Government okays ex-Rwandan spymaster Karegeya to be buried in Uganda
The late Karegeya
Unconfirmed sources indicate that some members of Karegeya family met with President Museveni onThursday night and requested him to allow the body be buried in Uganda.
The Uganda government yesterday said the body of assassinated former Rwandan spymaster Col Patrick Karegeya can be returned to Uganda for burial.
Col Karegeya was born and raised in Uganda. On Thursday, his family appealed to the Uganda government to help bring his body for burial at the family home in Rwenjeru village, Biharwe in Kashari County, Mbarara District.
The State Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Henry Okello Oryem, said because of Karegeya’s unique status, his family will be allowed to bury him in Uganda but “without involvement of government in the arrangements” and after Uganda consults with the Rwandan government. “We are doing it specifically on humanitarian grounds and not because of his previous connections with government (National Resistance Movement) or anything like that,” Mr Oryem said.
Col Karegeya was found dead in aJohannesburg hotel room, South African on Wednesday. A rope and bloodied towel were found in the hotel room. “Preliminary investigations revealed that his neck was swollen and there is a possibility that he might have been strangled,” said a police statement on Col Karegeya’s death.
Col Karegeya left behind a widow and three children. Talking to the Associated Press news agency on Thursday, Rwandan ambassador to South Africa Vincent Karega, dismissed claims that Col Karegeya was assassinated, saying it is an “emotional reaction and opportunistic way of playing politics”. “We encourage the authorities to really look into the matter so that we know exactly what happened,” the Reuters news agency quotes him as telling a local radio.
Col Karegeya fell out with his former ally, President Paul Kagame and fled to South Africa six years ago with his colleague Brig Gen Kayumba Nyamwasa. The Kigali government declared them dissidents and placed charges of treason and terrorism on them. Brig Gen Kayumba survived two assassination attempts outside his house in Johannesburg in 2010.
The Rwanda government has previously denied accusations of masterminding assassinations attacks on the dissidents. Yesterday, Mr Oryem expressed his personal sympathies to the bereaved family but observed that although Col Karegeya could have been born in Uganda, it does not automatically make him a citizen.
“If he did not apply to government to formalise his citizenship, then he is not. Yes, he has ever been in the National Resistance Army (NRA), a Ugandan rebel force that brought Mr Museveni to power in 1986, then Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) but then, he changed status after the fallout with the Kigali regime. “Decisions have consequences, especially if you keep changing statuses,” Mr Oryem said by telephone yesterday.
Uganda allows dual citizenship but it’s not known whether Karegeya had formalised his Ugandan citizenship. Justice Kenneth Kakuru, who is heading the committee of friends and relatives organising the burial said they were still waiting for South African government to complete investigations into the murder and hand over the body to the family.
According to a senior government official, representatives of Karegeya’s family met President Museveni at State House on Thursday night and requested him to allow the body be brought to Uganda for burial.
However none of the mentioned family members could confirm the meeting with the President.
The South African High Commissioner in Uganda, Mr DJ Qwalen said he had no details on the progress of the investigations into Karegeya’s murder. He referred us to the department of International Relations in South Africa, which could not be readily reached.
Kigali government implicated
Rwandan exiles in several Western countries including the UK and US say local security agents have warned them of plots to kill them. The Rwandan government has denied trying to kill its opponents. Mr Karegeya and Gen Nyamwasa were among four exiled former top officials for whom Rwanda issued international arrest warrants in 2011. A military court earlier sentenced them to long jail terms in absentia for threatening state security and promoting ethnic divisions.
Both men were part of Mr Kagame’s rebel forces which came to power in 1994, ending the genocide of their fellow ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. Mr Kagame has been accused of not tolerating opposition. He maintains that Rwanda needs a strong government to prevent a return to ethnic conflict.
Background. He was born in 1960 to a Rwandan refugee family in Rubare, Ntungamo District. They had fled the 1959 ethnic violence in Rwanda, which forced more than 100,000 Tutsi to seek refuge in neighbouring countries.
Political affiliation. A fellow exiled dissident, former army chief Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, has survived two assassination attempts since fleeing to South Africa in 2010. The pair formed a new opposition party – the Rwanda National Congress – in 2010. Hours to the assassination. Gen Nyamwasa told the BBC that Mr Karegeya had gone to the upmarket Michelangelo Towers Hotel to meet “somebody he knew very well, somebody who had come from Kigali”. He accused the Rwandan government of being behind the killing.
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