Kagame Vanished. Rwanda On Autopilot. Now What? Kagame’s Regime Will Likely Front Kaberuka To Save Itself

General Paul Kagame, the Rwandan Ironman, has mysteriously disappeared. Rwanda is now operating in a state of limbo. The question remains: what course of action should be taken? As Rwanda continues to function without a leader, one certainty is evident: General Kagame will likely turn to Donald Kaberuka, the individual who has consistently provided credibility to his regime amidst an unprecedented scale of theft and looting. Don't be surprised if Kagame engineers a coup against himself as a cover to plant Kaberuka as head of state.

As Kagame disappears, all eyes turn to Kaberuka—the regime’s trusted operator.

There can be no question that Kaberuka served Kagame in different and vital capacities in and outside Rwanda. To begin with, as a member of the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), the ruling party led by Kagame for the past 30 years, Kaberuka is also a member of RPF’s politburo, the principal policymaking committee of the party. But there is much more.

Kaberuka was Kagame’s finance minister from 1997 to 2005, when Kagame sponsored him to head the African Development Bank from 2005 to 2015.

As finance minister from 1997–2005 when Rwanda invaded and occupied DR Congo, Kaberuka was directly responsible for concealing the looted resources from that country. It was his job to ensure that the IMF and the World Bank would not even suspect of Rwanda to be laundering stolen wealth from Congo.

Kaberuka was also deeply involved in the looting Rwanda Social Security Funds by RPF’s investment arm, the US$1 billion Crystal Ventures Ltd (CVL) that is now the largest investment group in Rwanda. Almost all CVL companies were established using Rwanda’s pension.

Under Kaberuka’s leadership and oversight of financial institutions, Rwanda looted and channelled millions of dollars from DR Congo via what was known as RPF’s Congo Desk. It was Kaberuka’s job as finance minister to camouflage the loot.

Kaberuka is associated with another unflattering chapter of the Kagame regime’s illegal accumulation of wealth. According to the World Bank’s “Elite Capture of Foreign Aid study, Rwanda siphoned off US$190 million of foreign aid to offshore accounts. Kaberuka who was finance from 1997 to 2005 when most of this foreign aid was stolen has a case to answer. To put it bluntly, Kaberuka and Kagame are inseparable – they are closely connected politically, financially, and in concealing illegal transactions from the scrutiny of international organizations.

After serving as the President of African Development Bank, Kaberuka rejoined Kagame via his newly established SouthBridge in 2019. With offices in Kigali, Rwanda, in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, and in Paris, France, SouthBridge describes its purpose as a “full-service pan-African financial solutions and advisory services for public and private clients across Africa.” It is also revealing that John Birungi is SouthBridge’s managing director in Rwanda. As in the case of Kaberuka, Birungi is Kagame’s money man. Birungi is the former chief executive officer of Crystal Ventures Ltd.

One of the tasks Kagame assigned to Kaberuka was to buy influence of the top politicians in Western countries that gave Rwanda significant foreign aid. The most spectacular case involved Andrew Mitchell, a British member of Parliament and former foreign aid minister.

I had over the years suspected that Andrew Mitchell, the Member of the UK Parliament for Sutton Coldfield, benefits financially for his fierce defence of the Rwandan strongman, General Paul Kagame. Mitchell even outperforms Rwandan ambassadors in propagandizing Kagame’s causes, seemingly without fully comprehending the extent to which he is cynically being used to whitewash Kagame’s atrocities. It turns out that Mitchell is making a small fortune in Rwanda from Kagame’s long-serving right-hand man, Donald Kaberuka.

The UK House of Commons’ Register of Members’ Financial Interests shows that Kaberuka’s SouthBridge Goup pays Mitchell £39,600 or US$55,802 annually, “in return for a commitment of 9 days a year” since March 9, 2020.

Mitchell’s official title for his Rwandan assignment is Senior Advisor on African matters. Interestingly, shortly after the contract was signed, Mitchell launched in the UK parliament the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Rwanda which actively advocates for Rwanda. It is inconceivable that the generous remuneration Mitchell earns from Kaberuka’s outfit is unrelated to the propaganda work Mitchell performs for Kagame.

General Paul Kagame, the Rwandan Ironman, has mysteriously disappeared. Rwanda is now operating in a state of limbo. The question remains: what course of action should be taken? As Rwanda continues to function without a leader, one certainty is evident: General Kagame will likely turn to Donald Kaberuka, the individual who has consistently provided credibility to his regime amidst an unprecedented scale of theft and looting. Don't be surprised if Kagame makes Kaberuka the new president of Rwanda behind the scenes.