Who killed fred rwigema biography

MAJ. GEN. Fred Rwigyema died on October 2 in Rwanda, informed sources disclosed yesterday. Maj. Peter Baingana and Maj Chris Bunyenyezi were also killed in late October by a surprise ambush between Nyagatare and Gabiro.

Rwigyema died on Tuesday, the day after the Rwandese Patriotic Front crossed the border. He died during a battle near Kagitumba. Rwandese government forces had retreated from Kagitumba the previous day to a hill about three kilometers away.

A government jeep with mounted machine gun was shooting from another hill and Rwigyema was hit and killed by a single bullet. Rwigyema had just called for a situation report and ordered for a recoilless gun to dislodge the jeep.

 Colonels carrying the coffin bearing Rwigyema's remains crowds out of Amahoro Stadium for burial 01.10.95

Rwigyema was given a military burial in Rwanda, allegedly in a coffin brought from Kabale by the rebels. No volley was fired over the grave but the coffin was saluted.

Baingana and Bunyenyezi were killed about three weeks ago on the same day at the same place. The ceasefire had just broken down as the government force Nyagatare and both of them were rushing there from Gabiro to assist. However, the main government force was mounted along the road and both fell into an ambush within a few hours of each other. 

There appears to be no truth in the widespread rumour that Rwigyema was killed by Bayingana in a power struggle and that Baingana was subsequently executed. Baingana was not in Kagitumba when Rwigyema was killed. He was apparently attending to the convoy of vehicles that the RPF had stolen from the NRA and which was hidden elsewhere.

Among Rwigyema's escorts were several non-Banyarwanda NRA soldiers including a Mugisu signaller who had gone to the bush out of loyalty to there commander rather than to the struggle of the refugees to return to there homeland.

Once Rwigyema died, their reason for being in Rwan

RWIGYEMA|TODAY IN HISTORY

Rwigyema's life was, however, cut short on the second day (October 2, 1990) of the Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) liberation war against the regime of Juvenal Habyarimana.

Reports said on the second day of the 1990 RPF offensive, Rwigyema was murdered by two of his sub-commanders. However, the death was kept under wraps until a month later in November.

He had called a staff meeting with three close associates - Peter Bayingana, Chris Bunyenyezi, and Stephen Ndugute. During the meeting, a fierce argument over strategy developed. Rwigyema wanted to advance slowly in order to politicise the Hutu peasantry and get them to joint the RPF.

Bayingana and Bunyenyezi wanted to seize power quickly, ignoring the Tutsi-Hutu divide.

The dispute heated up and one of the sub-commanders reportedly drew his pistol and shot Rwigyema in the head.

In the resultant chaos, Ndugute escaped and returned to Uganda to inform President Museveni of the events. Museveni, in turn, sent Salim Saleh to Rwanda, where he found Rwigyema's body in a swamp where he gave it a proper burial. Rwigyema's remains were buried in Kagitumba until the war ended when they were reburied in the Remera Heroes Cemetery.

Major General Fred Gisa Rwigyema had cut his teeth as a fearless soldier. It was not surprising that because of this, the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) leader, Yoweri Museveni, selected him as one of his bodyguards. He rose through the ranks as one of the best NRA field commanders and than just four years after NRA captured power, he decided that it was time to go back to his home country, Rwanda.

Background
Fred Rwigyema was born on April 10, 1957, in Mukiranze village, Kamonyi district in the south of Rwanda. A Tutsi, in 1960, he and his family fled to Uganda and settled in a refugee camp at Nshungerezi, Ankole, following the Hutu revolt of 1959 and the ousting of King Kigeli V Ndahindurwa.

After completing

Fred Rwigyema (10 April 1957 – 2 October 1990) was the leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front during the Rwandan Civil War.

Biography[]

Fred Rwigyema was born on 10 April 1957 as Emmanuel Gisa, and he was from a family of CatholicTutsis. In 1976, he joined the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) under Yoweri Museveni during the Uganda-Tanzania War, having moved to Uganda with many Tutsi refugees. Rwigyema helped in the April 1979 capture of Kampala from the Ugandan government, ending Idi Amin's rule over the country; he later joined Museveni's National Resistance Army in the war with Milton Obote's new government. In 1990, Rwigyema led the Rwandan Patriotic Front to liberate Rwanda from Juvenal Habyarimana's oppressive government of Hutus, but he was killed by his commander Peter Bayingana after disagreeing over tactics in the Rwandan Civil War.

Rwandan military officer and politician (1957–1990)

Fred Gisa Rwigema (also sometimes spelled Rwigyema; born Emmanuel Gisa; 10 April 1957 – 2 October 1990) was a Rwandan military officer and revolutionary. He was the founder of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a political and rebel group formed by Rwandan Tutsi exile descendants of those forced to leave the country after the 1959 Hutu Revolution.

Early life and rise in Uganda

Rwigema was born in Gitarama, in southern Rwanda. Considered a Tutsi, in 1960 he and his family fled to Uganda and settled in a refugee camp in Nshungerezi, Ankole following the Rwandan Revolution of 1959 and the ouster of King Kigeli V.

After finishing high school in 1976, he went to Tanzania and joined the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA), a rebel group headed by Yoweri Museveni, the brother of his friend Salim Saleh. It was at this point that he began calling himself Fred Rwigema. Later that year, he traveled to Mozambique and joined the FRELIMO rebels who were fighting for the liberation of Mozambique from Portugal's colonial rule.

In 1979, he joined the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA), which together with Tanzanian armed forces captured Kampala in April 1979, forcing Idi Amin to flee into exile.

He later joined Museveni's National Resistance Army (NRA), which fought a guerrilla war called the Ugandan Bush War against the government of Milton Obote. It was here that Rwigema first fought alongside a number of future RPF leaders including future Rwandan president Paul Kagame, James Kabarebe, Patrick Karegeya and Kayumba Nyamwasa.

After the NRA captured state power in 1986, Rwigema became the deputy Minister of Defence. He was regularly at the front line in northern Uganda during the new government's operations against remnants of the ousted regime as well as other rebel groups.

Leadership

Fred Rwigema was amongst the initial 27 armed individua