Fred Rwigyema

Who was Fred Rwigyema?

Fred Gisa Rwigyema was a founding member of and leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, a political and military force formed by Rwandan Tutsi exiles descendants of those forced to leave the country after the 1959 "Hutu" Revolution.

Rwigema was born in Gitarama, in the south of Rwanda. Considered a Tutsi, in 1960 he and his family fled to Uganda and settled in a refugee camp in Nshungerezi, Ankole following the Hutu Revolution of 1959 and the ouster of King Kigeri V.

After finishing high school in 1976, he went to Tanzania and joined the Front for National Salvation, a rebel group headed by Yoweri Museveni, the brother of his friend Salim Saleh. It was at this point that he began calling himself Fred Rwigema. Later that year, he travelled to Mozambique and joined the FRELIMO rebels who were fighting for the liberation of Mozambique from Portugal's colonial power.

In 1979, he joined the Uganda National Liberation Army, which together with Tanzanian armed forces captured Kampala in April 1979 and sent Idi Amin to exile.

He later joined Museveni's National Resistance Army, which fought a guerrilla war against the government of Milton Obote.