Kabuga’s PR machinery successfully dupes the media

Recently during the lunch time news on a cool Arusha Saturday morning, the anchorman, after the usual blur about headlines, cleared his voice and said, “the most wanted criminal by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, Felcien Kabuga, was last night arrested by police authorities in Nairobi Kenya.” I have forgotten what else the newsman added, but the next thing my memory recorded is that I hopped in a cab - a rare treat in - to the nearest internet cafe. The story had circulated to all the international news organidations not least of all BBC. I was lost between envy, (against the BBC online) and the feeling of gratification - known to a great extent only by teachers - that I had been part of a process to bring good in society - not necessarily justice. Immediately I picked up my notes and went to the nearest quiet garden and filed a story for my paper but the good old editors never published it. And they never offered an explanation why. I was bitter. When I reported to work on Sunday, the story had variably changed versions, some versions making me doubt whether I had actually listened carefully to the news the previous day. It turned out that Kabuga was not actually arrested but Kenyan Police had detained a man who resembled the international fugitive. The man had resembled Kabuga by virtue of the clothes he chose to wear that day. Mixed with a few jibes about DNA tests, the Kenyan Police announced to the media albeit in subtle ways that they had arrested Kabuga - a millionaire Rwandan genocide reportedly living large in Nairobi. Nobody at the ICTR was willing to talk about the alleged arrest, but this was not unusual as the ICTR has a strict SILENCE policy that boarders on radical! So as I nursed by bruised ego late in the evening, it dawned on me that a story of that nature involving Kabuga was not unusual, the plot changed dates and names but the script remained familiar. Kabuga, a wealthy businessman and close family man of Juvenal Habyarimana was so determined to eliminate the entire Tutsi lineage that not only did he finance the extremist FM radio station RTLM, he also furnished the Interahamwe with the notorious machetes purchased in China and imported through Egypt. Back to the arrest, it turns out that such stories are carefully planted in the media by his public relations machinery to confuse further the already confused team of the ICTR’s prosecutor’s office. Kabuga’s people are apparently very clever, and they have to be because he is a rich man. When their man has not appeared in the news for sometime, they create a pseudo event, personality or something crafty such that his name is mentioned. When it is mentioned, Kabuga’s hiding machine learns about the progress in his case and the mandate of the ICTR. On top of top notch PR and security firms working for him, Kabuga is reportedly doing very well commercially in Kenya where he banks revenue from several estate investments throughout East Africa’s largest economy. The nature of free market economy is that as long as something is not a threat to the security of a nation, then there’s no problem with it, even if it is genocide. Therefore, while Paul Kagame and his cohorts in the RPF were fighting tooth and nails to get rid of a genocidal regime, South Africa, China and Egypt saw nothing wrong with it. They continued business as usual. Today, as the ‘international community’ seeks justice for the million Rwandans killed in the Genocide, Kenya sees nothing wrong with him as long as he invests in the country. Until another story appears concerning this time a man with ‘critical information’ in the pursuit of Kabuga and the media duped again the game between Kenya, ICTR and Kabuga will continue. So Kabuga and his comics survive one more time, justice is eluded and people are fooled. What the fugitive will not dodge however is his old age, the blind and timeless revenge machine! Ends