T HIS month Paul Kagame celebrates 25 years as Rwanda’s president, having won just 99 percent of the vote at the last election. But who will he celebrate with? Almost everyone who supported him on his journey to power is either exiled or, er, dead.
On 24 March one of the last of his old military comrades, retired Brigadier General Frank Rusagara, former secretary-general of the Rwandan Defence Force, died in a Rwandan jail. He hadn’t been allowed to speak to his wife (who died in 2016) nor his family since 2014. Rusagara had fought at Kagame’s side to end the 1994 genocide, but no matter: in 2013, according to prosecutors, he accused Kagame of poor government and of sponsoring the M23 armed group, running wild in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo since 1996 (a fact already obvious to everyone).
Forced to retire, by late 2014 Rusagara was behind bars charged with “spreading rumours” and “tarnishing the image of the country and government”. In 2016, he was sentenced to 20 years along with his brother-in-law, Colonel Tom Byabagamba (ex-head of Kagame’s personal protection unit), who was jailed for 21 years, and Rusagara’s driver, retired sergeant François Kabayiza, who got five for obstruction of justice.
The trial was criticised by the UN – the accused weren’t allowed a proper defence, and there was clear witness coercion. Kabayiza, who couldn’t stand, said his testimony had been extracted by torture but the judge said he could see no sign of it.