13 Facts About Fred Rwigyema

Fred Rwigyema was the founder of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a political and rebel group formed by Rwandan Tutsi exile descendants of those forced to leave the country after the 1959 Hutu Revolution.

Fred Rwigyema later joined Museveni's National Resistance Army, which fought a guerrilla war called the Ugandan Bush War against the government of Milton Obote.

Fred Rwigyema 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.

Fred Rwigyema Rwigema was amongst the initial 27 armed individuals, led by Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni, who took to the bush in 1981 to begin a guerilla war following Uganda's contentious Presidential elections of 1980, where Apollo Milton Obote's party the Uganda People's Congress was accused of engineering an election fraud to get victory over the Democratic Party which was led by Paul Kawanga Ssemwogerere and Uganda Patriotic Movement, which was led by Yoweri Museveni.

Fred Rwigyema was commissioned a Major General alongside Yoweri Museveni's brother Salim Saleh Akandwanaho and Elly Tumwine.

Fred Rwigyema Rwigema was a charismatic military leader, who was loved by all soldiers and officers who served under him.

Fred Rwigyema especially earned his reputation in counter insurgency operations in Northern Uganda, where the army defeated by the National Resistance Army was holding out.

Fred Rwigyema stands out in his contemporaries for not being involved in any war crimes while he was directing operations in Northern and North Eastern Uganda.

Fred Rwigyema was appointed Deputy Minister for Defense following the capture of power by the National Resistance Movement, but that did not take him away from directing military operations in Northern Uganda.

On 1 October 1990, Fred Rwigyema led the splinter group of 10,000 NRA troops in an invasion of northern Rwanda.

Fred Rwigyema's death was kept secret for a month so as not to harm morale.

However, historian Gerard Prunier states that he had established "from incontrovertible evidence " that Fred Rwigyema was killed by his subcommander Peter Bayingana, following an argument over tactics, and excused his readers for having accepted the "cooked version of facts [the RPF] provided" him with.

Fred Rwigyema's body was buried at the Remera Heroes Cemetery in Kigali.