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The NBA's Other Human Rights Quagmire
The league must rethink its commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.”
May 10, 2026
As an iconic sports league with a deep historic commitment to social justice, two of the National Basketball Association’s commercial branding relationships contradict the league’s values.
Questions are being raised about the branding deal the NBA struck with the United Arab Emirates, ignoring the killer drones and other support it is sending to a militia which the United Nations found to be committing genocide in Sudan.
Much less critical attention has been paid to the NBA’s commercial partnership with Rwanda, whose army and senior officials the US government recently sanctioned for backing a deadly armed group that is committing “horrific human rights abuses.” Rwanda has been a central partner in the Basketball Africa League (BAL), the NBA’s first professional basketball league outside North America. The Rwandan government pays the NBA between $6 million and $7 million annually to be a sponsor and to host some of the BAL playoffs. And Rwanda’s national airline is the official travel partner for the BAL.
The Los Angeles Clippers signed their own sponsorship deal with Rwanda last year. “Visit Rwanda” is their official jersey patch sponsor, so it appears on all uniforms. There is “Visit Rwanda” branding in the Clippers’ arena, and it is the official coffee sponsor for the team.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world?
The uncomfortable truth for the NBA and the Clippers is that Rwanda invaded eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2022 and dramatically escalated its invasion last year, deploying up to 12,000 troops and backing a very violent proxy rebel group known as the M23. Under Rwandan command and control, the M23 has committed extensive human rights abuses, including mass killings targeted at certain ethnic groups, torture, and forced deportations. Over 5 million people in DRC are now displaced from their homes due to the conflict, and 10 million people are now at risk of starvation, as M23 “has driven farmers from their land… and blocked food imports.”
NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum responded to a bipartisan letter from US senators in September 2024, "If American policies were to change regarding business activities in and relating to Rwanda or any other BAL market, our actions would, of course, change accordingly."
Therein lies the rub. US policy on Rwanda has changed suddenly and significantly over the last two months, with major implications for the NBA’s close involvement with Rwanda. Just days following the signing of a peace accord between Rwanda and DRC brokered by the US and overseen by President Donald Trump last December, Rwanda and its proxy force launched a new, bloody offensive that left 200,000 more civilians displaced. Instead of pulling back to make peace, Rwanda doubled down on war right after telling the White House it would do the opposite.
The breach of the peace agreement has since led to a major shift in long-standing US policy on Rwanda. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated in December that “Rwanda’s actions are… a clear violation of the Washington Accords…, and the United States will take action to ensure promises made to the President are kept.” US Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz then argued that “Rwanda is leading the region… toward more war.”
The US government has followed up with a series of actions, including placing sanctions on the entire Rwandan army, visa restrictions on senior Rwandan officials, suspending a US-Rwanda health agreement, and canceling an investment conference and negotiations with Rwanda over a new development finance project.
M23 forces continue to occupy nearly all strategic areas of eastern DRC, Rwanda maintains 7,000 troops there, and the conflict is deepening. Notably, the DRC government is also responsible for many human rights abuses, and it must halt its partnerships with deadly armed groups.
Rwanda is also profiting from the deadly trade in illicit gold and other minerals from eastern DRC, minerals that provide fuel for the conflict. Rwanda-backed M23 occupies key gold and critical minerals mines and exports the minerals to Rwanda. Despite having no major domestic gold mines, Rwanda is estimated to have skyrocketed its gold exports to $2 billion in 2025, a more than five-fold increase from four years ago. Ironically, most of their smuggled gold exports go to the UAE, the other major NBA partner.
Because of Rwanda’s heinous behavior in eastern DRC, several major sports teams have recently halted their partnerships with the Rwandan government following campaigns from human rights groups. The English soccer club Arsenal ended its commercial branding deal with Rwanda following a campaign by the group Gunners for Peace, as did German soccer giant Bayern Munich.
The NBA’s main defense of its commercial partnership with Rwanda has been that its dealings have been consistent with US policy. That policy has now changed in response to Rwanda’s unwillingness to end its greed-fueled military intervention in DRC.
The NBA and the Clippers have some uncomfortable decisions to make. Should they continue to accept money from a government that is in large part responsible for one of the largest humanitarian emergencies in the world? Should they continue to be part of Rwanda’s strategy of “sportswashing” its image? Can they follow in the footsteps of Arsenal and Bayern Munich and drop Rwanda’s commercial branding sponsorship? These questions won’t garner the same attention as gambling players and tanking teams, but the stakes for millions of Congolese lives couldn’t be greater.
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The Peace Deal That Wasn’t
Trump’s Congo-Rwanda Peace Accord is an affront to Congolese human rights and sovereignty.
Aug 03, 2025
After the signing of the so-called peace agreement between Rwanda and Congo on June 27, U.S. President Donald Trump took a victory lap. “This is a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World! I won’t get a Nobel Peace Prize for this... but the people know, and that’s all that matters to me!” he posted. The agreement, heralded as a breakthrough ending more than three decades of violence in Congo, was quickly praised by powerful institutions in the West, including the United Nations and the European Union.
There’s no question that peace in Congo is a desperately needed goal. Since 1996, war in the country has killed nearly 6 million people and displaced over 7 million. More than 21 million require humanitarian assistance, and in 2023 alone, the U.N. recorded over 133,000 cases of sexual violence, almost certainly a significant undercount.
However, while world leaders and celebratory headlines applaud the deal, violence continues to rage in the eastern Congo. The deal will not end this suffering; instead, it prioritizes Western private interests over peace, justice, and dignity for the Congolese people, serving as a blueprint for resource extraction and continued violence in the country rather than a true diplomatic success.
The deal, while ostensibly aimed at ending hostilities, places a heavy emphasis on mineral exploitation, leading Congolese civil society to question its true purpose. Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Denis Mukwege has denounced it for “legitimizing the plundering of Congolese natural resources,” a concern supported by the agreement’s inclusion of a clause committing signatories to “launch and/or expand cooperation on… formalized end-to-end mineral value chains… with the U.S. government and U.S. investors.” Upon the release of the Declaration of Principles that laid the deal’s foundations, the International Crisis Group noted that the deal reads “partly like a framework for ending a conflict and partly like a commercial memorandum.”
The False Promise of Peace
It is highly unlikely that the deal will bring a just and lasting peace to Congo. Though a potential cease-fire was announced between the Congo government and M23, the conflict’s largest rebel group, experts say that M23 has already broken the agreement while serious implementation challenges remain. M23 has left withdrawal—and, thus, a true and lasting end to the conflict—out of the question, telling reporters they “will not retreat, not even by one meter.” Meanwhile, over 100 other armed groups continue to fight in the east. On July 23, the U.N. condemned three recent deadly attacks by groups not party to the agreement.
More troublingly, the deal grants Rwanda a green light to continue looting Congolese resources, furthering a central driver of the conflict. By backing M23, Rwanda has taken control of Congolese mines, and committed widespread human rights abuses. Up to 90% of its coltan exports are believed to be illicitly smuggled from eastern Congo, funding armed groups. The accord, which invites Rwanda into a “regional economic integration framework,” legitimizes this theft and proxy warfare.
Rwandan President Paul Kagame doesn’t seem ready to scale back this influence. Just days after the agreement was signed, he cast doubt on the peace process, telling reporters, “If the side that we are working with plays tricks... then we deal with the problem like we have been dealing with it.”
Who Does the Deal Really Benefit?
Today, the Congolese people endure violence not only from armed conflict but also from systemic exploitation, through forced labor, environmental destruction, and land seizures. The scramble for Congo’s mineral wealth has forced tens of thousands of children into dangerous mines, polluted and devastated ecosystems, and displaced entire communities from their homes.
A recent policy brief by the Oakland Institute lays bare how, through handing over Congolese mineral wealth to a web of U.S.-aligned corporate actors and billionaire investors, Trump’s peace deal will deepen the ravages of the country’s mining industry, leaving the Congolese people to pay the price.
The list of the deal’s likely beneficiaries is a veritable who’s-who of Trump-linked billionaires: Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Marc Andreessen, and Ben Horowitz, among others. Also on it are mining giants like Ivanhoe Mines, Rio Tinto, and Glencore.
The accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
The track records of these companies undermine any claim that Trump’s deal is about peace for the Congolese people. Ivanhoe Mines’s cochair Robert Friedland once ran Galactic Resources, responsible for one of the worst mining-related environmental disasters in U.S. history. He has already been exposed for harmfully evicting Congolese families to expand his new operations in the Congo. Rio Tinto, notorious for sparking a civil war in Papua New Guinea and for destroying a 46,000-year-old sacred Aboriginal site in Australia, is now eyeing Congo’s Manono Lithium Deposit. Glencore has been fined over $1 billion for abuses in its African mines and maintains illicit financial ties to sanctioned Israeli billionaire Dan Gertler. Both Ivanhoe and Rio Tinto are reportedly set to join a forthcoming minerals agreement tied directly to the deal’s economy-driven clauses.
Lacking the infrastructure to process its own resources, Congo remains trapped in a cycle where foreign actors siphon off its $24 trillion in mineral wealth while its citizens remain among the poorest in the world. Compounding that systemic inequality, both corporate and artisanal mines enact severe human rights abuses and environmental devastation on the Congolese people, injustices that the agreement appears likely to bolster as it opens the door to firms perpetrating them against communities around the globe. In doing so, the accord threatens to entrench this cyclical poverty and violence in service of enriching behemoth mining firms and Trump’s billionaire friends.
Despite what he may think, or wish, Donald Trump deserves no applause for this “peace agreement” because the agreement itself is misnamed. Its focus has never been peace, but rather profit, and his attempt to launder it into something more benevolent is transparently disingenuous.
Without a radical shift, Trump’s deal will likely achieve exactly what it was intended for, funneling billions to already wealthy oligarchs and multinational corporations while sidelining the communities forced to live with its consequences.
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Rwanda Confirms Talks With Trump Administration to Take Deported Migrants
"As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal... let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again," said one Rwandan human rights defender.
May 05, 2025
Rwanda's foreign minister confirmed Sunday that the East African nation's government is in "early stage" talks with the Trump administration about possibly taking in migrants deported from the United States.
"It has not yet reached a stage where we can say exactly how things will proceed, but the talks are ongoing," Rwandan Foreign Minister Olivier Nduhungirehe told Rwanda TV. He added that the Rwandan government is in the "spirit" of offering "another chance to migrants who have problems across the world."
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration is seeking nations that are willing to accept its deportees.
"We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries."
"We are working with other countries to say, 'We want to send you some of the most despicable human beings to your countries. Will you do that as a favor to us?'" Rubio said. "And the farther away from America, the better, so they can't come back across the border."
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Trump administration officials have also asked other countries including Benin, Eswatini, Kosovo, Libya, Moldova, and Mongolia about resettling U.S. deportees.
In 2022, Rwanda agreed to take in some people seeking asylum in the United Kingdom while their claims were being processed. However, the scheme was shelved amid legal and human rights concerns following the return to power of the center-left Labour Party. Rwanda is still seeking to collect £50 million ($66.4 million) from Britain despite the canceled deal.
The United Nations refugee agency condemned the U.K.-Rwanda deal, asserting that "externalizing asylum obligations poses serious risks for the safety of refugees" and "is not compatible with international refugee law."
Local human rights defenders strongly oppose any resettlement of third-country migrants in Rwanda.
"I with other concerned and responsible Rwandans are going to wage a legal war to challenge this arrangement between [Trump's] government and the dictatorial regime of [Rwandan President Paul Kagame]," investigative journalist Samuel Baker Byansi said on social media Sunday.
"Rwanda is not a dumping site of migrants with criminal records who have served their sentence in the U.S.," he added. "As we did with the U.K.-Rwanda deportation deal, fellow Rwandans in the country and abroad, let us unapologetically and loudly oppose this again."
Last month, the U.S. deported Omar Abdulsattar Ameen, an Iraqi refugee who had lived in the United States since 2014, to Rwanda after officials in Baghdad accused him of being a former Islamic State militant who murdered an Iraqi police officer. This, despite a U.S. judge's order blocking his deportation on the grounds that the murder allegation was "not plausible" since Ameen was living in Turkey at the time of the officer's killing.
Critics have sounded the alarm over potential perils migrants might face in Rwanda, including human rights violations and the possibility that they could be sent to third countries where they are at risk of violence and persecution.
The Trump administration is facing legal challenges to its mass deportation efforts, which include sending immigrants to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay and the notorious Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) prison in El Salvador. President Donald Trump has even proposed deporting U.S. citizens to CECOT.
Trump appeared on NBC News' "Meet the Press" Sunday and was pressed by moderator Kristen Welker about the legality of his mass deportation program. Asked whether every person in the United States is entitled to due process, Trump replied: "I don't know. I'm not a lawyer."
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