After all, for Rwandans, it can be lethal to be Kagame’s enemy. When Patrick Karegeya—Kagame’s former spy chief and friend who became one of his fiercest critics—was found dead in a South African hotel room in January, the Rwandan foreign minister, asked for the government’s response,
tweeted, “This man was a self-declared enemy of my Gov & my country, U expect pity?” The Rwandan defense minister
added, “When you choose to live like a dog, you die like a dog.” And Kagame himself
remarked in a speech, “Shouldn’t we have done it?”
Not only was the president justifying a murder—he was warning his critics that betraying Rwanda brings consequences. In fact, in Kagame’s 20 years as the de facto leader of the country, more than a dozen prominent dissidents have been assassinated, imprisoned, exiled and
tortured. According to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, in recent years perhaps half a dozen well known investigators, journalists and opposition politicians have also been
found dead in mysterious circumstances, including, six months ago, a Rwandan Transparency International worker who had been investigating police corruption.
Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/st...-americas-darling-tyrant-103963#ixzz3upYosHww
