The President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, carried out a major reshuffle within the armed forces this week, dismissing several high-ranking officers for “indiscipline”, the day after the replacement without precise explanations of the Minister of Defense and the Chief of army staff.
Alfred Murasira, in office since 2018, was replaced on Tuesday June 6 in defense by Juvenal Marizamunda. The president also chose General Mubarakh Muganga as the new chief of staff and General Vincent Nyakarundi as the new army chief of staff.
During the swearing-in of the new defense minister and other officials, Paul Kagame on Wednesday described the changes made as “a normal thing”. “The objective remains the same (…). The only novelty is that a person is moved from one position to another,” the president added in a brief speech. “The work must be done competently (…) and must be done with an understanding of the seriousness of those responsibilities,” he said.
Other moves have also been formalized at the head of military intelligence and internal security, as well as in the Rwandan force deployed in northern Mozambique to help local authorities counter a jihadist insurgency.
Hundreds of officers concerned
On Wednesday morning, the Ministry of Defense announced that President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Paul Kagame had also “dismissed from the Rwandan Defense Forces Major General Aloys Muganga, Brigadier General Francis Mutiganda as well as fourteen officers”, whose names have not been released.
Both generals were sacked for “indiscipline”, army spokesman Ronald Rvivanga said. “According to the law, this means that they must return their military equipment and leave the army without any allowance because of what they have done,” he told Rwandan media without giving further details. General Muganga had commanded the mechanized forces since 2019 and General Mutiganda had been attached to the Rwandan army headquarters in 2018 in an unspecified position.
Paul Kagame also “authorized the dismissal of 116 other officers and approved the termination of the service contracts of 112 other officers [with] immediate effect”, according to a press release. In the past, President Kagame has already dismissed military officials, convicted of insurrection or gone into exile.
This new purge comes after assertions in late May by the army of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) against the Rwandan army and the rebellion of the March 23 Movement (M23), accusing them of planning an attack on the city of Goma. in eastern DRC. The M23 is a former predominantly Tutsi rebellion that took up arms again at the end of 2022 and conquered large swaths of territory north of Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu. Since then, the DRC has accused its Rwandan neighbor of supporting the M23, which has been established by UN experts, despite denials from Kigali.
