24 ^th April 1996

Rally for the Return of Refugees and Democracy in Rwanda (RDR) is deeply perturbed by baseless allegations published by some media , about an involvement of Rwandese refugees, in the raid on the town Kisoro in Uganda that took place on 22 ^nd April 1996.

It is equally surprised by the speed at which the ugandan Minister of defense pointed an accusing finger on rwandese refugees , before any investigation was carried out .

RDR would like to inform those who might have been misled by these allegations, that rwandese refugees do not have any hand at all in the raid on Kisoro.

Although, they are much aware of the ugandan involvement in the current civil strife in rwanda, rwandese refugees have neither the capacity, nor the will to attack Uganda, because it would further compound their situation.

Reliable sources from Zaïre rather indicate that the rebels who mounted a raid on Kisoro town are remnants of Amon BAZIRA ugandan rebel group and are led by a one Hadji KABEBA, a well known ugandan.

The late Amon Bazira was gunned down in Nairobi around 1993 by what seemed to be ugandan intelligence operatives.

By denouncing a ghost Hutu rebel group, the ugandan government wants merely to drag rwandese refugees in yet another dirty incident, in order to pre-empt possible military raids on refugee camps in Zaire by a combined force of Rwandese Patriotic Army and Ugandan army and other retaliatory measures such as the closure of the only remaining supply route to Zaire i.e through Kisoro and Bunagana.

Besides, the timing of the allegations are quite revealing. Indeed, they were brown out at the very time when the UN Security Council was debating a resolution on an hypothetic rearmament of refugees. The ugandan government wanted definitely to put pressure on the Security Council.

RDR would like to strongly condemns this new twist in the demonisation campaign of rwandese refugees and dismisses these allegations as another pack of lies.

For RDR

Chris Nzabandora

Director of Information

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