Vanice Ruyondo - Museveni's Rwandese sister

Since we put out our interest in the background to the mother of Kampala businessman Kwame Ruyondo, we have made headway in piecing together the family history.

Her names were Vanice Ruyondo and as we reported last week, she was the wife of the Town Clerk of Masaka in the early 1980s, Nathan Ruyondo.

Nathan Ruyondo was the father of the late Colonel Patrick Lumumba, Kwame Ruyondo, and their sister Doreen Ruyondo.

Vanice Ruyondo was tall woman, around the height of Janet Museveni or just a little shorter, and she had the same light-brown complexion that Museveni has.

She used to wear the same western fashions that most women wear in Uganda but also wore the Kinyarwanda traditional wear.

When Museveni disappeared from Kampala on February 5, 1981, to launch his illegal guerilla war, he drove to Masaka town and that is where he spent the night.

He claims in his book "Sowing The Mustard Seed" that he deceived Nathan Ruyondo into lending him his white Peugeot 304 car, saying he was going for a wedding in Mbarara.

Instead he drove to Kabamba army barracks to launch his war against the UPC government.

During the attack on February 6, 1981, a UNLA soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the car and it was totally destroyed.

Soon after the attack, intelligence agents from the National Security Agency rushed to Kabamba. They discovered that the car's number plates and the registration numbers were still visible.

NASA spent about a week trying to trace the owner of the car and the records led to Nathan Ruyondo.

Ruyondo himself was worried for the whole week. He confided in some friends that he had lent his car to Museveni but one week since the wedding, there was no sign of Museveni.

He was hearing in the news that Museveni had attacked an army barracks.

Soon after NASA traced the car to him, Ruyondo was arrested and taken to Kampala to the Nile Mansions where several political prisoners were held.

He spent the whole time of the NRA war at Nile Mansions.

But during either the May 27, 1985 Heroes' Day celebrations or ahead of the UPC delegates' Conference, Ruyondo plus hundreds of other political prisoners were released by the Obote government.

Doreen Ruyondo was a student at Kako Secondary School and Kwame Ruyondo attended St. Henry's College Kitovu, Nyendo.

During the time that their uncle (Museveni) was fighting the NRA war and their father was under arrest, Doreen and Kwame suffered a lot.

They had little pocket money and time came when it was hard to find school fees for Doreen.

If they had been Bahima, they would have found many Bahima in Uganda to help them out in those hard years. In fact, when Ruyondo was under arrest, he had a few cattle which were sold to raise school fees for Kwame and Doreen.

Recently on one of Kampala's FM stations, Fred Mwesigye, who was one of the "original 27" NRA fighters claimed that Obote's government had murdered Nathan Ruyondo.

This was a complete error by Mwesigye, because Ruyondo was released and safe in 1985. If Mwesigye sincerely believed that Nathan Ruyondo had been murderd by Obote, then it is likely that he fell victim to a Museveni inspired disinformation campaign designed to spur on his NRA fighters against the Obote government.

When Museveni took power in 1986, he felt guilt at how much suffering he had taken the Ruyondo family through.

He compensated them handsomely from your tax money. At Ugandans expense, Kwame and Doreen were sent by State House to Washington DC for higher education.

In the U.S. Kwame and Doreen enjoyed a very lavish life. They always had so much money, drove flashy cars, and their apartment was always filled with music and partying. They had everything they wanted and people could not understand where they got all this money.

It would be important to find out why Museveni was first a member of the Democratic Party, which in the 1950s and 1960s was a party mainly for Catholics.

One could argue that he was influenced by Boniface Byanyima who was prominent DP figure.

On the other hand, Rwanda is predominantly Catholic, much more so in the 1950s and 1960s and Museveni's biological father, Kayibanda, was most probably a Catholic, so his son Museveni was first a Catholic.

That is the story of Vanice Ruyondo. As Radio Katwe said last week, she is the real sister of Museveni and she shared with him the same father Kayibanda and same mother Esteri Kokundeka.

Salim Saleh and Violet Kajubiri Froelich are Museveni's step-brother and step-sister.

Vanice Ruyondo seems to be the most important link, as far as Ugandan history is concerned, of Museveni to Rwanda because she was a Rwandese and in Masaka most people knew her as a Munyarwanda.

He could not dare mention her in "Sowing The Mustard Seed" because Ugandans would have put two and two together and realized that all along they have been ruled by a Rwandese.

If the New Vision, Daily Monitor, Red Pepper, or Weekly Observer tried to publish this sensitive history, they would be closed down immediately and maybe the Editors arrested. Whereas it is in their power to provide proof one way or the other, Museveni and his Generals would rather harass, torture and even kill innocent reporters for trying to piece together their hidden pasts.

That is one more reason why Radio Katwe should exist because it is out of reach of the Uganda government. This is the only way Ugandans are going to find out about their true history.