In a desperate attempt to sanitise Philemon Mateke, the disgraced Ugandan state minister for regional cooperation and diplomacy, Museveni’s propaganda rags Spyreports and Command Post run a lengthy lamentation where they aim to portray him as a victim of ‘character assassination’ by Rwandan media. In so doing, the propaganda outlets even indulge in genocide denial, stating that “credible statistics indicate that the Hutu tribe was the majority victims of the Rwandan genocide.”

Spyreports and Command Post are suggesting that Rwanda’s accusations pinpointing Museveni and his senior officials in their grand scheme to destabilize Rwanda are aimed at blackmailing Museveni. Nevertheless, it is not Rwanda’s intention to blackmail anybody, neither is the Rwandan leadership playing any kind of games with anyone. Rwanda has articulated its concerns severally at different forums and relevant channels, where facts and evidence were produced to back those concerns. In the case of Philemon Mateke, who the CMI outlets want to portray as saintly, is pinned by every testimony by arrested or captured rebels as their main person of contact in the Ugandan Government. Add that to the UN Group of Experts’ report which mentioned him as the link between the Uganda Government and the P5 grouping comprising RNC, FDLR, FNL and RUD-Urunana and you have a compelling image of a well-coordinated plan by Museveni to destabilize Rwanda.

However, the hopeless efforts by the CMI controlled media outlets to defend Mateke are strongly challenged by impeccable evidence isolating him as Museveni’s chosen point man for the coordination of the Rwanda destabilization plot. When President Museveni added this particular responsibility to his ministerial duties, he knew pretty well, Mateke was the man for the job. That he is a strong supporter of the genocidaire is an undeniable fact. Philemon Mateke’s history of hate directed against the Tutsi is a matter of public record that dates back to his days as a high school teacher in the 1970s.

Those who went to high school in the early and mid-1970s, and those who have closely followed Uganda’s regional affairs minister, Dr. Philemon Mateke’s political ideology, President Museveni couldn’t have picked a better-suited individual to execute and coordinate the anti-Rwanda terrorist organisations, including the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) and the Rwanda National Congress (RNC).

Ignace Nkaka, best known as La Forge Fils Bazeye, and Lt Col Jean-Pierre Nsekanabo, Former FDLR spokesperson and Head of the Intelligence respectively, who were arrested in December 2018 by DR Congo authorities, at the Uganda – DR Congo border in Bunagana as they returned from Uganda, confessed and showed evidence that while in Uganda, they met with minister Philemon Mateke with who they discussed armed operations against Rwanda. Selemani Kabayija, who was the deputy commander of the Kinigi attack on the night of 4th October 2019 before he was captured by the Rwandan army, stated that Mateke was actively involved in the planning of the deadly armed onslaught that killed and injured many. Therefore, by articulating these facts Rwanda is not character assassinating Mateke.

It is therefore bunkum to allege that accusations levelled against Mateke by Rwanda stem from his interaction with the UN Group Of Experts (GoE), who he apparently informed that Rwanda supported M23 rebels. It is Rwanda’s belief that the UN group, as their name suggests, are expert enough to make a distinction between fact and fiction. In any case, it is the same UN group of experts that revealed in their successive reports that the Ugandan Government and Minister Philemon Mateke in particular, were facilitating RNC and other anti-Rwanda terror groups to recruit and build a force to attack Rwanda. Attempting to bring this out as a Rwandan vendetta against Philemon Mateke is diversionary.