My
comment
Andrew
Mwenda is a typical neo-liberal intellectual hypocrite. For example he has propelled a
gullible view that, ‘’Most people I
have met trust the UN `experts’ and international media when they claim that
Rwanda and, most recently, Uganda, are the ones supplying arms, ammunition and
soldiers to the rebel movement…. Their
claims of heavy weapons shipments from Rwanda are naive. If Rwanda moved
weapons across the border, even amidst the darkest night, American satellites
in space would get clear pictures of it.’’ This
fallacious view is based on the false assumption
that the USA
is a holy big brother and neutral player
in the DR Congo conflict. An honest intellectual
should know that Rwanda and Uganda are client states of the USA
and the their armies are proxy armies that USA is using in its neo-liberal imperialist
agenda. It is naïve and idiotic to think that the USA
would spy on its proxy Rwanda.
Every dirty that Rwanda is doing in the
DR Congo has the full backing of the USA and the USA wants confusion to
continue in DR Congo because this facilities the primitive accumulation of resources
from the DRC .
Andrew
Mwenda has also shown how heartless and atheistic he is by arguing that, ‘’The best
way to save DRC is to let it burn. From the ashes of catastrophe lies the
chance for a solution’’. In other words, the
killing of innocent people, the raping of women, the defiling of children, war
crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity and heinous human rights violations
should be allowed in D.R.Congo as best way to create order and good governance
in the D. R. Congo of the future. This sounds typically atheistic i.e order
comes out of chaos just as the world came out of a big bang. Haaa…Haaa… Woooo….Woooo!!!!
Andrew
Mwenda’s order by Chaos thesis is further
solidified in his opining that , ‘’To
solve the problems of Congo, the United Nations and other African countries may
need to allow the belligerents to fight until one secures a decisive military
victory or all sides get exhausted by war and find working together more
attractive than further fighting’’. This
view is also based on the flawed assumption that the fighting of the belligerents
in the Congo
has no western or American dialectic or catalysts. The truth is that America and her
client western allies have a neo-liberal capitalistic system that primitively accumulates
resources through disorder and chaos. This satanic
system has nothing to do with human rights and good governance. Therefore
Andrew Mwenda’s domestic thesis that the problem of the D.R Congo is a domestic
one and should be given a domestic solution is a fiction.
To solve the problems of Congo, the United Nations and other African countries may need to allow the belligerents to fight until one secures a decisive military victory or all sides get exhausted by war and find working together more attractive than further fighting. Andrew Mwenda
I think Kagame is a major source of trouble for DRC; albeit by default. Under his presidency, Rwanda has made a dramatic turnaround in a very short time. This has inspired many in high and low places; in politics, academia, religion and the media. Kagame/ Rwanda have thus become global super stars. But it has also mobilised many in envy and jealous. Andrew M. Mwenda
Most people I have met trust
the UN `experts’ and international media when they claim that Rwanda and, most
recently, Uganda, are the ones supplying arms, ammunition and soldiers to the
rebel movement…. Their claims of heavy weapons
shipments from Rwanda
are naive. If Rwanda
moved weapons across the border, even amidst the darkest night, American
satellites in space would get clear pictures of it. Andrew Mwenda
Also read:
Journalists who have been trained and paid to defend US proxies: Seeing through the hypocrisy of American New world order neo-liberal elites: Andrew Mwenda and his simplistic analysis of the DR Congo Crisis: Andrew Mwenda’s hypocritical defence of Dictator Paul Kagame.
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2012/12/seeing-through-hypocrisy-of-american.htmlEnd of the M23 Era but no end yet to USA and her clients’ looting of Congo resources : Kabila Congratulates Congo Army for Defeating M23 Rebels: FARDC captured Ugandan and Rwandan Nationals fighting alongside M23 Rebels
http://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2013/10/end-of-m23-era-but-no-end-yet-to-usa.html
How to save Congo from the UN
Kagame , The USA Darling and African economic model who violates human rights with impunity :The danger of running from one USA client state and hiding in another USA slave state : Former Kagame bodyguard attacked in Uganda
Don’t Save Congo
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/opinion/dont-save-congo.html?_r=0#h
By ANDREW M. MWENDA
Published: November 11, 2013
Kampala, Uganda — Last week, the Congolese Army defeated the rebel group, M23, with the help of United Nations forces and Tanzanian and South African troops.Many observers seem to believe that this victory promises to bring an end to the intractable conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet foreign intervention to help President Joseph Kabila secure a military victory against his opponents is treating the symptom but not the disease that ails Congo.
The M23 is a manifestation
of a deeper crisis. The Congolese government lacks the rudimentary security and
administrative infrastructure to ensure law and order, let alone providing
public goods and services like roads, schools, hospitals, electricity and
water. Its army is undisciplined, poorly trained and poorly paid (when it gets
paid).
All too often, the army
survives by scavenging on ordinary citizens whom it frequently loots,
terrorizes and rapes. This creates incentives for rebellion against the
government.
Worse still, most of
Congolese society is polarized along ethnic lines. Without a viable state to
mediate these conflicts or protect one community from attacks by another, Congolese civilians often form ethnic militias to defend
their specific interests. Although the United Nations, human rights
organizations and the media have focused on M23 (perhaps because it was the
strongest) there are over 40 rebel movements in Congo, each fighting the central
government or holding precariously to an uneasy peace.
These political divisions
are accentuated by the natural endowments of the Congo. The
eastern region, for example, is heavily forested, mountainous and endowed with
rich minerals like gold, tantalite and diamonds. These physical conditions
create opportunities for violent rebellion; forests offer sanctuary to rebels;
the mountains make it difficult for Congo’s corrupt and incompetent
army to use mechanized vehicles to attack their camps while rich minerals
provide revenues to sustain the rebellion.
The state in Congo
is mostly absent. And where it is present, it is rapacious and repressive.
Hence, most Congolese citizens prefer to either fight or avoid the government.
The United Nations intervention will not resolve the issues that make violent
rebellion attractive for many Congolese citizens. The United Nations has simply
taken one side in the conflict. And this is likely to accentuate rather than
ease existing tensions.
Defeating M23 might provide the
Congolese government with a temporary reprieve from its most formidable
opponent. But a viable solution won’t come from outside actors. It will have to
come because incentives force elites in Kinshasa
to build a more effective state that can defend the country’s sovereignty and
territorial integrity. The best incentive is a threat — and it has to be an
existential threat.
If Mr. Kabila and his ruling
allies in Kinshasa knew that they have to defeat rebel groups or otherwise face
losing power or territory, that would be a powerful incentive on them to
develop a state worthy of its name — one that can exercise a monopoly over the
legitimate use of violence.
The only way to achieve this
is to build an effective military and police force to ensure order and security
across the country. This is unlikely to happen when the international community
subsidizes Mr. Kabila’s incompetence and fights his wars.
In
defeating M23 and establishing a semblance of peace, the international
community has achieved a short-term humanitarian objective — an end to one
rebellion. But it is a partial victory at best. It won’t end the myriad
other rebellions raging across the country. And it hasn’t given Congolese
elites any incentive to build a more robust state that defends its citizens
against violent insurgents or seek political accommodation with them.
The defeat of M23 has
created an artificial winner and an artificial loser. Mr. Kabila knows he has
won because of external intervention. Fighters from M23 know they lost for a
similar reason. In the future, Mr. Kabila will likely always seek to lean on
his external benefactors to resolve internal conflicts. That, in turn, will
make M23 and other groups wait for Mr. Kabila’s external benefactors to leave
so that they can relaunch their rebellions.
Foreign intervention is
helping Congolese leaders in Kinshasa
look outside for a solution to a problem that can only be solved by internal
political reform. It is liberating Mr. Kabila and his government from the
necessary internal military and political bargains that can secure a lasting
peace. And so Congo
will remain a fragile state.
The most likely outcome
will be to force the international community to continue babysitting the
government in Kinshasa
in the naïve hope that it will be able to defend itself against its internal
competitors in the future. But as the experience of South
Vietnam, Iraq
and Afghanistan
show, this is likely to become an open-ended commitment.
To
solve the problems of Congo,
the United Nations and other African countries may need to allow the
belligerents to fight until one secures a decisive military victory or all
sides get exhausted by war and find working together more attractive than
further fighting.
Anyone with capacity to
organize an army, mobilize resources and pacify the country should be given a
chance to prove this on the battlefield. If no one can secure a military
victory, they may then seek political accommodation. Indeed, this is the path
Mr. Kabila had begun in 2009, when he co-opted various belligerents into the
political process, thus turning enemies into strategic allies.
It could happen again, but
not if the international community fights his wars for him.
Andrew M. Mwenda is
the founding managing editor of The Independent, a Ugandan news magazine.
BY YAHYA SSEREMBA
In a letter published shortly after he was brutally murdered, Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge said he was always ready to be killed for standing up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves. If there is any Ugandan journalist who claims to be similarly determined to die for freedom, it is Andrew Mujuni Mwenda.
But unlike his assassinated Sri Lankan counterpart, Mr. Mwenda has utterly failed to walk the talk. Mwenda has adulterated his journalism profession and degraded himself by choosing to speak for one of Africa’s bloodthirsty tyrants, a brutal tyrant whose government – like that of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka – has killed on a massive scale, murdered journalists, assassinated opposition politicians, incarcerated dissenters and applied every apparatus of repression to keep him, and his Tutsi oligarchy, in power.
Indeed, the military victory of Paul Kagame’s all-Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) 16 years ago turned Rwanda into one of the most dangerous places on earth. Some commentators hurriedly credited the RPF for ending the 1994 genocide that largely targeted ethnic Tutsis, ignoring and continuously ignoring an equally horrible genocide committed against ethnic Hutus by the new government. While the triumph of Kagame’s rebels ushered in relief for many Tutsis, it brought with it grave and continuing suffering for the majority Hutu population.
Kagame’s ‘counter-genocide’ force embarked on a slaughtering campaign, indiscriminately killing Hutu citizens and forcing millions into exile. About 1000 Hutu refugees were entering Burundi alone everyday for a period of months after Kagame seized power, according to Robert Krueger, the then US ambassador in Bujumbura. Approximately one million fled to Congo.
The RPF’s slaughtering campaign later extended to Congo where Hutu refugees – mostly children, women, the sick and elderly – were “bound and their throats were cut or they were killed by hammer blows to the head,” according to a recent UN Report.
After being heartlessly massacred by the RPF, the report continues, “Their bodies were then thrown into pits or doused with petrol and burned. The operation was carried out in a methodical manner and lasted at least one month.”
And yet, for killing tens of thousands of Hutus, the RPF – in the eyes of Andrew Mwenda – exercised unprecedented restraint! “What Kagame and RPF did in restraining themselves and their followers in the face of genocide in 1994 is a feat without precedent in human history,” wrote Andrew Mwenda in one of his articles that worship President Kagame.
Where is the restraint after slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutu civilians? Not only did they kill massively after their victory, the RPF played a significant role in bringing about the genocide that happened before their victory – the genocide against their Tutsi tribesmen. With the support of Washington which sought to establish a puppet regime in Kigali, Kagame’s RPA rebels waged a preventable war in the first place and then undermined every peace effort that would have ended fighting and avert genocide. Mahmood Mamdani puts it clear in The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency:
…the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy. That proxy was the RPF, backed up by entire units from the Uganda Army. The green light was given to the RPF, whose commanding officer, Paul Kagame, had recently returned from training in the US, just as it was lately given to the Ethiopian army in Somalia. Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties (RPF) that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster (genocide), and that is the real lesson of Rwanda.
To praise the RPF for ending a genocide that it partly caused is a contradiction. To honour Kagame’s forces for exercising “unprecedented restraint” after slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Hutus is a shameless distortion of history. Asked by ambassador Krueger to share his knowledge of Kagame, a Scandinavian missionary who lived in Rwanda and Burundi for 30 years said, "Paul Kagame is one of the greatest murderers on the continent of Africa. There is blood all over his hands."
The agony of the Hutus did not end with the massacres they suffered at the hands of the RPF. 2000 Hutus, in the past three years, have been prosecuted for espousing “genocide ideology”, a ‘crime’ punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
Most of them, like leading opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, are harassed for simply stating that Hutus, not just Tutsis, were killed during the genocide and never officially remembered. The death of tens of thousands of Hutus at the hands of the RPF is not an opinion to be debated; it is a fact to be faced. But the RPF government wants it removed completely from history to escape prosecution and to cast Hutus as diabolical criminals who have never been victims.
Whereas Kagame’s brutality has been severest against Hutus, it has not spared his fellow Tutsis who disagree with him. Kagame’s top generals – with whom he murdered Hutus – are increasingly finding themselves in jail or in exile for simply disagreeing with him. Kayumba Nyamwasa, one such general who fled the country earlier this year, was pursued in his hideout in South Africa and shot in the stomach.
The aftermath the failed assassination revealed more of Kagame’s bloodlust. Jean Leonard Rugambage, a local journalist who blamed the shooting on Kagame’s government, was murdered at his home in Kigali. The newspaper Mr. Rugambage worked for, Umuvugizi, had earlier been closed for simply stating that two army officers, whom Kagame later sacked and incarcerated, had had a misunderstanding with the president.
Rugambage’s assassination was followed by the brutal murder of a leading opposition politician. The body of Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, the vice-president of another party that was prevented from registering and participating in the August elections, was found with his head nearly severed from his body. This is nothing short of a reign of terror.
Rwanda under Kagame is going through a reign of terror that may culminate in a disaster worse than the 1994 genocide. The relative economic growth that Kagame has achieved for the country cannot be enjoyed when the population lives in perpetual fear and journalists and politicians walk in the shadow of death.
The difference between Rwanda and other repressive states of North Korea and Burma rests only in their relations with the United States. While Korean and Burmese governments despise neocolonialism and thus face Western sanctions and hostile propaganda, Rwanda’s regime humbly licks the boots of the West and consequently secures the license to slaughter and torture its people with impunity. Gen. Kagame, like military dictators in Burma, wins presidential races in which he is practically the only runner.
If there is completely no basis to refute Kagame’s brutality, as we have seen, why then does Andrew Mwenda – previously known for his boldness in denouncing dictators – try to concoct an illusively beautiful image of the tyrant? The cause of Mwenda’s u-turn is not different from what impelled Tamale Mirundi to turnaround.
The only difference is that Mr. Mirundi, unlike Mr. Mwenda, honestly tells why he moved the goal posts. Mirundi publicly admits he changed from condemning to commending Museveni because he was given a fatty job of presidential press secretary. Mirundi has often challenged those who rebuke him for changing positions to feed his children before he resumes criticising Museveni. The same explanation applies to Mwenda’s disgraceful change of direction.
Mwenda gained nationwide fame for attacking Museveni’s nepotism and despotism. His criticism of foreign aid earned him international reverence and his arrests portrayed him as a freedom fighter. Indeed, Mwenda resigned from the Daily Monitor in 2007 because, in his own words, the newspaper had “betrayed the cause of liberty and freedom”.
“As for me, I can never betray the cause of liberty,” Mwenda vowed in his resignation letter. “Liberty is an ideal for which I am willing to live for, work for to see strengthened and if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Time, however, has exposed the dishonesty that surrounded Mwenda’s oath. Mwenda – largely through his newsmagazine – has become a significant anti-liberty, anti-freedom force in Rwanda by justifying Kagame’s oppression. In return, his magazine has been rewarded with huge advertisement revenue by the murderous regime. It is this advertisement revenue that has reduced The Independent to Rwanda’s government newsletter and seriously undermined the credibility of Uganda’s once celebrated journalist.
The fact that advertisement revenue bribes journalists and undermines journalistic objectivity is well known in the practice of journalism. A profit-minded newspaper cannot attack or offend its advertisers but rather gives them the power to determine what to write and what to hide, a situation that media scholar Robert McChesney describes as “a hyper-commercial frenzy with little trace of public service”.
It is this hyper-commercial passion that has humbled Mwenda’s heart and soul to Kagame and reduced his journalistic mission to trivial pursuits of bread and butter. That is the lowest and the most contemptible state journalists can reach – those journalists who give up their intelligence and discerning faculties.
But Mwenda still has room to reform and relive a life of real meaning and noble purpose. He still has chance to learn from Mr. Wickrematunge – the journalist quoted in the intro – whom the murderous Sri Lankan government decided to shoot in the head last year after he had rejected its bribes and inducements to stop criticising it.
In his final letter Wickrematunge explained why he rejected such inducements and, instead, continued exposing the regime’s bloodlust even though he knew he would be eliminated for that. “Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice,” he testified.
“But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre (money) and security. It is the call of conscience.”
This story was first published in the print version of The Campus Journal in 2010
While at The Monitor, Andrew Mwenda distinguished himself as a Journalist who could withstand Museveni's intimidation. Besides his superb superior capacity to provide an accurate annalysis of political and economic situation from a geopolitical and global persipective, he excelled in security matters. In that way, he gained alot of fame at local and international level. But moreso, he won the confidence of whiste blowers and patriotic individuals who through him volunteered alot of sensitive information.
Behind the scenes, Andrew Mwenda was in bed with the first family. He engaged as a fiance the first lady's cousin sister, Fifi who lives in the USA. He became closer to the first son Muhoozi as a personal friend. His elder brothers Major Baguma of ISO and Col. Kayanja Muhanga formerly of JATT and now the Commandant of Military Police are Museveni's close confidants in the NRA. His sister Margret Muhanga was in the New Vision before she became the NRM woman representative for Kabarole district. He husband was the NRM district chairman before being appointed as the head of the National Forestry Authority. His mother was an NRM local council leader and is now a leading low NRM opinion leader in Kabarole. His father (RIP) was historically a UPC member until the NRM came on the scene but still he did neither showed open support nor opposition to the NRM.
Starting with getting closer to former Rwanda's head of External Intelligence, Col. Patrick Karegeya during the height of tensions between Uganda and Rwanda, Mwenda caught the attention of Paul Kagame. After he quit The Monitor at a time when Col. Karegeya had fallen out with Kagame, Mwenda was thought to be feeding Kagame with information pertaining to the movements and activities of the dissident army Generals. The run away Generals had to cut off all links with Mwenda. Later, using his magazine The Independent he openly toot up the tast of whitewashing the Kagame administration in a public relations campaign. It is believed he brokered a deal that saw relations between Museveni and Kagame rejuvenated to the present honeymoon in Eastern Congo and the EAC.
The likes of Mwenda are what are refered to in intelligence as Agents Provocatuers. They disguise as ardent critics so as to attract, trap and compromise (expose) dissenters. Therefore, is Mwenda a top member of NRM or an opportunist?
INFORMATION IS POWER.
Kagame victim of own success
By Andrew M. Mwenda
Saturday, 18 August 2012 18:52
The world tends to hold him to very high, sometimes unrealistic
standards
Over the last one
month, a rebellion has been ragging in eastern DRC against the government of
President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa.
As I write this article, over 40 armed groups, some of them former members of
the Congolese army, have taken up arms against his government. However,
international diplomatic activity, media coverage and human rights campaigns
have been focused on one rebel group, M23 and one country, Rwanda and its
president, Paul Kagame, for allegedly sponsoring the rebellion. Even an
interested observer may easily think the rebellion is taking place in Rwanda, not
DRC. Why is Kabila against whom mutineers and rebels are battling for control
of the DRC missing in the news?
Even if we accept, just
for argument’s sake, that Rwanda/Kagame are the real force behind – not just
M23 – but all the 40 rebellious groups in DRC, would that take focus from
Kabila and his government? Last year, there was rebellion in Libya openly
supported by NATO whose planes bombed that country every day. However, the
focus of the news and diplomacy did not move away from Libya’s ruler
Muammar Gadaffi. Equally today, there is a civil war in Syria with the rebels enjoying the active
support of the USA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar – with money, arms and
propaganda. However, the news coverage is not about those sponsoring the civil
war but about the subject of that civil war, President Bashar Asaad.
One could say that
perhaps Rwanda/Kagame is the centre of diplomatic activity and news coverage
because of their interest in Congolese minerals. But again, when the US went into Iraq, there were widespread
accusation of her interest in its oil as the driving motive of the invasion.
Last year, there was a lot of news and analysis that NATO’s invasion of Libya was
driven by its oil. However, in both cases Saddam Hussein and Gadaffi remained
central figures in the story. Hence, the Congo rebellion may be the first in
human history where the person at the centre of the news is not the concerned
president but the one alleged to be sponsoring the rebels.
The accusations against
Rwanda at the Security
Council were not presented by Kinshasa
but by a UN “panel of experts.” Consequently,
even Kinshasa
today seems to think the rebellion is not an internal problem but a Rwandan
problem. May be this is the reason Kabila
proposed at the Kampala
summit a “neutral force” to enter his country and fight the rebels and
mutineers for him. In many ways therefore, the international community and the
news media are helping Kabila avoid responsibility for the problems inside his
country. By blaming Rwanda,
the media and the international community are actually helping Kabila disregard
genuine domestic grievances and thereby undermining his incentives to seek
internal political accommodation.
Of course the leaders
of DRC are not stupid. They may suspect or even believe that Rwanda is
behind the rebellion by M23 and perhaps other groups as well. But they know
that many other groups rebelling against Kinshasa
have no links to Rwanda
whatsoever. In any case, Kinshasa
is aware that the mutineers and other rebels have grievances as well. It is of
course difficult for Kinshasa
to admit its role in sparking these rebellions. However, hiding behind Rwanda
may obscure its responsibility in the short term but does not solve its problem
in the medium to long term.
So what are the
problems with governance in Congo
that simulate and stimulate rebellion? Is Rwanda the creator of these
problems or an opportunist taking advantage of them? Does Kabila preside over a
democracy akin to that of Norway
or Sweden
that creates rebellion-proof politics? Even Norway last year had its own
massacre from a fanatical right wing man – meaning no country is immune to
insurrection. If we admit that DRC has serious internal governance problems,
can these simulate rebellion? How does a blanket condemnation of Kigali help us craft a
solution?
I think Kagame is a major
source of trouble for DRC; albeit by default. Under his presidency, Rwanda has made
a dramatic turnaround in a very short time. This has inspired many in high and
low places; in politics, academia, religion and the media. Kagame/ Rwanda have
thus become global super stars. But it has also mobilised many in envy and
jealous. Who is Kagame/Rwanda to be so
globally feted? The more Rwanda/Kagame get praise, the more others stalk them
for any slip. Its success means Rwanda
often gets held to very high and sometimes unrealistic standards. And like all
strong brands, the success of Kagame has attracted many opportunistic groups
and interests that seek to promote their own brand by attacking Rwanda at every
opportunity.
This also means that Rwanda’s success becomes a problem for Congo. First,
everyone knows that Rwanda
has strong and legitimate interests in the Congo given the institutional
dysfunctions in that country. They know that Congo
poses – not just a tactical or even strategic threat to Rwanda – but
rather an existential threat. In geo
politics, there is the concept of the “margin of error” which refers to the
ratio of a mistake and the consequences of it. When a small mistake can have
catastrophic consequences then you have to be hypersensitive. I suspect those
who accuse Rwanda
of involvement in DRC do not need much evidence. They just extrapolate from the
threat it faces to conclude – not that it is involved – but rather that “it has
to be involved.”
But this also means
that those blaming Rwanda/Kagame are actually hurting Congo. They are undermining the
process of internal evaluation that Congo needs to craft a solution for
itself. They are helping Kabila avoid responsibility to his people and country.
They are encouraging him burry his head in the sand and imagine that his people
are happy with him and it is Kagame either directly invading his country or
indirectly sponsoring rebellion against him. And the worst mistake for Congo is to
ignore the internal sources of discontent, pretend they do not exist and shift
blame to external factors. This is the mistake of the international
Criticisms of Andrew Mwenda
THE FALL OF ANDREW MWENDA: How bribery turned a revered journalist into a vulgar propagandist
Wednesday, 18 April 2012 15:42
Published Date
In a letter published shortly after he was brutally murdered, Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge said he was always ready to be killed for standing up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves. If there is any Ugandan journalist who claims to be similarly determined to die for freedom, it is Andrew Mujuni Mwenda.
But unlike his assassinated Sri Lankan counterpart, Mr. Mwenda has utterly failed to walk the talk. Mwenda has adulterated his journalism profession and degraded himself by choosing to speak for one of Africa’s bloodthirsty tyrants, a brutal tyrant whose government – like that of Mahinda Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka – has killed on a massive scale, murdered journalists, assassinated opposition politicians, incarcerated dissenters and applied every apparatus of repression to keep him, and his Tutsi oligarchy, in power.
Indeed, the military victory of Paul Kagame’s all-Tutsi Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) 16 years ago turned Rwanda into one of the most dangerous places on earth. Some commentators hurriedly credited the RPF for ending the 1994 genocide that largely targeted ethnic Tutsis, ignoring and continuously ignoring an equally horrible genocide committed against ethnic Hutus by the new government. While the triumph of Kagame’s rebels ushered in relief for many Tutsis, it brought with it grave and continuing suffering for the majority Hutu population.
Kagame’s ‘counter-genocide’ force embarked on a slaughtering campaign, indiscriminately killing Hutu citizens and forcing millions into exile. About 1000 Hutu refugees were entering Burundi alone everyday for a period of months after Kagame seized power, according to Robert Krueger, the then US ambassador in Bujumbura. Approximately one million fled to Congo.
The RPF’s slaughtering campaign later extended to Congo where Hutu refugees – mostly children, women, the sick and elderly – were “bound and their throats were cut or they were killed by hammer blows to the head,” according to a recent UN Report.
After being heartlessly massacred by the RPF, the report continues, “Their bodies were then thrown into pits or doused with petrol and burned. The operation was carried out in a methodical manner and lasted at least one month.”
And yet, for killing tens of thousands of Hutus, the RPF – in the eyes of Andrew Mwenda – exercised unprecedented restraint! “What Kagame and RPF did in restraining themselves and their followers in the face of genocide in 1994 is a feat without precedent in human history,” wrote Andrew Mwenda in one of his articles that worship President Kagame.
Where is the restraint after slaughtering tens of thousands of Hutu civilians? Not only did they kill massively after their victory, the RPF played a significant role in bringing about the genocide that happened before their victory – the genocide against their Tutsi tribesmen. With the support of Washington which sought to establish a puppet regime in Kigali, Kagame’s RPA rebels waged a preventable war in the first place and then undermined every peace effort that would have ended fighting and avert genocide. Mahmood Mamdani puts it clear in The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency:
…the US did intervene in Rwanda, through a proxy. That proxy was the RPF, backed up by entire units from the Uganda Army. The green light was given to the RPF, whose commanding officer, Paul Kagame, had recently returned from training in the US, just as it was lately given to the Ethiopian army in Somalia. Instead of using its resources and influence to bring about a political solution to the civil war, and then strengthen it, the US signalled to one of the parties (RPF) that it could pursue victory with impunity. This unilateralism was part of what led to the disaster (genocide), and that is the real lesson of Rwanda.
To praise the RPF for ending a genocide that it partly caused is a contradiction. To honour Kagame’s forces for exercising “unprecedented restraint” after slaughtering hundreds of thousands of Hutus is a shameless distortion of history. Asked by ambassador Krueger to share his knowledge of Kagame, a Scandinavian missionary who lived in Rwanda and Burundi for 30 years said, "Paul Kagame is one of the greatest murderers on the continent of Africa. There is blood all over his hands."
The agony of the Hutus did not end with the massacres they suffered at the hands of the RPF. 2000 Hutus, in the past three years, have been prosecuted for espousing “genocide ideology”, a ‘crime’ punishable by up to 25 years in prison.
Most of them, like leading opposition politician Victoire Ingabire, are harassed for simply stating that Hutus, not just Tutsis, were killed during the genocide and never officially remembered. The death of tens of thousands of Hutus at the hands of the RPF is not an opinion to be debated; it is a fact to be faced. But the RPF government wants it removed completely from history to escape prosecution and to cast Hutus as diabolical criminals who have never been victims.
Whereas Kagame’s brutality has been severest against Hutus, it has not spared his fellow Tutsis who disagree with him. Kagame’s top generals – with whom he murdered Hutus – are increasingly finding themselves in jail or in exile for simply disagreeing with him. Kayumba Nyamwasa, one such general who fled the country earlier this year, was pursued in his hideout in South Africa and shot in the stomach.
The aftermath the failed assassination revealed more of Kagame’s bloodlust. Jean Leonard Rugambage, a local journalist who blamed the shooting on Kagame’s government, was murdered at his home in Kigali. The newspaper Mr. Rugambage worked for, Umuvugizi, had earlier been closed for simply stating that two army officers, whom Kagame later sacked and incarcerated, had had a misunderstanding with the president.
Rugambage’s assassination was followed by the brutal murder of a leading opposition politician. The body of Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, the vice-president of another party that was prevented from registering and participating in the August elections, was found with his head nearly severed from his body. This is nothing short of a reign of terror.
Rwanda under Kagame is going through a reign of terror that may culminate in a disaster worse than the 1994 genocide. The relative economic growth that Kagame has achieved for the country cannot be enjoyed when the population lives in perpetual fear and journalists and politicians walk in the shadow of death.
The difference between Rwanda and other repressive states of North Korea and Burma rests only in their relations with the United States. While Korean and Burmese governments despise neocolonialism and thus face Western sanctions and hostile propaganda, Rwanda’s regime humbly licks the boots of the West and consequently secures the license to slaughter and torture its people with impunity. Gen. Kagame, like military dictators in Burma, wins presidential races in which he is practically the only runner.
If there is completely no basis to refute Kagame’s brutality, as we have seen, why then does Andrew Mwenda – previously known for his boldness in denouncing dictators – try to concoct an illusively beautiful image of the tyrant? The cause of Mwenda’s u-turn is not different from what impelled Tamale Mirundi to turnaround.
The only difference is that Mr. Mirundi, unlike Mr. Mwenda, honestly tells why he moved the goal posts. Mirundi publicly admits he changed from condemning to commending Museveni because he was given a fatty job of presidential press secretary. Mirundi has often challenged those who rebuke him for changing positions to feed his children before he resumes criticising Museveni. The same explanation applies to Mwenda’s disgraceful change of direction.
Mwenda gained nationwide fame for attacking Museveni’s nepotism and despotism. His criticism of foreign aid earned him international reverence and his arrests portrayed him as a freedom fighter. Indeed, Mwenda resigned from the Daily Monitor in 2007 because, in his own words, the newspaper had “betrayed the cause of liberty and freedom”.
“As for me, I can never betray the cause of liberty,” Mwenda vowed in his resignation letter. “Liberty is an ideal for which I am willing to live for, work for to see strengthened and if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”
Time, however, has exposed the dishonesty that surrounded Mwenda’s oath. Mwenda – largely through his newsmagazine – has become a significant anti-liberty, anti-freedom force in Rwanda by justifying Kagame’s oppression. In return, his magazine has been rewarded with huge advertisement revenue by the murderous regime. It is this advertisement revenue that has reduced The Independent to Rwanda’s government newsletter and seriously undermined the credibility of Uganda’s once celebrated journalist.
The fact that advertisement revenue bribes journalists and undermines journalistic objectivity is well known in the practice of journalism. A profit-minded newspaper cannot attack or offend its advertisers but rather gives them the power to determine what to write and what to hide, a situation that media scholar Robert McChesney describes as “a hyper-commercial frenzy with little trace of public service”.
It is this hyper-commercial passion that has humbled Mwenda’s heart and soul to Kagame and reduced his journalistic mission to trivial pursuits of bread and butter. That is the lowest and the most contemptible state journalists can reach – those journalists who give up their intelligence and discerning faculties.
But Mwenda still has room to reform and relive a life of real meaning and noble purpose. He still has chance to learn from Mr. Wickrematunge – the journalist quoted in the intro – whom the murderous Sri Lankan government decided to shoot in the head last year after he had rejected its bribes and inducements to stop criticising it.
In his final letter Wickrematunge explained why he rejected such inducements and, instead, continued exposing the regime’s bloodlust even though he knew he would be eliminated for that. “Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice,” he testified.
“But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre (money) and security. It is the call of conscience.”
This story was first published in the print version of The Campus Journal in 2010
ANDREW MWENDA - A MEMBER OF NRM?
Wednesday, 6 November 2013
Throughout the 80s, 90s and until recently Museveni's major
'obstacle' to his autocratic designs has been the free press. Gross abuse of
human rights, corruption and abuse of office have been exposed by the
independent press though operating in a very tough environment.
While at The Monitor, Andrew Mwenda distinguished himself as a Journalist who could withstand Museveni's intimidation. Besides his superb superior capacity to provide an accurate annalysis of political and economic situation from a geopolitical and global persipective, he excelled in security matters. In that way, he gained alot of fame at local and international level. But moreso, he won the confidence of whiste blowers and patriotic individuals who through him volunteered alot of sensitive information.
Behind the scenes, Andrew Mwenda was in bed with the first family. He engaged as a fiance the first lady's cousin sister, Fifi who lives in the USA. He became closer to the first son Muhoozi as a personal friend. His elder brothers Major Baguma of ISO and Col. Kayanja Muhanga formerly of JATT and now the Commandant of Military Police are Museveni's close confidants in the NRA. His sister Margret Muhanga was in the New Vision before she became the NRM woman representative for Kabarole district. He husband was the NRM district chairman before being appointed as the head of the National Forestry Authority. His mother was an NRM local council leader and is now a leading low NRM opinion leader in Kabarole. His father (RIP) was historically a UPC member until the NRM came on the scene but still he did neither showed open support nor opposition to the NRM.
Starting with getting closer to former Rwanda's head of External Intelligence, Col. Patrick Karegeya during the height of tensions between Uganda and Rwanda, Mwenda caught the attention of Paul Kagame. After he quit The Monitor at a time when Col. Karegeya had fallen out with Kagame, Mwenda was thought to be feeding Kagame with information pertaining to the movements and activities of the dissident army Generals. The run away Generals had to cut off all links with Mwenda. Later, using his magazine The Independent he openly toot up the tast of whitewashing the Kagame administration in a public relations campaign. It is believed he brokered a deal that saw relations between Museveni and Kagame rejuvenated to the present honeymoon in Eastern Congo and the EAC.
The likes of Mwenda are what are refered to in intelligence as Agents Provocatuers. They disguise as ardent critics so as to attract, trap and compromise (expose) dissenters. Therefore, is Mwenda a top member of NRM or an opportunist?
INFORMATION IS POWER.
