NBA’s Blood Money Partnership with Kagame: American Senators Finally Call Out the Sportswashing

Two U.S. senators have done what the National Basketball Association refuses to do: look the Kagame regime in the face and name the blood on its hands.

In a letter sent Friday to Commissioner Adam Silver, Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) told the NBA it is “increasingly alarmed by the NBA’s deepening relationship with Rwanda” and that the league “risks becoming complicit in sportswashing.” They called the partnership “contrary to the spirit of American sports.” 

They are right. And they are late. But at least someone in Washington is no longer pretending the shiny BK Arena in Kigali was built with clean hands.

Paul Kagame has ruled Rwanda since 1994. His government has been accused by the United States, the United Kingdom, and multiple human rights organizations of systematic repression: imprisonment, torture, and murder of political opponents; transnational repression that reaches critics living abroad; and active support for the M23 rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo — a group the senators note has “summarily executed hundreds of civilians, committed mass rape, recruited child soldiers, and tortured civilians.” 

Rwanda has deployed thousands of its own troops into the conflict. 

This is not ancient history. Just last week, Robert Kabera, a former Rwandan soldier who fled the country in 2020 and became an outspoken critic of Kagame, was found beheaded in Uganda. 

Human Rights Watch had previously warned he was in danger. His head was still missing when the body was discovered. Rights groups have demanded a proper investigation into what looks like another extraterritorial hit. 

This is the regime the NBA has spent years courting. Rwanda built a 10,000-seat arena in Kigali that became central to the Basketball Africa League. Kagame has been welcomed at NBA events, including the All-Star Game. The league takes millions annually from the relationship. Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum has praised Kigali. The Clippers have worn “Visit Rwanda” branding. The NBA talks about social justice at home while treating a man accused of running a police state and fueling a regional war as a valued partner. 

Merkley and Blackburn first raised these concerns two years ago after an ESPN investigation exposed the depth of the embrace. The NBA did not change course. It doubled down. Only after U.S. policy shifted — including sanctions that forced a Rwandan military-linked team out of the BAL — did the senators return with a sharper letter demanding answers, including the basic question: What is the NBA’s red line for taking money from governments that commit human rights abuses? 

The NBA’s response so far has been bureaucratic: “We received the letter on Friday and are in the process of responding to it.” No moral clarity. No acknowledgment that critics of this regime keep turning up dead. Just process.

Sportswashing is not subtle. It is the deliberate use of arenas, jerseys, and celebrity proximity to launder the image of a government that silences dissent with prisons, exile, and, when necessary, a blade. The NBA knows exactly what it is doing. It calculated that the African market and the photo ops were worth the association with a regime whose methods are well documented.

Special thanks to Senators Jeff Merkley and Marsha Blackburn for refusing to look away. Their letter is a public record that the NBA can no longer claim ignorance. The rest of us should stop pretending that basketball in Kigali exists in a vacuum. The scoreboard is not the only thing that matters. Bodies do.