By Jackson Mutabazi
Last Friday the by now completely shameless Chimpreports – a website sponsored by Uganda’s Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI), in its propaganda attacks against Rwanda website – spent the whole day feeding its audience a diet of falsehoods.
That followed the unfortunate incident when FDLR bandits attacked civilians in Kinigi, Musanze District, killing 14 residents of the area and leaving several others injured. To Chimpreports however, this was the ideal opportunity to deploy its best fiction writers.
The website claimed: “President Kagame has cut short his trip (to Germany for Rwanda Day) following a rebel attack in Musanze.” To some readers, it brought to mind Chimpreports’ notorious claim April this year that “Rwandan troops had crossed to Kisoro looking for food and drinks!”
One searched to see some evidence for the latest claims, in vain. Had Rwanda put out a statement about the President’s travel plans? There was none that other news organizations had heard of.
Also, how could someone in Chimpreports have information like that? It was just their usual fictions, such as was apparent when the website was challenged, back in April, to produce at least one video or picture of the alleged RDF soldiers “looking for food” in Kisoro. Giles Muhame, the website’s editor failed to do so.
“Very obviously his article was a complete lie,” laughed a reader in Kigali.
The website then proceeded, after the fabrication about President Kagame’s plans to shorten his Germany trip, to publish a follow-up article chockfull of falsehoods. It was a piece whose details only FDLR could have fed Chimpreports. “Heavily armed gunmen overrun Rwandan Military Barracks in Musanze, 8 soldiers killed,” said the headline.
Chimpreports was hyping up the FDLR bandits, trying to give the impression the latter were disciplined fighters that attacked an army. That was in line with Uganda’s support of FDLR, as one of Kampala’s proxy groups in its plans to destabilize Rwanda.
Always pulling the strings of Chimpreports in its anti-Rwanda misinformation campaign, according to sources, is none other than Col. CK Asiimwe the number two man in CMI. Asiimwe, whose title is CMI Deputy Director in Charge of Counterterrorism is the man that feeds Chimpreports’ Chief Editor, Muhame, orders on what propaganda and smears to publish on Rwanda, confidential sources have disclosed.
That was how the Kampala-based website could spin a tall tale of “attackers that were well-armed”, that “engaged RDF for two hours”, and that “killed several members of the Rwanda Defense Force.” CMI was disseminating clear FDLR propaganda that touched on a number of anti-Rwanda tropes – like attempts to dredge up divisions between Rwandans with claims “Kinigi is an area of marginalized Hutu communities.”
However it immediately falls flat when one discovers that the people of Kinigi had voluntarily participated in hunting down, and apprehending the Ugandan-sponsored bandits (they said so themselves – those that were captured alive) who had perpetrated the heinous attack on civilians.
The only people the FDLR fellows attacked were peacefully sleeping citizens, over a dozen of whom they killed with stones and knives. Rwandan security forces mounted an operation that flushed out the murderers, killing 19 of them and capturing 5 alive.
Read: How Uganda’s troll army wages war of misinformation on Rwanda
Emmanuel Hakizimana, one of the captured assailants confessed to the press that he is an FDLR member who joined the rebel outfit in Uganda.
“I had just finished my studies at Makerere when I joined the FDLR RUD (of Ingabire Victoire) about four months ago,” said Hakizimana. He disclosed that it was while he was in Uganda, at the university, that he was recruited into FDLR with promises he would make a lot of money.
“All this is just more evidence that Museveni is the biggest stumbling block to regional peace,” said an observer.
Recruitment activities for groupings like “P5” of which RNC is the principal entity, closely followed by FDLR thrive in Uganda. The UN Group of Experts on DRC detailed that in a report released on 31 December 2018.
FDLR senior members LaForge Fils Bazeye and Theophile Abega were arrested last year coming from Kampala in a meeting convened by Ugandan minister Philemon Mateke – at the instructions of Museveni – to better coordinate the activities of their group and RNC.
All this adds to a stockpile of evidence of Kampala’s desires and plans to destabilize Rwanda.
The outrageous fictions that Chimpreports always peddles are part of the overall strategy to advance that objective.
The troll site’s elation at news of the attack (in Kinigi) only further exposes them.
The dead, and the captured bandits were assembled before locals in Kinigi, and journalists got to see and record everything.
The 5 captured fellows, it was apparent, were regretting every moment why they had ever joined the evil group.
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