UGANDA: Museveni is stuck with the explosive Banyarwanda question

MUSEVENI IS STUCK WITH THE EXPLOSIVE BANYARWANDA QUESTION

CHANGE OF GUARDS - Last week M.Ps on the Defence and Internal Affairs Committee quizzed the Minister of Internal  Affairs over claims that NIRA officials have stopped registering people bearing Kinyarwanda names for national IDs.

The issue was triggered by the Ruhinda County MP Capt. Donozio Kahonda who said;
“There is a big concern about officers of NIRA not registering individuals whose names are similar to the ones from Rwanda."
Nyabushozi County M.P Col. Fred Mwesigye tasked the Minister to come clear on the matter.
“This question of the Banyarwanda, the government should come out clearly because we know Kisoro was cut and added to Uganda, and those are Ugandans, without doubt."

In his response, the Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen. Odong said that government is at a crossroads since NIRA officials rely on local leadership (Local Councils I and II).
“Unfortunately, some local leaders are compromised, given that their ancestral background is traced to Rwanda.”
He cited Kyangwali in Hoima District, where a sub-county chairman is of Rwandan origin and that he is one of those escalating the infiltration of fellow Rwandans.
“He has bought two square miles of land and is telling Banyarwanda, ‘come, come, there is free land…..."

In a related incident, the High court has ordered police to produce a Rwandan couple that has been in detention without trial since January this year.  The said order requires that Claudine Uwineza and her husband Darius Kayobera be produced before court on April 24 with reasons as to why they have not yet been charge and to show cause why they should not be released.  The couple was arrested in January in Kampala by the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) operatives as they returned to their home.

Court documents presented by the office of the Solicitor General indicate that the couple was arrested by the army for spying but was later handed over to police. In one of the documents signed by the joint chief of staff for the Defense Forces, Lt Gen Joseph Musanyufu says that they were arrested by Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence on allegations of espionage.
“It was discovered that he [Kayobera] possessed both Rwandan and Ugandan national identification cards with different names and also his other status in Uganda was documented as a Congolese refugee."

In August 2018 the NRM Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Dr. Tanga Odoi disclosed to the media in Kampala about the massive involvement of Rwandans in the regime's electoral process.  He said;
      "They have been posing as citizens and some were put on the register through some politicians. I can’t imagine, they have forged our party cards and have been taking part in the elections. This is abusing the hospitality they have been accorded. I am leading this investigation and we will not reveal their names now. When we are done, we will share the findings with Uganda Police."

During the 2016 general elections, the opposition politicians raised a red flag that the regime was deliberately issuing national ID cards to Rwandese to vote for Museveni but the regime vehemently denied this. A few months later, in April 2016 while on a tour of the Uganda-Rwanda border post of Mirama Hill, the then Minister of Internal Affairs. Rose Akol directed that Rwandese holding both Ugandan and Rwandan IDs should surrender one. She went ahead to disclose that during the previous three months, her ministry had been collecting Ugandan ID cards from Rwandese at a rate of ten per day.

Caught off guard by revelation of such a tightly guarded secret, the Museveni regime simply kept mum waiting for the right time to punish Rose Akol. It was only the Rwandan Ambassador to Uganda who said that "......on Rwanda's side, there was no violation of any law because our constitution allows dual citizenship". A few days later, Rose Akol was sacked from her ministerial position,  dropped from cabinet and her political career sent into oblivion.  Earlier, Museveni had for sinister motives planted into the 3rd Schedule of the 1995 Constitution,  Banyarwanda as among the 56 indigenous Ugandan communities.

Further, in June 2013 he pushed for and signed a tripartite arrangement under his opportunistic Coalition of the Willing (COWI) for citizens of Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya to move freely using their national IDs, student IDs and Voters Cards. It came into force in January 2014 and since then it's the Rwandese who have benefitted by massively flocking into Uganda. It's only the ongoing bad blood between Museveni and Kagame over the former's support for the latter's dissidents that there is a crackdown on Rwandan immigrants accused of spying in Uganda.

For Rwanda, every Munyarwanda is a Rwandan but for Uganda, some Banyarwanda are Ugandans.

INFORMATION IS POWER AND THE PROBLEM OF UGANDA IS MUSEVENISM