A review of Do Not Disturb – The Story of a Political
Murder and an African Regime Gone Bad by Michela Wrong, Public Affairs, NY,
2021.
The thrust of the book is to document how it all came to
happen. Author Wrong earned investigative journalism stars by interviewing
hundreds of Rwandans and Ugandans who were intimately connected to the story.
They praised the personality, the ebullience and intelligence of Karegeya and
detailed his slowly simmering disenchantment with the Tutsi regime that he
helped construct. Ultimately, Karegeya
fell victim to the type of extrajudicial killing that he himself had once
supervised. It was an ironic end.
Author Wrong digs deep into various personages involved,
especially focusing on current president Paul Kagame. He is portrayed as
cunning, vindictive, callous, and aloof. And he was like that from his youth.
As president he fed on suspicions and rumors and then ordered actions to demean,
imprison or kill his supposed adversaries. It is a troubling portrait of a man
with too much unbridled power.
In contrast to Kagame was Fred Rwigyema, the initial leader
of the Rwandan Patriotic Army who died during the first days of the invasion in
1990. Fred is portrayed as a uniter, a commander beloved by his troops. A
martyr to the Tutsi cause, in speculative retrospect Rwigyema would have been a
different type of president.
I found the history of how the various RPA stalwarts grew up
in Uganda and how they interacted with each other from an early age to be
instructive. Particularly pertinent was their various roles during their
adhesion to Museveni’s National Resistance Army and their relationships to
Ugandan heavyweights.
Author Wrong marshals her anti-Kagame denunciation with
statements from other once prominent Rwandans who too were chased away by
Kagame. Some like Hutu politician Seth
Sendashonga (and presumably Karegeya who organized an exiled political party) were
murdered because they posed a legitimate threat. Others, however, became disenchanted with the
direction Kagame was taking the nation, were associated with real dissenters or
just ran afoul of Kagame’s intolerance for views other than his own. The totality of the accusations reveals a
policy of carefully choreographed – but often inane - plots designed to kill
exiled opponents. It is a stinging
indictment of Kagame and of his ruling style.
Disclaimer. I was the U.S. Ambassador in Rwanda during the
early years of renewed Tutsi rule just after the genocide. I knew Patrick
Karegeya, then-Vice President Paul Kagame, and many of those whose stories and
comments also appear in the book. I understood at the time that Rwandans could
be duplicitous and that they valued an ability to obfuscate, for example
regarding Rwanda’s heavy handedness in quashing the northern insurgency or
involvement in neighboring Zaire (now Congo). Although during my time strains
were evident with regard to Hutu political personages and Tutsi survivors, the core
Rwandan Patriotic Army team appeared to be solid. They adhered unwaveringly to
the established party line. The sorts of
internal fallings-out that Michela Wrong reports did not reveal themselves
until later.
Patrick Karegeya was head of the External Security Service.
In that capacity I had dealings with him. He was most helpful on August 7, 1998
the day the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were blown up. We
in Kigali feared that we might too be on a terrorist list. In addition to a quick
response from the military to safeguard our premises, Patrick assured me that
no Al Qaeda operatives were in Rwanda.
Comment: This book is
quite critical of Paul Kagame in both a personal and policy sense. It is accurate,
at least in the sense that it sums up the experience of those who fell afoul of
the regime and were/are pursued for it. The indictment is overwhelming. As is
probably obvious (and footnoted), many comments were made anonymously. Such information strengthens the argument,
but anonymity undermines it at the same time. I am not sure what the other side of the coin is
but would urge readers to reflect that there might be one.
Error: In the chapter
on genocide, Wrong writes that “French, Belgian and American nationals were
airlifted to safety…” True most French and Belgians flew out, but the Americans
left via an overland convoy to Burundi.
Omission: I am sorry that Author Wrong did not consult my
book In the Aftermath of Genocide – The U.S. Role in Rwanda. There are
several tidbits in there such as the saga of how Rwigyema’s assignment to the
U.S. Command General Staff College was swapped to Kagame or more on how ADFL
leader Laurent Kabila came to U.S. attention.
Final comment: State ordered extrajudicial killings have
become all too common, viz in addition to Rwanda, add Saudi Arabia, Russia,
Israel and unfortunately the United States.
Aside from highlighting the issue, what can be done to halt the
practice?
