James Kaberebe, the powerful Rwandan Minister of State for Regional Integration, was recently sanctioned by Trump.
The US Department of the Treasury accuses Kaberebe of being the liaison officer between the Rwandan Defence Force and rebel groups operating in the Congo, especially the M23.
The department alleges that Kaberebe oversees the thievery and the smuggling of DRC’s minerals to generate revenue, which he then uses to manage M23’s activities on behalf of Kagame.
Kaberebe has been Kagame’s hachetman and right-hand man for many years. Born in Ibanda in Western Uganda in 1959 to ethnic Tutsi refugees,he attended Makerere University, where he received a BA in Economics and Political Science from Makerere.
He was a member of Museveni’s guerrilla army, the NRA, that overthrew Obote from power. Together with Paul Kagame and a Kenyan called John Odongo, they specialised in intelligence gathering. All three were absorbed in the Ugandan Army after Obote’s government fell.
As Kagame assumed a senior position in the Ugandan Army after the coup, he appointed Kaberebe as his personal assistant. Later, when Rwigyema, Kagame, and other Rwandese decided to form Rwandan Patriotic Front to invade Rwanda and liberate it, they entrusted Kabarebe with commanding the high command unit at Mulindi. Their friend and comrade “Brigadier” John Odongo also moved with them to Rwanda.
Kagame later became vice president in the post-genocide Rwandan government, while the Rwandan Patriotic Front became the Rwandan Patriotic Army (national army).
Kaberebe would later cross over to Zaire now, DRC, where he became the chief stratetigist of Laurent Kabila, the Congolese rebel leader who had waged a rebellion against Mobutu Seseko In fact, he played a great role in the capture of Kinshasa and the eventual overthrow of Mobutu.
For this reason, when Kabila ascended to the presidency in 1997 after the coup, he appointed Kaberebe Chief of Staff of the Congolese National Army. He was, however, dismissed the following year after Kabila discovered that he was the strategist of a plot by Uganda and Rwanda to overthrow him. Following his dismissal, Kaberebe retreated to Eastern DRC, where he organised a force of Banyamulenge and Banyarwanda to launch an assault on Kabila’s government. He almost succeeded, had it not been for the intervention of Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Angola.
He later returned to Rwanda, where he was appointed Chief of Staff of the Rwandan Defence Forces by Paul Kagame, who had assumed the presidency of that country. In essence, Kaberebe fought three wars in the Great Lakes Region that brought to power three rebel leaders in three countries.
He has also served as minister for Defence and remains one of Kagame’s most trusted lieutenants serving him with great loyalty. One commentator recently said if you want to know what Kagame thinks, listen to what comes out of Kabarebe’s mouth.
In 2014, when Rwanda’s ex-intelligence chief Patrick Karegeya was assassinated in South Africa in 2014, 6 showing any emotion, remarked, “When you choose to be a dog, you die like a dog.” Both Karegeya and Kabarebe had served alongside each other.
This is not the first time Kabarebe’s name is being mentioned in relation to M23 activities. In 2012, a UN report accused Kabarebe of backing the M23 and plundering Congo’s minerals.
