Robert Kabera: Critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame found beheaded in Uganda

Relevance to the sub: assassination of political dissidents abroad by an authoritarian regime pursuing an efficient PR strategy through international summits and sports competitions

Robert Kabera, a former military officer who fell out of favor with Paul Kagame's regime, has been found decapitated in Uganda where he had been sheltering for years. Kabera, 50, served as a sergeant-major in the powerful Rwandan Armed Forces and was a lead singer in the Army Jazz Band, which routinely tours in Africa and beyond as part of Rwanda's cultural outreach.

In 2020, he fled Rwanda after allegations of rape which he denied as fabrications by the government to sanction his dissent. Sheltering in neighboring Uganda, he worked as a musician and moonshined as an influencer with 145,000 followers on his social media platforms, where he regularly and overtly criticized the Rwandan government and Paul Kagame's political practices, corruption and authoritarianism.

Paul Kagame has ruled Rwanda since the RPF's military victory that ended the genocide perpetrated by the Hutu supremacist government and paramilitaries that saw the mass killing of 800,000 Tutsi, Twa and non-supremacist Hutu.

Kagame has been credited with pacifying Rwanda after one of the worst atrocities of the 20th century and presiding over the economic reconstruction of Rwanda, but is also criticized for heading an authoritarian regime that severely oppresses political opponents and journalists and refuses to allow other political forces to fairly compete in the political arena.

Under Kagame's rule, Rwanda got directly involved in the deadly wars in eastern Congo on the side of anti-Kinshasa rebels, and has provided support to Mozambique's authoritarian government to suppress the protests against election rigging that cemented FRELIMO's 50-year rule in 2024.

The journalism consortium Forbidden Stories released in 2024 a series of investigations revealing the depth and reach of Kagame's repressive machinery, whose security services were able to directly target, harass and even murder opponents across the African continent and into Europe.

Despite this, Kagame's Rwanda remains a choice destination for international conferences and sports events thanks to a remarkable PR campaign conducted by the Rwandan government, who expanded the cyclism competition Tour du Rwanda in the 2000s to attract tourists and sponsors, and the organization of a Formula One competition, planned for 2030.