For the past two years, there has been a sustained effort by anti-Rwanda forces in Uganda to abduct and torture innocent Rwandans living in Uganda. These forces are a collaborative effort by Rwandan terrorists militias and Ugandan officials. Amongst Ugandan officials, Philemon Mateke —Minister of State in Charge of Regional Cooperation— has been cited as a key player in the Rwandan witch-hunt. He has just placed 6 Rwandans in arbitrary detentions in Kisoro.
Philemon Mateke has persecuted Rwandans for almost 5 decades. He was born around 1933 in Rwanda and moved to Uganda as a teenager. The octogenarian had carried with him the PARMEHUTU ideology that sought to exterminate Tutsis worldwide. In 1972, Mateke illustrated his deep rooted hate for Tutsis when he orchestrated attacks in Uganda targeting Rwandan refugees. At the time, there were ethnic clashes in Burundi but somehow Mateke wanted to exert revenge attack on Rwandan Tutsis in Uganda. 48 years ago, when he was a teacher in Mutorere secondary school, Philemon Mateke attacked his Rwandan Tutsis students. They had fled PARMEHUTU to Uganda but Mateke, a diehard PARMEHUTU, was still hunting them down.
Ever since the 1970s, Philemon Mateke never missed an occasion to persecute Rwandans. Earlier this week, he personally organized the illegal detentions of 6 young Rwandans on trumped up charges of being spies sent to kill him. The arrested; Niyoyita Adam, Gaju Esperance, Tuyisenge Jean Da Mour, Turingire Fidel, Nizeyimana Siraj and Mutesi Esperance; all lived and worked peacefully in Kisoro for the past 5 years. They are victims of Mateke’s long-standing anti-Rwanda ideology.
The evidence of his anti-Rwanda activities is overwhelming. Between the 14th and 15th of December 2018, he organized a meeting of Rwandan terrorist militias in Kampala Serena Hotel. He wanted RNC and FDLR to form a common front against Rwanda. He personally escorted the FDLR delegation comprising of its spokesperson, Nkaka Ignace aka Laforge Bazeye, and its intelligence coordinator, Lt Col Sekanabo Jean-Pierre aka Abega, to meet the RNC delegation comprised led by Frank Ntwali and “Rashid”. The FDLR delegation was intercepted on their way back from the meeting by Congolese security forces and extradited back to Rwanda where they face charges of terrorism.
More recently, on the 4th of October 2019 attack in Kinigi that claimed 14 Rwandan lives, one of the assailants confessed that his terrorist unit was in constant communication with Philemon Mateke. Seleman Kabayija – the deputy commander of the RUD-Urunana perpetrators of the terror attack— said, “Our attack was done with the planning and assistance of Minister Philemon Mateke”.
For five decades Mateke has had a free hand in persecuting innocents Rwandans, he openly plots against Rwanda with terrorist militias. Niyoyita Adam, Gaju Esperance, Tuyisenge Jean Da Mour, Turingire Fidel, Nizeyimana Siraj and Mutesi Esperance are his latest victims.
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