A Rwandan Critic Brutally Murdered in Uganda — the Exiled Sergeant Major Robert Kabera Is the Latest Victim

Reports circulating today state that Sergeant Major Robert Kabera was killed in Kamengo, Uganda. His body was found at a construction site where he had been building a house. According to multiple accounts, he was decapitated; the head was missing. Some reports add further mutilation.

Kabera was last officially mentioned by the Rwanda Defence Force on 23 November 2020. That day the RDF announced he had abandoned his duties and was a “fugitive.” He had crossed into Uganda days earlier. Once there he became an open critic of Paul Kagame’s government and its human-rights record. He also worked as a musician under the name Sergeant Robert.

Six years later he is dead in the country that granted him refuge.

Two facts about Kabera make this killing even more revealing.

First, he was a close relative of the late Fred Rwigema, the founding commander of the Rwanda Patriotic Front. Kagame has spent decades trying to erase Rwigema from Rwandan history. Kabera himself explained the danger this connection brought: “I am in Uganda seeking refuge from those who are after my life. Anyone in Rwanda who interacts with the Rwigyema family is considered by Kagame as an enemy of the state.”

Second, Kabera was an admirer of the late music icon Kizito Mihigo, who died in a Rwandan prison after years of human-rights advocacy through song. Like Mihigo, Kabera used music to promote human rights and unity among Rwandans — a choice that placed him firmly in the line of fire.

This is not an isolated incident. For three decades, Rwandan critics who fled to Uganda have faced a grim pattern: unexplained deaths, disappearances, forced returns that violate refugee protections, and killings that bear the hallmarks of extrajudicial operations. The 2014 murder of former intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya in a Johannesburg hotel is only the best-known case. Kabera’s death fits the same sequence.

We demand immediate confirmation of the facts by Ugandan authorities. We demand a transparent, independent investigation capable of establishing how Sergeant Major Kabera died, who ordered it, and who carried it out. Those responsible must be identified and held accountable. Silence or a cursory police statement will only deepen the suspicion that exile remains a death sentence for Rwandans who refuse to stay quiet.

The international community, the African Union, UNHCR, and human-rights organisations cannot treat this as another distant African tragedy. Kabera reported threats years ago. He sought protection. He was still murdered. That failure must be examined, and the pattern of transnational repression must be confronted.