This ESPN Report Questions the Extensive Relationship Between the NBA and Rwanda’s Paul Kagame

Earlier this month, Kagame unsurprisingly won his fourth consecutive presidential election, with just over 99 percent of the vote. Already in power for 24 years, this win sets Kagame on the path to being in office till 2034, after a constitution change allowed him to run for a third seven-year term in 2017 and made him eligible for two more five-year terms. As the man widely credited with ending the horror that was the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Kagame is beloved by many in his country, but critics say he’s clinging on to power with very little regard for the rule of law.

“We have an authoritarian regime,” opposition leader Victoire Ingabire pointedly says in her interview with Fainaru-Wada. A vocal critic of Kagame, Ingabire was arrested and imprisoned on charges of terrorism, which she says were politically motivated, as she was rallying a strong opposition party. Ingabire was sentenced to 15 years in prison. She spent eight years in prison, five of which were in solitary confinement, and was eventually given a presidential pardon.

Internationally, Rwanda’s human rights perception under Kagame is far from being covered in glory. In the ESPN report, Fainaru-Wada cites that the U.S. State Department has published human rights reports every year since Kagame became president, and have alleged suppression of press freedoms, torture of civilians and other accusations. This leads to ESPN questioning why the NBA, “perhaps the most progressive league in sports,” is in business with “an African dictator.”

Earlier this year, Burundi’s Dynamo Basketball Club were kicked out of BAL for taping over the “Visit Rwanda” inscription on their jerseys, due to an ongoing political tussle between Rwanda, Congo and Burundi. The situation sharpened the allegations that Kagame and the Rwandan administration are in cahoots with rebel groups terrorizing its neighbors.

ESPN’s report lays out the history of the NBA’s relationship with Kagame, and situates it within the league’s social justice activism. However, as NBA Deputy Commissioner Mark Tatum repeatedly tells Fainaru-Wada that he condemns all forms of human rights violations everywhere, it’s clear that the league’s stance is that it’s up to the U.S. State Department to deal with these allegations. The NBA is clearly protecting its interests and that includes keeping its cordial relationship with Kagame going.

“I think [the Rwandan authorities would] just kick them out,” former U.S. diplomat Elizabeth Shackleford says, believing that the NBA and its growing Africa league will have to find a new home and primary sponsor if any criticism comes for the regime came from the NBA.

“President Kagame ruthlessly represses any opposition, any civil society movements that want better for their country. Anyone who tries to burnish that image and participates in a project that helps him look good is in some ways complicit in the harms that does to the Rwandan people,” she says.

However, the online reactions to ESPN’s report by several Rwandans has been anything but agreeable. A cursory scroll through the comment section of the video’s YouTube page shows that they feel it’s another Western-led smear campaign on their long-term leader.

It echoes Kagame’s consistent reproval of non-Rwanda critics, especially those who believe the East African country isn’t a true democracy as he continues to be reelected. “Democracy is about freedom of choice,” he said in an interview earlier this year. “They say you have been there too long, but that is none of their business... Rwandans are the ones to make those choices. They have the freedom to do it. But you find that in most cases, the complaints are from outside. These are double standards; it’s even arrogance.”

Unless something drastic happens, the relationship between the NBA and Kagame will continue to remain intact, and the final stage of the Basketball Africa League will continue to be played in the BK Arena in Kigali, until 2028 at the least.