Exiled critic of Rwandan president found beheaded in Uganda

Ugandan police say a male body has been found in a village near Kampala, and his head has yet to be located.

A view of Kigali, Rwanda. [File:AP Photo/Yuhi Irakiza]

An exiled vocal critic of the Rwandan government has been found decapitated near Kampala, south-central Uganda, according to a police spokesperson, in a case which remains under investigation.

Ugandan police said on Monday they were investigating the “murder of a male adult (around 50), whose head was cut off, and up to now, the head has not yet been recovered”, spokesperson Kituuma Rusoke told reporters, adding that the body had been identified by relatives as Robert Kabera.

The body was found in Luwala, a village near Kampala, and the killing likely took place late on October 16 or early on October 17, police added.

Robert Kabera, a former sergeant who fled Rwanda several years ago, was living in Uganda. The former soldier was not critical of the government during his time with the military, but grew increasingly opposed to Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

Kabera had a YouTube channel, “Major Robert TV”, with 144,000 subscribers. He featured a song praising opposition figure Victoire Ingabire , a rare voice of dissent in Rwanda who had been repeatedly imprisoned.

In Uganda, “Robert had no issues with anyone”, his brother, Victor Agaba, told the AFP news agency.

“Our problem comes from home… The army created a criminal case against him. It was a witch-hunt,” he said.

Kabera was declared a fugitive after leaving Rwanda and accused of corrupting a minor, charges he denied.

Rwandan authorities have been accused of assassinating opponents of President Kagame , who has governed the country since coming to power in 2000. The Rwandan president took the reins in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in which 800,000 people were killed , primarily from the minority Tutsi community.

Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame [File: Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo/AP]

Kabera is not the first opposition figure in exile to be assassinated.

In 2021, a former lieutenant in the Rwandan army, Revocat Karemangingo , was shot dead in Mozambique, where he was suspected of secretly supporting an opposition force.

Outspoken opponent Seif Bamporiki was shot dead in South Africa the same year, while a former Rwandan intelligence chief turned critic, Patrick Karegeya , was strangled in his South African hotel room in 2014.

Former general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa , who co-founded the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) opposition party with Karegeya and lives in exile, has survived several assassination attempts.

乌干达警方称，在坎帕拉附近的一个村庄发现了一具男性尸体，但尚未找到其头部。

卢旺达基加利的景色。 [文件：美联社照片/Yuhi Irakiza]

据警方发言人称，一名流亡的卢旺达政府公开批评者在乌干达中南部城市坎帕拉附近被发现遭斩首，此案仍在调查中。

乌干达警方周一表示，他们正在调查一起“成年男子（约 50 岁）被谋杀的案件，该男子头部被砍下，但至今尚未找到头部”。发言人基图马·鲁索克告诉记者，并补充说，死者已被亲属确认为罗伯特·卡贝拉。

警方补充说，尸体在坎帕拉附近的卢瓦拉村被发现，谋杀案可能发生在 10 月 16 日晚或 10 月 17 日凌晨。

罗伯特·卡贝拉曾是一名军士，几年前逃离卢旺达，目前居住在乌干达。这位前士兵在服役期间并未批评政府，但后来却越来越反对卢旺达总统保罗·卡加梅。

卡贝拉在YouTube上有一个频道“Major Robert TV”，拥有14.4万订阅者。他发布了一首歌曲，赞扬反对派人物维克托瓦·英加比尔，她是卢旺达少有的异议人士，曾多次被监禁。

罗伯特的兄弟维克托·阿加巴告诉法新社，在乌干达，“罗伯特与任何人都没有矛盾”。

“我们的问题出在家里……军队捏造了一个刑事案件陷害他。这是一场政治迫害，”他说。

卡贝拉离开卢旺达后被宣布为逃犯，并被指控腐蚀未成年人，但他否认了这些指控。

卢旺达当局被指控暗杀卡加梅总统的反对者。卡加梅自 2000 年上台以来一直统治着卢旺达。这位卢旺达总统是在 1994 年种族灭绝事件后上台的，那场种族灭绝导致 80 万人丧生，其中大部分是少数族裔图西族人。

卢旺达总统保罗·卡加梅 [图片：Abdul Saboor/Pool Photo/AP]

卡贝拉并非第一个在流亡中被暗杀的反对派人士。

2021 年，卢旺达军队前中尉雷沃卡特·卡雷曼金戈在莫桑比克被枪杀，他被怀疑秘密支持反对派武装。

同年，直言不讳的反对派塞夫·班波里基在南非被枪杀；2014年，前卢旺达情报局长、后来的批评者帕特里克·卡雷格亚在南非的酒店房间里被勒死。

前将军福斯坦·卡尤姆巴·尼亚姆瓦萨与卡雷格亚共同创立了卢旺达全国大会（RNC）反对党，目前流亡海外，他曾多次遭遇暗杀未遂。