After spending decades as a person conduit that bridges President Museveni and Paul Kagame’s private communications, in 2018, celebrated investigative veteran journalist turned lobbyist Andrew Mwenda decided to stop traveling to Kigali to save his life and survive jail.
He revealed that this personal decision was made after realising that his continued travels to Kigali made the Kampala leadership uncomfortable.
He divulged that the Kampala leadership thought that Kigali was mooting a move for a regime change in Kampala by overthrowing President Museveni’s government.
Mwenda insists that all this suspicion came from fabricated and cooked intelligence reports made by selfish intelligent chiefs and operatives who misled the President to make a wrong decision concerning him.
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“You know if Uganda deploys, Rwanda actually also deploys, then all of a sudden you have an escalation. And let me tell you in those situations, sometimes leaders of countries can go to war. Even when two leaders of these countries are committed to avoiding war, intelligence can manipulate intelligence information to achieve a particular end,” Mwenda told Rwanda based YouTube channel the Long Form Podcast.
He revealed that in early 2017, intelligence chiefs started telling him that Rwanda was cooking something dangerous against Uganda. He disclosed that at first, he ignored the intel but when it started becoming a public issue, he engaged President Kagame his close friend and asked him what was going on.
He claims that Kagame told him that he does not have any bad intentions against Uganda but his only complaint was about characters hiding in Uganda who were planning to wage war against his government. Mwenda said that when he approached President Museveni, he looked surprised and at that time he was very scared and calculative with his statements and he refused to be open about the matter.
He was later told that the president is very scared of him because he thinks that he is Kagame’s spy in Uganda. Mwneda alleged that Museveni was basing on intelligence reports being given to him by his intelligence team in which they claimed that he was helping Kagame to infiltrate Ugandan security so as to achieve his plan of having regime change in Uganda.
He admitted that it is true that president Kagame has interests in Uganda because he grew up in Uganda and even helped to fight a war that brought stability in Uganda and he has friends in Uganda.
So he was not shocked when he was told that Museveni is scared of him being Kagame’s spy because he knows that he is one of his trusted individuals on the earth and even appointed him as one of his superb advisers.
He added that he was shocked when Ugandan security started arresting and detaining a number of young people working in state agencies and university students on grounds that he took them to Kigali to receive training with the aim of overthrowing the government.
The arrested were released after Gen Muhoozi Kainerugaba engaged President Kagame and the misunderstanding resolved.
Before Gen Muhoozi who was then the Land Forces Command intervened in the matter, President Kagame gave him a detailed report of the individuals he claims are hiding in Uganda and were planning war against his government and he shared it with intelligence chiefs in Kampala and the then Security Minister Lt Gen Henry Tumukunde.
President Kagame wanted the said individuals be handed over to Rwanda government to face the law as was done to other suspects.
However, he was shocked when Lt Gen Tumukunde gave him a list of names of people claiming that they were planted in government agencies to overthrow Museveni’s government and he took him seriously.
He claimed that the entire project was manned by Lt Gen Tumukunde, executed by the then Internal Security Organisation (ISO) Director General Col Frank Bagyenda Kaka and Maj Gen Abel Kandiho who was the commandant of the defunct Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI). He alleged that they told the President that Rwanda had planted more than 1000 combatants who were planning to attack military barracks and overthrow his government.
The tension between the two countries resulted into the arrest and prosecution of the former Inspector General of Police Gen Edward Kale Kayihura, top police bosses and closing of Katuna border areas.
He confirmed that Rwanda and Uganda are competing militarily and it is the reason why their armies are dominating and control security of other countries.
He advised that leaders should be careful to avoid any clash between these countries because each country needs the other.
The United Nations Security Council also accused Mwenda of being Kagame’s henchman who helped him execute his interests in neighbouring countries especially in Democratic Republic of Congo where M23 a rebel group is fighting President Felix Tshisekedi’s government.
The Security Council claimed that on several occasions, Mwenda talks with M23 commanders and helps them to lobby deals in Kampala which Mwenda strongly denied insisting that he was approached by M23 commanders to help them to have an audience with stakeholders who can help then return peace to their home country.
Sources said that because of his involvement in the Democratic Republic of Congo issues, Mwenda is on the list of individuals likely to be sanctioned by European countries and United States of America which has a huge interest in the mineral rich Congo.
Mwenda’s statements comes at a time when the Chief of Defence Forces (CDF) Gen Muhoozi ordered the arrest of top former Defence Intelligence and Security (DIS) commanders including Maj Gen James Birungi and a number of operatives on allegations of giving false and fabricated intelligence information to the Commander-in-chief
He also ordered the arrest of other top commanders in the Air Force, engineering brigade over allegations of corruption and threatening the president’s life and they are soon going to be charged before the newly reinstated military court.
