of six East Africans accused of attempted murder in his 2010 shooting. Rwanda’s government has denied involvement in an attack in Johannesburg that left Nyamwasa with a bullet lodged at the base of his spine.
« There is no doubt that my life has been threatened by the president of Rwanda, using government institutions and using hired killer squads, » Nyamwasa said. He spoke in the court room where he testified for several days last month and just over two days this week. When he mentioned hired assassins, he gestured to the dock where three Rwandans and three Tanzanians accused of trying to kill him had sat during a trial session earlier Thursday.
The Rwandan government has said it would not comment on matters before a court. Kagame’s spokeswoman did not immediately respond to an email requesting comment on Nyamwasa’s allegations.
Nyamwasa, who has faced questions about his own conduct when he was close to Kagame, said of Rwanda’s president, « I was his chief of staff. I was his ambassador. And I came to South Africa because I’m running away from him. He hires killers to kill me. What else can he be other than a dictator? »
« When I called him a dictator, it was not out of assumption. It was not out of speculation. It was based on facts, » he said as his wife Rosette Kayumba sat next to him. His wife, who was in the car with him when he was shot, attended every hearing at which he testified, once bringing along two of their four children.
Nyamwasa said he believes that in addition to the attempt to kill him, Rwandan government agents were behind the killing in Uganda late last year of a Rwandan journalist who was a prominent critic of Kagame. And Nyamwasa cited warnings British police have issued to Rwandan exiles in Britain that their lives were in danger, a threat believed to emanate from the Rwandan government.
Nyamwasa said one reason Kagame wants him dead is that he has evidence Kagame ordered the shooting down of a plane carrying Juvenal Habyarimana, then president of Rwanda in 1994. The Rwandan government blames Hutu extremists for the crash that killed Habyarimana. A French investigation completed earlier this year found that the missile fire came from a military camp and not Kagame’s forces. But Nyamwasa said he had evidence Kagame ordered the plane be brought down. Nyamwasa would not elaborate, but said he would present his evidence to French investigators.
Observers speculate Kagame saw Nyamwasa as a political rival, but Nyamwasa said Thursday he had no personal political ambitions. Working with other dissidents in South Africa and elsewhere, Nyamwasa established the Rwandan National Congress in South Africa. It is dedicated to pursuing peaceful political change in Rwanda, he said Thursday.
He said he began opposing what he called « creeping dictatorship » in his homeland before fleeing to South Africa, arriving just months before he was shot. He compared Rwanda under Kagame to Egypt under now-toppled Hosni Mubarak, saying Kagame’s political opponents are jailed, journalists are killed or forced into exile, and judges answer to the president instead of the law. Independent human rights groups make similar charges.
« I protested, » Nyamwasa said. « That’s why I am in exile. »
He has refugee status in South Africa and has been under South African government protection since the shooting.
A Spanish judge in 2008 charged Nyamwasa and 39 other members of the Rwandan military with mass killings of civilians. The Spanish allegations, which have prompted rights groups in South Africa to call for Nyamwasa to be stripped of his refugee status here, stem from accusations Nyamwasa and other senior Tutsis waged a retaliatory extermination campaign against Hutus after the genocide.
Nyamwasa denied accusations he is responsible for human rights abuses or war crimes.
« I can concede that during the process of war, people died and there could have been some excesses, » he said. « But those could not explicitly implicate me. »
He said he supported incursions by Rwandan forces into neighboring Congo in the mid-1990s, saying toppling the Mobutu regime in power in the former Zaire was necessary. But since then, Nyamwasa charged, Kagame has waged unnecessary wars, fueling instability in the region, and is now funding rebels in Congo.
Kagame’s government has denied a U.N. experts report accusing it of helping create, recruit for and arm an insurgency in Congo that since April has forced more than 200,000 people from their homes.
Nyamwasa said Thursday that Kagame wants Congo, Rwanda’s giant, mineral-rich neighbor, weak so that he can manipulate its politics and loot its wealth.
Nyamwasa, identified earlier as Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, clarified during his testimony that he does not use the name Faustin.
Source: The Associated Press
Abikoma Inkotanyi ku bwicanyi nagira ngo bajye basubiza amaso inyuma gato bibuke:
-Bibuke abatutsi bose batikiye ku gihe cya Kayibanda:abaroshywe mu rwa Bayanga mu Bugesera,abishwe mu gihe inyenzi zateraga muri za 60 kandi barahisemo kugumana n’abandi banyarwanda mu gihugu, n’abishwe muri 1973 mbere y’uko Habyarimana afata ubutegetsi.
-Ntibibagirwe abahutu n’abatutsi bahitanywe n’ingoma ya Habyarimana:abanyapolitiki b’i Nduga,abagogwe,abatutsi bo mu Bugesera muri za 90, na miliyoni y’abatutsi n’abanyenduga bo muri opposition batikiriye muri genocide.Aba bantu bishwe n’abakiga bahagarikiwe n’ingabo za Habyarimana.
-Jye nabaye mu nkambi zo muri Congo,si ibanga,abacengezi bazindukaga bitoza kuzatera Inkotanyi kandi barabigerageje.Kandi iyo bageraga mu Rwanda bacumbikirwaga n’abaturage muri za Ruhengeri na Gisenyi.Byari bigoye rero kuvangura abasilikare n’abasivili muri kiriya gihe haba imbere mu Rwanda cyangwa mu makambi.Kandi sinshidikanya ko iyo batsinda bari gukora indi genocide y’abatutsi n’abanyenduga.Ntabwo rero Inkotanyi zari kubareka ngo baze bazimare.
Ari Umukiga, Umunyenduga,Umututsi, bose bafite amaraso ku ntoki kandi buri muntu yumvise ko na nyina w’undi abyara umuhungu.Igihe kirageze ko twicara hasi tugashyira demokrasi nyayo mu Rwanda tukareka kwishyira heza tugasabana imbabazi tugaturana.
Afande, ntubona se uko umerewe neza wicaranye n’umuhungu wawe, ikibondo cyawe? Nyamara se ujya wibuka ko hari abo wavukije ayo mahirwe igihe wagushaga imvura y’ama bombes ku nkambi z’abahutu muri Congo? Igihe wahandiraga ubuvumo mu Ruhengeri?
Nkeka ko Imana igukunda kandi izaguhindura nka SAULI wo muri bibiliya.
Nkeka ko yakinze akaboko kugirango iguhe kwicara hamwe, utekereze ku byo wakoze, wicuze, usabe imbabazi ubundi utange ubuhamya.
WABONYE UKO AMAGARA ARYANA?
ICYO IMANA YAKUBIKIYE KIRAHARI KANDI NTUZATUME YICUZA ICYO YAKUBIKIYE.
Yari Kariyo, uturiye umugezi wa SUSA, mu kibaya cya NYAKINAMA.
Rwose muvandimwe ndakwinginze wikwibwira ko Kagome alias Paulo ari umwere ni umwicanyio ahubwo niba umurengera rwose bizagukoraho cyane kuko azakwica aha vuba,. Rekaho rero kuko na we atabihakana.
Arabyemera ku mugaragaro. Niba rero yarasatse kwica kayumba Imana igakinga akaboko, si ukuvuga ko atari umwicanyi. Ahubwo icyo ugomba kumenya ni uko Kayumba wacua atazamuhusha kandi umugambi ugeze kure. Ugusuriye umwereka ko nawe ufite innyo.
The Nyamwasa-Kagame rift is nothing new in rwandan post-independence politics:
-In 1969, we witnessed the « Guta umurongo »(Political erring) that sealed the death of Hutu Kiga-Nduga political alliance that had brought the MDR Parmehutu to power; the system collapsed in the process.
-In the 80′s occured the kiga split spearheaded by the Habyarimana-Kanyarengwe rift that eventually brought the Habyarimana regime down.
-Now the « Nyiginya-Bega » split going on in Rwanda through the the Kagame-Nyamwasa conflict is seriously shaking the Tutsi unity that brought the Rwandese Patriotic Front to power.I don’t see how long the RPF system is going to survive the suspicions and silent dissent that are developing
inside the system, especially in the army.
I have a reason to be optimistic about these developments:
-Rwandans in general and their politicians in particular have finally come to understand that it is not enough to come from the same social group(ethnic,religious) to get along in politics.Political systems based on discriminatin(justified or not) don’t last and they usually suffer a violent end.So next time, before people use ethnic manipulation to ascend to power, they will think twice.
-The common rwandan who used to instinctly support politicians from their own ethnicity has come to understand through the different wars that afflicted our country, that when it comes to pay the price for bad politics,politians and their families run to save heavens and leave them on their own.
I firmly believe that the next major phase in Rwandan politics is going to be a democratically elected governement free of corruption,dictatorship and ethnicity.I can see Rwanda becoming a model of good governance in Africa soon.
uyu muhubgu wa Kayumba ndabona afite ikintu cyubwitonzi cyane. Haruwamubeshyeye ngo asa na Cyomoro ! Wapi, yego nubwo nawe atari shya shya, ariko ntagejeje aha Cyomoro. Uyu we rwose ntacyabaye cyane, nubwo mbona afite amatwi adasobanutse ! Twizere ko yumva neza malgré tout.
Umva se uko Nyamwasa abeshya avuga ngo nta ambitions politique afite !!!! Yasobanuye icyo ishyaka rye RNC rigamije ? Ese ubundi ni mpamvu ki kugezubu iryo huriro ryabo ritarashyiraho inzego nyazo zirihagarariye, kandi igihe barishingaga bari bavuze ngo nyuma yamezi 6 bazaba babikoze ? Bategereje ko Kagame ahirima maze bagasubira muri FPR yabo mpotozi. Icyo biyibagiza nkana nuko FPR tuzayisesa tukayihamba burundu kubera ibibi bitagira ingano yakoze muri kariya karere kuva octobre 1990. Ati abishe mu myaka igeza 1996 sinabibazwa ! Ariko mana umuntu aricuza kandi akanakoleza akanabeshya kumanywa yihangu ! Niba ashaka ko mwibutsa, nasabe uwateguye film documentaire yerekaniwe i Bruxelles le 01/07/2012, ubwo amwe mumashyaka ya politiki nyanrwanda akorera hanze, harimo niyo RNC yabo yibukaga imyaka 50 u Rwanda rumaze rwigenga, maze yongere atinyuke kuvuga ayo magambo ! Ese ye, ko numvise bavuga ngo kuva aho Kagame ashakiye kurasira Kayumba iyo South Africa ubu asigaye yarabaye umurokore, none kuki akomeza kubeshya nkana ? Rubanda ruratinyuka koko, uwiyita umurokore w’Imana, agakomeza kubeshya kandi Imana iba hose, ikamenya byose !