For decades, the exiled Rwandans had lived in limbo, scattered across Uganda and other countries in the region, dreaming of a return to a homeland most had not seen since childhood.
Many had fought under Yoweri Kaguta Museveni in the Ugandan Bush War, rising through the ranks of the National Resistance Army (NRA). But in their hearts, they were still refugees. Their families remained in camps, their parents’ land still out of reach. Diplomacy had done nothing.
At the heart of Rwanda’s liberation dream were two lifelong friends; Paul Kagame and Fred Gisa Rwigema. As boys in exile, they spent hours listening to elders recount the daring fights of earlier resistance fighters known as the Inyenzi, their imaginations fired by stories of return and freedom.
Those childhood talks hardened into resolve as the two rose to command positions in Uganda’s army. After helping bring Yoweri Museveni to power, they and other exiled Rwandans began quietly shaping a different mission, one not for another nation, but for their own. The time had come to stop waiting and start reclaiming home.
Maj Gen Fred Gisa Rwigema was killed on the second day of the Liberation Struggle.
The calm before the march
According to historian John Burton Kegel in his book The Struggle for Liberation: A History of the Rwandan Civil War, 1990â”1994, the final decision to activate Option Z came in September 1990.
By then, tension within Uganda’s army was palpable. Anti-Rwandan sentiment had grown, and intelligence officers were already suspicious that some NRA soldiers were secretly loyal to the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). If the plan leaked, the entire network could be dismantled overnight.
Rwigema’s home in Kampala quietly became the center of operations. Around 20 September, small groups of trusted officers began visiting under the cover of darkness. No meetings were recorded, no written orders were left behind. Each man left with one instruction: be ready to move at any time.
One of the key figures in these clandestine gatherings was Major Sam Kaka, the then commander of Uganda’s Military Police and one of Rwigema’s most trusted allies.
Kaka traveled across the country using official duties as camouflage, quietly alerting Rwandan officers in scattered NRA units, those stationed in Bihanda under Theogene Bagire, others at Mbarara under Charles Musitu, and some embedded in 129 Battalion under Commander Cyzia. He told them only what they needed to know: the time had come.
By September 29, the decision was sealed. The armed return was no longer an aspiration, it was a date on the calendar.
RPF cadres would attend Clandestine meetings planning for Rwandans’ return to their motherland.
Building an army without an army
The RPA existed more in loyalty than in form. It was a force that lived within another army but bound by a deeper allegiance. Mobilization had to be improvised.
Kegel notes that the core of the initial force came from Kaka’s Military Police Battalion, which was almost entirely composed of Rwandan patriots.
Around one hundred soldiers from President Museveni’s elite Presidential Protection Unit joined in, having been secretly recruited by charismatic commanders Charles Muhire and Charles Ngoga. Another three hundred came from 31 Brigade in central Kampala.
They brought what they could carry, rifles, ammunition, boots, even food rations. A few heavier weapons, including anti-aircraft guns and a Katyusha rocket launcher, were discreetly removed from Bombo’s military depots. They had no tanks, no artillery support, no formal supply chain. But they had determination. By evening on September 30, Rwigema gave the final order.
The convoy that slipped through the night
At 2:30 a.m. on October 1 , 1990, a convoy began rolling out of Kampala’s dark streets. It was an unlikely army on the move, a jumble of army trucks, minivans, borrowed buses, and private cars.
Kaka’s military police led the way to discourage roadblocks. Each man knew discovery meant death or imprisonment, but not a single one turned back.
As the convoy moved, radios buzzed with tension. Rwigema’s communications team stayed awake through the night, listening for any sign that NRA commanders had noticed the disappearance.
Then came a brief radio message, relayed from the Ugandan presidency’s office: ' Don’t be afraid, if it is Fred who is going with his soldiers, they are not going to fight us. I think he must be returning home.'
President Museveni was out of the country. To this day, no one knows who sent that message, but it kept the convoy moving, unchallenged, toward the border.
Dawn at Kagitumba
By 10 a.m., the first RPA platoons reached the Kagitumba border post on the Muvumba River. Morning mist blanketed the valley. Across the river, a small detachment of Rwandan government troops stood guard, unaware that history was about to cross their path.
Then came a moment of symbolism that would echo through history. Before crossing the border, Rwigema’s men stopped and tore the Ugandan insignia from their uniforms.
The firefight was swift and decisive. The road to Nyagatare was suddenly open.
They entered Rwanda not as invaders, but as sons returning home. As Kegel observed, this act was deliberate, a declaration that this was not Uganda’s war but Rwanda’s own awakening.
The chaos of secrecy
Victory at Kagitumba brought euphoria but also confusion. The RPA had emerged from the shadows, but it was still a network, not a structured army. Fighters arrived in scattered groups, many unsure of who to follow or what the overall plan was. Rwigema and his senior officers; Kaka, Steven Ndugute, and others, scrambled to restore order.
By nightfall, they had created four ad-hoc battalions led by Chris Bunyenyezi, Steven Ndugute, Adam Wasswa, and Sam Kaka. Yet they faced an immediate crisis: hunger. Because secrecy had been absolute, no supply lines or civilian staging areas had been arranged. The soldiers began seizing cattle from local herders, leaving handwritten IOUs that promised repayment after the war.
The very secrecy that had ensured success now revealed its price, confusion, shortages, and improvised command.
The RPA existed more in loyalty than in form bound by a deeper allegiance.
The Option Z led to a decisive turning point that led to the Liberation of Rwanda through the means of war.
Lighting the fuse
Still, morale burned brighter than fear. Plans for the following day were bold, push deeper into Rwanda, seize Gabiro, Camp Mutara, and Nyagatare before reinforcements arrived.
The fighters moved forward with faith stronger than logistics, believing that speed would compensate for what they lacked in numbers and supplies.
In hindsight, Option Z was not simply a military maneuver. It was a gamble built on courage, stealth, and conviction, a calculated leap into the unknown.
Despite early setbacks, including the death of Maj Gen Fred Rwigema on the second day of the struggle, the drive to free Rwanda did not falter.
Just days later, Maj Paul Kagame returned from military training in the United States to assume command. He reorganized the war, restored the soldiers’ morale, and led the campaign that ultimately liberated Rwanda and ended the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. Option Z had succeeded.
This victory opened the path to rebuild a nation once reduced to ashes, restore unity, and set Rwandans on a shared journey of recovery and development.
Just days later, Maj Paul Kagame returned from military training in the United States to assume command.
Maj Paul Kagame reorganized the war, restored the soldiers’ morale, and led the campaign that ultimately liberated Rwanda and ended the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.
