Fred Gisa Rwigema (10 April 1957—2 October 1990), born Emmanuel Gisa (his name sometimes erroneously spelled as Rwigyema[A]), was a founding member of and leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, an anti-Hutu Power guerrilla group that fought in the Rwandan Civil War.[1]
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 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 guerrilla war against the government of Milton Obote.
After the NRA captured state power in 1986, Rwigema 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.
On the third day of the 1990 RPF offensive into Rwanda, Rwigema was murdered by two of his subcommanders. He had called a staff conference with three close associates - Peter Bayingana, Chris Bunyenyezi and Stephen Ndugute. During it, a fierce argument over strategy developed. Rwigema wanted to advance slowly in order to politicize the Hutu peasantry and get them to join the RPF. Bayingana and Bunyenyezi wanted to seize power quickly, ignoring the Tutsi-Hutu identity split. Ndugute remained a silent bystander. The dispute grew heated and Bayingana drew his pistol and shot Rwigema in the head. In the resultant chaos, Ndugute escaped and returned to Uganda to inform President Yoweri Museveni of the events. Museveni in turn sent his trusted brother and right-hand man Salim Saleh to Rwanda, where he found Rwigema's body in a swamp, gave it a proper burial, arrested Bayingana and Bunyenyezi and brought them back to Uganda for interrogation and eventual execution.[2]
Rwigema remained buried in Kagitumba until the war ended and his body was reburied in the Remera Heroes Cemetery.