Written by TUGUMIZEMU VERNON
Sunday, 05 July 2009 17:20
Uganda’s hitherto unclear role in the war that brought Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) to power in Kigali became clearer last week after 235 Ugandan retired soldiers claimed they were part of a 616 mercenary force that helped overthrew the government in 1994.
The fighters are demanding their gratuity from the current Rwanda Government, saying they have not been paid for the services rendered. They say they were demobilised in 1996, two years after helping RPF seize power.
The Observer has been told that the Ugandan fighters signed an agreement with the RPF in which they were promised between Shs 300,000 and 740,000 [depending on rank] as monthly salary for the duration of their services. The RPF invaded Rwanda from Uganda in 1990.
Col. Sam Kaka, the former Rwandese Army Chief of Staff, signed on behalf of the RPF. This payment was supposed to have been effected in September 1996 when the group was repatriated back to Uganda.
Some of the former combatants have told The Observer that they are considering legal action against the Rwandan Government to force it to pay up.
They include 60 former fighters who suffered injuries. Ten of them were seriously injured and move in wheel chairs, and on clutches. The group’s spokesman, Sgt. Aquino Matega, said they are demanding about 3billion Rwandese Francs.
“On August 28, 1996, we met with H.E. Paul Kagame at Camp Kigali Army Barracks and [he] bid us farewell, he promised to speed up our package and told us to register our names with our respective DISOs and RDCs [in Uganda] as he would get in touch with the [Uganda] Government,” Matega said.
Matega, who now works with Masaka Municipality, claimed that they have petitioned several offices, including the Rwanda Embassy in Uganda, Uganda’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Sam Kutesa, and President Yoweri Museveni without success.
“In 2004 we went to Christine Umutoni, the Rwandese Ambassador to Uganda, she told us to go to our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The chief of protocol told us that he would contact Rwanda to verify, but nothing happened,” he said.
Last week, about 70 members of the group met at Kasana football ground in Nyendo-Ssenyange Division, in Masaka town, and resolved to give Rwanda an ultimatum of two weeks to pay their claims or be dragged to court.
But Kutesa told The Observer on phone that the former fighters should remain calm because the two countries will discuss the matter. Matega, who is personally demanding Shs 17 million, however said his colleagues have been calm for 13 years. His leg was shattered by a landmine during the war.
Maj. Karangwa, an official in Rwanda’s Ministry of Defence, told this journalist by phone from Kigali that he was aware of the issue and his government was working with its embassy in Uganda to compensate these soldiers.
Another former fighter, Rubega Ibrahim, who claims that he nearly got killed during one of the major battles in Virunga Forest, said that he was disappointed that Rwanda had “let us down because we are the reason that peace was restored in Rwanda.” He says he is claiming about Shs 6 million.
The Truth can be buried and stomped into the ground where none can see, yet eventually it will, like a seed, break through the surface once again far more potent than ever, and Nothing can stop it. Truth can be suppressed for a “time”, yet It cannot be destroyed. ==> Wolverine
