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On New Year’s Day 2014, Patrick Karegeya, once a top Rwandan intelligence official, was found dead in Room 905 of the up-market Michelangelo Towers hotel, in Johannesburg, South Africa. According to the police report, Karegeya’s neck was swollen, and a rope and a bloody towel were found in the hotel room’s safe, indicating that he had been strangled. As news of his murder spread, fingers pointed immediately to his childhood friend and former boss Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Karegeya had fallen out with Kagame and fled to South Africa, where he had helped start an opposition party in exile. Kagame denied any involvement in Karegeya’s killing, but several days later, at a national prayer breakfast in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital, he hinted that he wasn’t bothered by the assassination. “Whoever is against our country will not escape our wrath,” he said. “The person will face consequences. Even those who are still alive they will face
Do Not Disturb” said the sign outside Room 905 of Johannesburg’s Michelangelo Towers hotel on 1 January 2014. When the police finally broke in they found the garrotted body of Patrick Kare-geya, Rwanda’s former head of external security, on the bed. Karegeya had fallen out with the regime he had helped create, and was murdered by a Rwandan hit squad as he helped build an opposition movement in exile.
“Do Not Disturb” is also the sign that has been metaphorically hung on the narrative that Paul Kagame’s Rwandan regime has so assiduously cultivated over the past quarter century – namely that a heroic band of warriors led by Kagame swept in from Uganda to halt the Hutus’ genocide against their fellow Tutsis in 1994, then built a prosperous and harmonious new country on the ruins of the old one.
Do Not Disturb” said the sign outside Room 905 of Johannesburg’s Michelangelo Towers hotel on 1 January 2014. When the police finally broke in they found the garrotted body of Patrick Kare-geya, Rwanda’s former head of external security, on the bed. Karegeya had fallen out with the regime he had helped create, and was murdered by a Rwandan hit squad as he helped build an opposition movement in exile. “Do Not Disturb” is also the sign that has been metaphorically hung on the narrative that Paul Kagame’s Rwandan regime has so assiduously cultivated over the past quarter century – namely that a heroic band of warriors led by Kagame swept in from Uganda to halt the Hutus’ genocide against their fellow Tutsis in 1994, then built a prosperous and harmonious new country on the ruins of the old one.
New book shows a very different side to Rwanda s Paul Kagame parisguardian.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from parisguardian.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
On 6 April 1994, exactly 27 years ago, a Falcon jet carrying Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and his Burundian counterpart, Cyprien Ntaryamira, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile as it was landing at Kigali International Airport. This was the trigger for one of the most violent and brutal episodes in African history, the Rwandan genocide, in which up to a million people the overwhelming majority of them Tutsis were slaughtered in just three months.
This story has been told in news reports (after the international press was initially caught flat-footed); in the accounts of survivors and witnesses; in almost 15 years of testimony at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania; and in dozens of books and movies including