By David Himbara
Here is Kabarebe’s price for freedom — a speech titled Kayumba Nyamwasa Is A Traitor. This is one of the ugliest speeches I ever heard. The horrible speech was delivered to Rwanda Defence Force (RDF) Reserve Force on September 3, 2019 as follows:
“Let me first talk about Kayumba Nyamwasa. If there is someone you can give as an example of a traitor, it is Kayumba Nyamwasa. If one was to say that he was an important member of the Rwanda Patriotic Army, he was so because RPA made him who he was, not the other way round…
There is nothing whatsoever he can point out and say I did this by myself so I should be rewarded for it. There is none at all. Instead he benefited from RPA tremendously. Sometimes people take advantage of opportunities, based on the events at the time, building on the actions of others to become something important…
But in actual sense, when you lack the values and the character, the opportunity will be of no use in the end…
The signs started appearing early. He had always been about power and personal gain. Even when we started the liberation struggle, Kayumba was busy stealing cows from the ranches in Eastern Rwanda, taking them to Masaka in Uganda where he sold them off…
I can tell you for a fact that even that role as the head of intelligence, Kayumba got it out of his usual scheming. Having done everything to have President Kagame attend his wedding he had effectively managed to position himself for the role…
As the head of intelligence, he managed to make sure that he avoided anything that would put him on the frontline. Had the command-in-chief asked him to head a mobile unit on the frontline, it would have been a different story altogether. He would have run away…
We told him that these are normal challenges in a war. We will reorganise, attack again and win the struggle. He insisted that we withdraw and go back to Uganda. I will never forget that time. He was really scared…
But after he was given the position of intelligence head, he now became firm and started claiming some privileges and power. This is someone who nearly abandoned the struggle…
I recall very well that Kayumba was at the forefront of commanders who were suggesting that we retreat back to Uganda and request the government to give us a location in north eastern part of Uganda bordering South Sudan and Kenya, in Kidepo National Park, for us to reorganise…
Indeed, this turned out to be a decision driven by cowardice. It is at this point that the commander-in-chief made a decision that we relocate to the mountains in Northern Province. It is from here that on January 23, 1991 we re-launched the attack on Ruhengeri and freed prisoners…
It has all been about scheming and being calculative, seizing opportunities whenever they popped up. I recall that well. When the rumour of him being given a high ranking position circulated, he now tried to act as though he was firm and focused on the cause. He was selfish and greedy…
There was no other reason for promoting him. Sometimes he [President Kagame] promoted people well knowing their weaknesses but he ignored them and focused on nurturing them as leaders. But for Kayumba, he turned out to be a self-centred, ungrateful traitor who misused the opportunity…
As a result, in 1995, even when others were grappling with finding solutions to deal with the devastation left behind by the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, Kayumba was busy amassing properties. He was buying houses, farms and cars. He had huge farms in Nyagatare district…
What a price for temporarily walking free!
