Rwanda Army Hits Back At Kayumba Nyamwasa

Maj. Rutaremara: Says Kayumba will ultimately be held responsible for his actions
The Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF) has in no uncertain terms fired back at dissident General, Kayumba Nyamwasa (pictured), who is now hiding in South Africa after fleeing from Kigali in February this year. He was quoted last week attacking President Kagame.

Below is the full uneditted statement from the RDF spokesman, Maj. Jill Rutaremara, sent to 256news.com this evening:

Kayumba Continues to Reveal His True Character


Kayumba was once again, recently in the news media attempting to do a
smear job on the government of Rwanda as he works to cover-up his
crimes of terrorism. From Kayumba's utterances it is very clear that
he has not changed.

Kayumba's current status is self explanatory, going by his record in
the Rwanda Defence Forces (RDF). He is a victim of a clash between his
true character on one hand, and the expected standards that were
required of an officer in his position.

Kayumba did not only fail to attain the standards expected of him, but
also chose to undermine the institution that he was supposed to serve.
While Kayumba has accused others in the government and RDF of
intrigues, he was, throughout his tenure as a Chief of Staff,
characterised not only by the intrigues he seeks to ascribe to others,
but also by greed, lack of accountability, cheap popularity and
creation of cliques among the Rwanda Defence Force fraternity.

Indeed, he tried to bribe some officers into forming cliques using
money meant for military operations until some officers went public
and exposed him.

He attempts to explain away his lack of accountability by arguing that
he "submitted his wealth declaration forms to the Ombudsman's office
in time and that he has never appeared on the list of Government
officials suspended for lack of accountability".

Kayumba, deliberately misleads the public. He is aware that the
definition of accountability in Rwanda is much broader and different
from what he tries to portray.

While he denies the existence of institutions charged with
transparency and accountability in Rwanda, he turns around and cites
the institution of Ombudsman and some of the measures it applies
against government officials who do not declare their wealth in time.

In his recent BBC interview, Kayumba came out in his true colours as a
terrorist criminal when he sought to sanitise a well-known regional
terrorist organisation; the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of
Rwanda (FDLR).

By defending Victoire Ingabire and FDLR, Kayumba was not only
publically identifying with a terrorist criminal organisation, but
also seeking sympathy from the outfit.

Kayumba refers to the war in the DRC as unjustifiable, yet, as Chief
of Staff, he actively took part the planning and execution of the war
for most of the duration of the conflict.

Kayumba writes that he was once commended by the Commander-in-Chief as
an "exemplary officer". Military citations and commendations are not
casual comments. They are awarded within institutional framework and
recorded accordingly. There is no such citation with regard to Kayumba
anywhere in the RDF records.

Kayumba's outrageous claim that he, on two occasions, saved the then
Chairman of the High Command of the Rwandan Patriotic Army, Paul
Kagame, after everyone else had abandoned him, simply paints the true
picture of who Kayumba is.

To come to a point where the supreme commander of a fighting force is
abandoned by everyone, except one soldier, in this case Kayumba, would
have simply meant the end of the war and the struggle. This does not
require any one to have any level of military expertise to discern
that Kayumba is a pathological liar.

Kayumba's claim that in 2003 he sought permission to leave the army is
another example of the liar that he is, as once again, there is no
record in the RDF of his application to that effect.

While Kayumba has chosen the path of violence against his own people,
the Officers who served and interacted with him in the RDF are living
witnesses to the efforts the institution expended in trying to help
him to come to his senses by urging him to reform. Until he left the
country the RDF had continued to give him the benefit of the doubt,
but to no avail.

This kind of help was not tailored to Kayumba. It is one of the
methods used by the RDF to help individual officers and men deal with
issues of character and it has, indeed, helped many in the force to
gain their balance and stability.

Kayumba needs to understand that he is a terrorist who has targeted
the Rwandan people, and as long as he continues on this course, he
will ultimately be held responsible for his actions.

The author is the Rwandan Defence and Military Spokesma