Uganda Probes Cadets As Rwanda Protests Arrests

Oct 12, 2001

THE army is to review the credentials of 1,252 cadets it recruited recently following the discovery that several Rwandan undercover agents posing as Ugandans were recruited.

By Emmy Allio THE army is to review the credentials of 1,252 cadets it recruited recently following the discovery that several Rwandan undercover agents posing as Ugandans were recruited. “The recent recruitment of cadets will have to be reviewed. We think Rwandan infiltrators, part of the Rwandan intelligence network, have been recruited into the UPDF. But we shall catch them,” a security source said yesterday. Meanwhile, the Mbarara branch manager of Falcon security firm, Chris Kamya, has been arrested for allegedly recruiting Ugandans for the Rwanda-based renegade UPDF officers who want to topple the government. Security sources said Kamya, who was also the campaign manager for former presidential candidate Col Kizza Besigye and for former Kampala Central parliamentary candidate Anne Mugisha, was arrested with an e-mail message containing the operation plan and a list of recruits. The sources yesterday said they also arrested seven Rwandans who they said had been sent to infiltrate the recruitment of the cadets. The sources said the seven were university graduates and senior six leavers whose travel documents were processed by Rwanda’s Special Branch Department headed by Lt. Col Gahinga “One Rwandan girl nabbed at the recruitment told us that many others had successfully joined the UPDF,” a source said. On Monday, 10 more Rwandan army and security officers were arrested in various parts of Kampala by the Joint Anti-Terrorism taskforce (JATT). But the Rwandan charge d’affaires, Ben Rutsinga, denied that Rwandans had been arrested for infiltrating the UPDF recruitment. “I hope they (Ugandan security agents) are not saying the Ugandan Banyarwanda are Rwandan citizens,” he said. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Phinehas Katirima said many other Rwandans had been turned away from the recruitment. “We nabbed many of them as they were due to be recruited and others were turned away. We are vigilant. Those arrested told us that they are being sent by a senior RPA officer,” Katirima said. He said one of the Rwandans identified as Anthony Rugigana was arrested in Ntungamo. Meanwhile, Rwanda yesterday protested Uganda’s arrest of its citizens, saying those detained were army deserters and bonafide students. Rutsinga yesterday said those being referred to as officers were two Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA) officers, Lt. Ivan Kayitana Rukesha and Joseph Dusabe, who fled Rwanda and had lived in Uganda for three months. Rutsinga said others in detention were students arrested in the early hours of Independence Day on Monday. He said four were students of Makerere University. Ends

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