Friday, 3 January 2014
ASSASINATION OF PATRICK KAREGEYA - A BIG RELIEF FOR KAGAME!

Finally Kigali has succedded in eliminating Patrick Karegeya. No
doubt, by assasinating Karegeya implies that the struggle for
dislodging Kagame is extended to more than a decade behind. For
Kagame, among all opposed to his governance, its only Karegeya who
gave him real sleepless nights. Kagame must have celebrated the new
year as the happiest man on planet earth. Though Junior to Gen
Kayumba the former army chief, Karegeya was the No. 1 on Kagame's list
of wanted dissidents. The earlier assasination attempt on Kayumba
Nyamwasa must have been a desperate move out of frustrations after
failing to get Karegeya. The monetary cost of his assassination must
have been the equivallency of the budget of three ministries in the
Rwanda government. If the Rwanda exiles were planning to use force to
dislolge Kagame, it was Karegeya who was the brain behind such plans.
In 2011, a Rwandan military court sentenced Karegeya, Nyamwasa and two
other exiled officers to 20 years in prison for threatening state
security after they were tried in absentia.In 2010, Nyamwasa was shot
in the stomach as he drove into the driveway of his upmarket
Johannesburg home. He survived what his family said was an
assassination attempt ordered by Kagame.In 2012, Karegeya, pictured
above, said he expected to be killed because he knew the regime's
'dark secrets'.South African intelligence sources claimed his drink
had been spiked with poison to make his death look like suicide.But
they added that the killer seemed to have bungled the job and had to
strangle him.
On 1 January 2014, Karegeya was found dead at the Michelangelo Towers,
an upmarket hotel in the Johannesburg suburb of Sandton in South
Africa. Reports indicate he had gone to attend a meeting at the hotel
when he was murdered. The circumstances leading to his death remain
unknown. The South African police are conducting investigations
although the Rwandan opposition party, the Rwanda National Congress
(RNC) said in a statement to AFP that "He was strangled by agents of
(Rwandan President Paul) Kagame," having previously survived several
assassination attempts. Karegeya leaves behind his wife Leah and three
children.
Karegeya was born in Mbarara in southwestern Uganda. He attended
Makerere University where he earned a Bachelor of Law degree. He
joined the National Resistance Army in Uganda but was arrested in June
1982 and charged with treason, spending three years in jail. Later he
joined President Yoweri Museveni in the struggle that led to the
overthrow of Milton Obote. He was a lieutenant in Ugandan military
intelligence when the decision to invade Rwanda was made, at a time
when his friend Paul Kagame was studying in the USA.
From 1994 to 2004 Karegeya was Director General, External Intelligence
in the Rwandan Defence Forces. As chief of intelligence in Rwanda he
had great power. Karegeya was arrested and served an 18-month sentence
for desertion and insubordination. He was stripped of his rank of
Colonel on 13 July 2006 by a military tribunal and fled the country in
2007. Later, Kagame claimed that he was in the pay of South African
military intelligence.
In August 2010 Karegeya told the Ugandan paper The Observer that
Kagame was a dictator who would not leave power unless he was forced
out by war.The same month he told the BBC that Kagame had ordered a
series of political killings.
Patrick, as populary known, had the exceptional capacity to gather
intelligence inside Rwanda upto inside Kagame's trouser pockets. He
had the capacity to rally the support and services of not only
regional intelligence agencies but major world intelligence bodies.
He was a genus in as far as the intelligence craft is concerned. That
is why despite being a senior and founding member of the dissident
RNC, he had no specific clear assignment thus a master of covert
intelligence activities. Though a refugee he was brought up in a well
to do family that owned a ranch Mbarara. After studying Law at
Makerere, he was arrested on the way to joining Museveni's NRA
guerrillas. He was being taken by NRA's contact Aston Kajara (now a
Minister) but was betrayed by a senior Muganda Prisons Officer.
Around 2003 Patrick told Mayombo to remind Museveni about Aston
Kajara. He was kept in Luzira prison till 1985 following the Okello
Lutwa coup. Patrick stright away headed for Museveni's NRA. After
takeover, Patrick became a Sgt and an ADC to the DMI - Mugisha Muntu
at Basima House. By 1989, Patrick was a Lt and an Asst. Director in
charge of Counter Intelligence. At the time, Paul Kagame was a Major
and an Assistand Director for Personnel, Administration and Finance.
Under Patrick was Sgt Jack Nziza, who occupied room 14 next to
Patrick's room 15 at Basiima house.
Patrick's charisma and humour distinguished him from other Rwandese
who were being resented by members of the NRA. As a Lawyer but moreso
his unique character enabled him to mix and be accepted by ugandans
more than other Rwandese. He was close to Senior counsel Kakuru and
Geofrey Rugazora of Castro Uganda among many others. He had alot of
connections outside the NRA that enabled him to lead a descent life
unlike ordinary NRA
Leutenants. He had his own money and never encroached on the megre
office funds. He lived in a post house in Muyenga next to Hotel
Diplomate. It is this unique character that afforded Patrick an upper
hand in terms of intelligence gathering during the Uganda/Rwanda
conflict of the early 2000s. Patrick was instrumental in the
founding, preparations of the RPF attack, and moblisation of resources
for the RPF. Shortly after the RPF invasion, Patrick was moved from
DMI and deployed to thd NRA Anti-smuggling unit as the Admin Officer
under Col. Andrew Lutaya while at the sametime spearheading the
external wing of the RPF 4 years war. After the fall of Kigali,
Patrick moved to Rwanda and became the Director of External Security.
For over a decade he built a vibrant intelligence aparatus that made
a name for Rwanda at a time when the RPF faced imminent danger from
dissidents based in the region and beyond.
Patrick resident in Kiyovu with his wife Lea and three children. His
parents remained in Uganda where his father died in 2004. He has a
cousin who is a very senior Museveni government official. Patrick is
the only Rwandese officer who went to Rwanda with a Muganda driver
and retained him for decades. All the others including President
Kagame had to deport their drivers after gruesome mistreatment.
During the Uganda/Rwanda clashes, Patrick would recieve hard copies of
intelligence reports meant for Museveni hours before Museveni could
recieve them. At the height of the conflict, Museveni described
Patrick as a "bad boy". Patrick was instrumental in sustaining the
Uganda dissident PRA. He availed them with all the intelligence they
needed. Museveni believes that Patrick assisted Dr. Besigye to escape
to South Africa. Patrick availed Dr. Besigye timely and accurate
intelligence from Uganda that the Doctor would stunn Kampala with
during radio talk shows. He brought Andrew Mwenda closf to Kagame but
the time of his death he described Mwenda as "HOPELESS". He was close
to Uganda politicians like Betty Bigombe and others. He was a close
friend of Gen Saleh with whom he maintained regular contacts even
during the conflict. It is this closeness
to Uganda that Museveni exploited to antagonise Patrick with Kagame
leading to a fall out eventual exile. The Ugandan government has
allowed the family of fallen former Rwanda
intelligence chief, Col Patrick Karegeya, to return his body for
burial at their home in Rwenjeru Biharwe Sub-county, Kashari County
in Mbarara District in the west of the country.
The struggle to liberate Rwanda was premised on the establishment of
democracy. This has not happened in the past 17 years of Kagame's
rule. We were all required then to participate and praise the rigging
of elections where Kagame allots himself 95% in the Presidential
Elections in 2003 and 94% in 2010. Some of us then wondered whether
there was any difference between him and President Habyalimana
(ex-Rwandan President), yet during the struggle we vehemently
criticized the rigging of elections by his government.
MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE
Posted by FREEDOM OF PRESS at 19:12
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