Kagame's ex-comrades in arms call for his overthrow

NAIROBI, Tuesday

Once Rwandan President Paul Kagame's most trusted allies, who fought alongside him to end the 1994 genocide, some of his exiled former comrades-in-arms are now spearheading calls to oust him.

Kagame has often silenced Hutu opposition with accusations of pro-genocide ideology but the fiercest challenge to his rule is emerging from his erstwhile close circle of Tutsi rebels from the Ugandan diaspora.

Four of them co-authored a document which AFP obtained Tuesday accusing Kagame of being authoritarian, corrupt and driving the country back towards a conflict on the same scale as the 1994 massacres.

"The people of Rwanda, together with rest of the international community, have a moral duty to work to end this repressive system of government," the 60-page report said.

Among the authors are General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, a former army chief who survived a June assassination attempt in South Africa, and Patrick Karegeya, a former intelligence chief who fled Rwanda in 2007.

The other two are Theogene Rudasingwa, a former Kagame chief of staff, and Gerald Gahima, former prosecutor general.

Kagame, in power since 1994, was on Monday sworn in for a second term that should be his last.

Sixteen years after they helped him end the genocide, many of his former brothers-in-arms have either been distanced, are dead or in exile.

"When Kayumba fled, the scale of the crisis became obvious," said the Rwanda specialist Andre Guichaoua.

The defections, which started in the mid 1990s, have continued over the years and have grown to include former members of the inner circle.

In 2005 Karegeya, the former all-powerful head of external security, demoted to army spokesman, was imprisoned for insubordination. Two years later he fled, first to Uganda, then to South Africa.

Earlier this year Kayumba Nyamwasa, who was army chief of staff until 2001, followed.

In the months following his exile, several officers were arrested, for indiscipline, immorality or graft.

Kayumba and Karegeya have been accused of being behind a series of grenade attacks in Kigali.