Fred Rwigema

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Fred Gisa Rwigema (10 April 1957—2 October 1990), born Emmanuel Gisa (his name sometimes erroneously spelled as Fred Rwigyema (Kinyarwanda can not have a 'gy' combination, as they morph into 'jy', pronounced as 'gy')), was a founding member of the Rwandese Patriotic Front and is considered a hero in Rwanda's history, though he spent most of his life outside Rwanda.

Rwigema was born in Gitarama, in the south of Rwanda. Considered an ethnic Tutsi, he and his family fled to Uganda and settled in a refugee camp in Nshungerezi, Ankole in 1960 following the so-called 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 (FRONASA), 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 (UNLA), 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 (NRA), which fought a guerilla war against the government of Milton Obote.

After the NRA captured state power in 1986, Rwigyema became the deputy Minister of Defence. He was regularly at the front line in northern Uganda during the new government's offensives against remnants of the ousted regime.

Sources in Uganda say that Rwigyema was one of the contingent of officers and men who raided the home of the former rebel leader of the Uganda Freedom Movement, Andrew Kayiira, and Rwigyema was at Kayiira's home the night Kayiira was shot dead, March 7, 1987.