Democratic Republic of Congo foreign minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said on Friday that she had written to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver “urging him to end his league’s ties with Rwanda” due to its “support for rebels in the east,” according to Plotkin & Noble of the FINANCIAL TIMES. Wagner has also written to F1 about a “Rwandan bid to host a Grand Prix,” and to Premier League club Arsenal, Ligue 1 club Paris Saint-Germain and Bundesliga club Bayern Munich, “calling on them to end their sponsorship deals with Visit Rwanda.” The DRC is “targeting Rwanda’s international sporting ties” in a bid to “raise diplomatic pressure over its neighbour’s support for rebels in the east of the huge central African country.” Rwanda, which has “built close ties” with western countries since the 1994 genocide in which up to 1 million Tutsis and Hutu sympathizers were killed, has made sport “a key focus of an international soft power campaign.” But its sporting partnerships have “come under increased scrutiny after a major offensive” by Rwanda-backed rebel group M23, which “claims to protect ethnic Tutsis in eastern DR Congo” (FINANCIAL TIMES, 2/14).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST: ESPN.com’s Mark Fainaru-Wada noted Wagner asked in the letter whether the NBA “was aware that Rwanda’s actions have left ‘thousands trapped in Goma without access to food, water, or security.’” Central to the conflict in the DRC are “vast amounts of valuable minerals used to make smartphones, laptop computers, electric vehicles” and “many more electronic staples.” The United Nations and DRC have accused Rwanda of backing the M23 to “steal minerals” and “seize control of mines in the Congo.” Wagner in her letter to Silver asked, “How certain are you that blood mineral cash is not being used to fund the sponsorships for the [Basketball Africa League]?” (ESPN.com, 2/14).
