Tribert Rujugiro's terror, illicit trade links exposed

Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa

Fugitive Rwandan businessman Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, chief financier of a terrorist group -  Rwanda National Congress (RNC) - that declared war on Rwanda’s legitimate government, features in a new report revealing how illicit trade in east Africa finances extremism, funds criminal enterprises and breeds corruption, while threatening economic and social structures and leeching vital resources.

Led by South Africa-based renegade Kayumba Nyamwasa, the RNC is a terror organisation behind the spate of grenade attacks that killed people in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, between 2010 and 2013. Rujugiro, a fraudulent businessman who never liked paying tax, left Rwanda in 2010 after having issues just because his methods were not compatible with the country's anti-corruption ethics.

East Africa’s war against extremism, crime and corruption, as noted in the report, is inextricably linked to the menace of illicit trade. Tobacco, a major cash crop in East Africa and one of the most important categories of illicit trade in the region, receives in-depth treatment in the report: "An Unholy Alliance: Links between Extremism and Illicit Trade in East Africa."

Worldwide, the report notes, a host of extremist groups have and continue to profit from illegal tobacco. The same picture also emerges in East Africa and its surrounding regions, where illicit tobacco has been found to fund extremist groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), while also financing corrupt practices throughout the region, the report says.

As noted, the Forces Armées du Peuple Congolais (FAPC), a rebel group operating in the Ituri region of the DRC between 2003-2005, was part funded by an extensive illicit trade network based around cigarettes as well as sugar, petrol and gold.

At the heart of this enterprise was a pipeline of ‘Supermatch’ cigarettes, produced by Mastermind Tobacco Kenya and brought into the DRC by a network of Ugandan and Congolese businessmen who enjoyed privileged arrangements with the FAPC, including avoidance of customs protocols and a monopoly of sales in the region controlled by the rebel group.

A UN Security Council Group of Experts report published in December 2008 identified Rujugiro, founder of the PanAfrican Tobacco Group (PTG), as a major financier of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), a militia group that waged a brutal insurgency against the Congolese government forces between 2006-2009.

As controlling shareholder of PTG, Africa’s largest indigenous manufacturer of tobacco products, Rujugiro’s tobacco portfolio involves interests throughout East Africa, including in Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, as well as the D.R.C., South Sudan and elsewhere, reads the report.

Rujugiro, who pleaded guilty to tax evasion before a South African court in 2009, is also accused of "funding rebel groups in Rwanda." In Uganda, Rujugiro is joint owner of a tobacco factory together with President Yoweri Museveni’s young brother Caleb Akandwanaho, or Salim Saleh, who was given 15% shares in the company and agreed to protect Rujugiro’s assets in Uganda.

It is reported that research conducted in 2011 suggested that Uganda’s illicit market share for tobacco products stood as high as 20%, or 300-400 million illegal cigarettes. "As well as funding criminal and extremist groups, illegal tobacco also deprives government services of excise tax revenues."

In East Africa, illicit tobacco is believed to cost governments $100 million in taxes every year. Rujugiro’s firm in Uganda is a front for the RNC, and the regime in Kampala, in their mutual goal to destabilize Rwanda. A December 2018 UN report links Rujugiro with the Kayumba Nyamwasa-led P5, RNC and FDLR, and their links to the regimes in Uganda and Burundi is only the most recent revelation.

The RNC, a terror group with bases in DRC and Uganda, was created by Rwandan dissidents in 2010 to violently overthrow the Rwandan government. In the years since the 2008 report, it is reported, "Rujugiro’s subsidiaries and associates have continued to be linked to illicit activity throughout the region."

In 2012, Mastermind Tobacco Kenya launched a lawsuit against Leaf Tobacco and Commodities (LTC), a subsidiary of PTG, accusing the Rujugiro-owned company of counterfeiting its flagship brand, Supermatch, and selling it cheaply on the Kenyan market.

A further midterm report of another UN Group of Experts published in December 2018 accused the Rwanda National Congress (RNC), which Rujugiro has been accused of financing, of fomenting instability in the DRC.

Relations between Rwanda and Uganda soured after it became clear, in 2017, that the latter was supporting terrorist groups such as RNC. Uganda continues to support their recruitment of fighters especially by arresting Rwandans travelling to Uganda and coercing them to join the armed militia intent on waging war on Rwanda. The harassment of Rwandans by agents of Uganda's Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence (CMI) - working in cahoots with RNC operatives - continues today.

Recommendations in the report centre on a five-point plan for a safer, wealthier and more stable East Africa that urges governments to: treat crime, corruption, extremism and illicit trade as equal evils threatening national security; adopt comprehensive multi-category anti-illicit trade strategies; and foster regional cooperation and enlist international support to fight illicit trade.

The report also recommends targeting law enforcement interventions to deter illicit trade and catch the perpetrators; and introducing surveillance tools to enforce manufacturing and market regulations to prevent the production and free circulation of illegal products.