Rwandan authorities have been accused of assassinating opponents of President Paul Kagame, who has ruled the country with an iron fist since taking power in the aftermath of the 1994 genocide that claimed 800,000 lives, primarily among the Tutsi community.
Robert Kabera, a former sergeant who fled Rwanda several years ago, was not outspoken during his time in the military but grew increasingly opposed to Kagame.
His YouTube channel, “Major Robert TV”, which has 144,000 subscribers, included a song praising opposition figure Victoire Ingabire, a rare voice of dissent in Rwanda, who has been repeatedly imprisoned.
Ugandan police said 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 on Monday, adding that the body had been identified by relatives as Robert Kabera.
The body was found in Luwala, a village near Kampala, and the murder likely took place late on October 16 or early 17, he added.
In Uganda, “Robert had no issues with anyone,” his brother, Victor Agaba, told AFP.
“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 he was accused of corrupting a minor, which he denied.
He is not the first opposition figure in exile to be assassinated.
In 2021, a former lieutenant in the Rwandan army, Revocant Karemangingo, was shot dead in Mozambique, where he was suspected of secretly supporting an opposition force.
Outspoken opponent Seif Bamporiki was gunned down 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.
Another exile, former general Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa, who co-founded the Rwanda National Congress (RNC) opposition party with Karegeya, has survived several assassination attempts.
