Thirty-two years ago last month, the Director General of the Internal Security Organisation (ISO), Brig Jim Muhwezi, dismissed reports in the international media that Uganda was one of the main suppliers of arms to the Rwanda Patriotic Front/Army (RPF/A).
‘They are the usual baseless allegations,’ Brig Muhwezi told The Monitor on May 19, 1994.
At the time, a genocide had broken out in Rwanda, where the RPF, which had invaded Rwanda from Uganda on October 1, 1990, was fighting to take power.
The trigger of the genocide was the shooting down on April 6, 1994, of a jet on which President Juvénal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, were travelling. The jet was shot down over the Rwandan capital, Kigali. All occupants of the plane perished in the ensuing crash.
Hutu extremists subsequently launched a genocidal campaign that targeted the Tutsi, moderate Hutus and others who were opposed to the genocidal intentions. The RPA responded by abandoning a ceasefire and power-sharing agreement that had been signed in August 1993 by President Juvénal Habyarimana and the chairman of the RPF, Alex Kanyarengwe.
The agreement had provided for the formation of a transitional government, integration of the RPA fighters into the Rwandan military and demobilisation of some of the members of Rwanda’s army.
The RPA resumed fighting government forces and the Hutu militias, who were involved in the fighting.
Accusations
According to a copy of The Monitor newspaper’s edition of May 20, 1994, Brig Muhwezi’s comments were precipitated by allegations made by several United States (US) based human rights groups that Uganda and other countries were the main suppliers of war materials to the parties involved in the civil war that was raging in Rwanda and was at the time believed to have resulted into the death of more than 500,000 people.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) had always accused Uganda of complicity in the war. Those accusations were carried in the paper, ‘Arms Project survey: Arming Rwanda,’ which was published in January 1994.
‘The Arms Projects finds a high degree of institutional complicity between the NRA and the RPF. At the very least, Uganda and its leaders are responsible for allowing military renegades to plan and execute the invasion of a sovereign State with Ugandan weapons, launched from Uganda. The Arms Project also believes there is credible evidence that the Ugandan government allowed the RPF to move arms, logistical supplies and troops across Ugandan soil, and provided direct military support to the RPF in the form of arms, ammunition, and military equipment,’ the paper stated.
Now, following the outbreak of the genocide, HRW’s representative in Uganda alleged at a press conference in Kampala that Uganda, Egypt, France and South Africa had been the main suppliers of weapons that had entered Rwanda.
Denial
However, Brig Muhwezi dismissed the claims, saying it seemed some people had embarked on what he described as a wild search for the sources of the arms that were in the possession of the RPF/A.
‘The Uganda government is not involved in any way in supplying the RPF,’ Brig Muhwezi said.
Brig Muhwezi left ISO in 1996 and after joined elective politics and was elected a Member of Parliament for Bujumbura County in Rukungiri District. He was appointed the first State minister for Primary Education following the introduction of the Universal Primary Education (UPE). He retired from the army at the rank of Major General. He is currently the Minister in Charge of Security.
Mbabazi letter
By the time Brig Muhwezi dismissed the allegations by HRW, then State minister for Defence, Mr John Patrick Amama Mbabazi, had also dismissed similar allegations that had been made in the international media.
On May 6, 1994, the Daily Monitor published a letter in which Mr Mbabazi stated that the ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) was not involved in any acts aimed at destabilising any of the neighbouring countries. He said the NRM government was instead trying to mediate conflicts.
Mr Mbabazi’s letter was in response to the contents of the paper, ‘Arms Project survey: Arming Rwanda’.
The document claimed that HRW had established that the Ugandan government was purchasing weapons from South Africa through the former South African homeland of Bophuthatswana and other sources on behalf of RPF/A.
‘… when, through our survey, we learnt that Uganda and France in particular were competing in arming the warring sides in the Rwandan conflict, we did warn the world of a catastrophe that awaited Rwanda…,’ the document further stated.
The watchdog claimed that while Uganda was purchasing arms on behalf of the RPF, South Africa was clandestinely selling huge quantities of arms to the Rwanda government in violation of an international sanction of 1977 of the UN Security Council, which prohibited it from buying or selling arms anywhere in the world.
HRW said while the quantities of arms Uganda purchased for RPF were unknown, the Rwandan government reportedly bought 13,000 South African-made R4 automatic assault rifles, 10,000 hand grenades, 10,000 rocket launcher grenades and more than a million rounds of ammunition at $6 million.
The money Kigali used to purchase the weapons was allegedly directly provided by France.
The watchdog also claimed France’s role in arming Rwanda’s armed forces and militias extended beyond providing funds for Kigali to purchase weapons. It said after Belgium, Rwanda’s former colonial power, ended its support in 1990, France stepped in, deploying military advisers to Rwanda and, by 1994, became the Rwandan government’s principal military backer.
According to the newspaper, Brig Muhwezi said it was nonsensical for anyone to suggest that Uganda was competing with other countries to arm parties involved in the Rwanda conflict.
‘France and the other countries mentioned are arms manufacturers; Uganda is not. How can we compete with them?’ Brig Muhwezi asked.
In a related report, The Independent newspaper of London also reported at the time that the RPF had been ‘equipped by a cross-border operation from Uganda to which the Kampala government and the UN turn a blind eye.’
‘The RPF may be getting their arms through Uganda, but certainly without our knowledge,’ said Brig Muhwezi when asked to comment about the Independent newspaper’s claims.
He argued that surveillance of arms movements is very difficult.
‘The Kony rebels (the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), who were fighting the government forces in northern Uganda) bring in arms, and we have not been able to stop them. Can anyone then surely say the government is helping to arm Kony?’ he wondered.
Brig Muhwezi was quick to point out that even the West’s arch-enemy, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, had moved a lot of big and sophisticated equipment from Europe, but he was not caught except once.
‘These countries have very sophisticated surveillance systems, but they did not catch Saddam, so it is not surprising if we have not detected RPF movement of arms through here.’
He acknowledged that because many of the first batch of RPF/A combatants defected from the National Resistance Army (NRA), many people still viewed the rebels as having links with the Ugandan government.
In a brief interview, the Chief Executive Officer of the Arms Corporation of South Africa (ARMSCOR), Andre Buys, told The Monitor that even if Uganda had been one of the countries that secretly bought weapons from ARMSCOR, it would not be known at that point in time as the dealings at that time were not on a State to State basis, but individuals acting clandestinely on behalf of governments and other clients.