Hilly and green, Rwanda this month became the first African nation to host cycling’s UCI Road World Championships. The National Basketball Association holds the final games of its annual African tournament in Kigali, the capital city. And Kagame is building a state-of-the-art Formula One racetrack.

“Africa can no longer afford to be left out of the multibillion-dollar sports industry,” Kagame said when he announced Rwanda’s bid to host a Grand Prix. “It is our turn now.”

But critics say such big-ticket competitions are intended as much to distract from his government’s human-rights abuses as they are to generate economic growth and put Rwanda on the international sports map.

In addition to what human-rights groups describe as Kagame’s brutal crackdown on domestic political opponents, the United Nations said earlier this month that Rwanda-backed rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo may have committed war crimes as they seized large areas of Rwanda’s neighbor in search of the region’s vast mineral worth. Eastern Congo is home to large deposits of gold, diamonds and coltan, which is critical in the manufacture of electric vehicles and smartphones.

“Kagame is trying to project himself as a global statesman while diverting attention from his checkered human-rights record,” said Mohamed Keita, African affairs analyst at the Human Rights Foundation. “Kagame uses sports to project an image of progress while most Rwandans live under political and economic marginalization.”

Kagame’s legacy is inarguably mixed.

He is globally revered for putting a stop to the frenzy of bloodletting 31 years ago, in which extremist members of the Hutu ethnic group murdered some 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Since becoming president in 2000, Kagame has led a Rwandan rebirth, turning the badly wounded country into a standout for the efficiency of its government and cleanliness of its cities.

But critics say 25 years in power have hardened Kagame’s edges. Some political opponents find themselves imprisoned. Others—even some who had taken refuge overseas—have been stalked and killed by his security agents, human-rights groups allege.

The U.N., U.S. and others accuse Rwanda of providing critical military support to M23 rebels, whose rapid offensive earlier this year left them in control of mineral deposits and two major cities in eastern Congo, Goma and Bukavu. The U.N. says M23 massacred more than 300 civilians in eastern Congo in a single incident in July, amid a monthslong spree of rape and other violence. The Trump administration had brokered a peace agreement between the two countries in June.

Rwanda has denied sending troops to aid the Congolese rebels, and the rebels have blamed atrocities on the Congolese government.

While some of his political and military moves have drawn international condemnation, Kagame has moved to boost Rwanda’s standing in the sports world.

Since 2018, he has persuaded FIFA, the soccer governing body, to open an office in Kigali and cut sponsorship deals with top European soccer clubs, including FC Bayern Munich and Paris Saint-Germain.

Players for Arsenal, a prestigious English Premier League soccer team, wear “Visit Rwanda” on their uniform. The publicity campaign drew protests earlier this year from Arsenal fans critical of Rwanda’s intervention in Congo.

“We don’t want our club to sell its soul to the highest bidder—and we certainly don’t want to wear it on our sleeves,” said the fan group, Gunners for Peace, on its website.

The group said Rwanda’s Arsenal sponsorship constitutes sportswashing, “an effort to gain an appearance of respectability that they don’t deserve.”

A Rwandan government spokeswoman didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Last year, Kagame hosted a meeting of the International Automobile Federation, a motor-sports governing body, and unveiled Rwanda’s F1 aspirations.

To prepare to host a Grand Prix, Rwanda is building a $270 million, state-of-the-art racing circuit designed by Alexander Wurz, a former F1 driver and chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association.

“Rwanda is likely funding these events and sponsorships with money from minerals stolen from Congo,” Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said.

As this month’s cycling competition approached, teams from the U.S., France, Japan and elsewhere trained along newly paved roads winding through Rwanda’s lush hills. Authorities cleared out unsightly obstructions along the main racing routes: roadside shacks, beggars and drunks, residents said.

Analysts say Kagame is following the handbook of other authoritarian rulers who have manipulated sports to scrub their reputations.

Uganda’s Idi Amin tried to use boxing and his image as a sportsman to build popularity and distract from his regime’s repression in the 1970s. Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman has invested heavily in sports, including F1 and the acquisition of the Newcastle United soccer club, which critics say is an effort to shift focus away from abuses, especially since the killing and dismemberment of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.

Kagame describes himself more as a sports fan than a sportsman. In 2019, he traveled to Oakland to watch the NBA’s Golden State Warriors play the Houston Rockets, and two years later hosted the NBA’s Basketball Africa League tournament. Games are now held in a $104 million basketball-and-volleyball arena in Kigali.

Critics say large sports-related investments don’t meet the urgent needs of most Rwandans; 40% of the country’s 14 million people live in poverty, according to the World Bank.

“Rwandans need schools, hospitals and other critical social services, not sports stadiums,” Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, Rwanda’s main opposition leader, said in a May interview. Weeks later, security forces arrested Umuhoza on charges of inciting public disorder.

“Sporting events are just another tool to distract the public from Kagame’s tyranny,” Umuhoza said.

Kagame says sports brings jobs and growth; Rwanda’s economy grew 8.4% last year. “Sport is a business based on talent, be it Rwandan or otherwise,” Kagame said at the swearing-in of the country’s sports minister late last year. “That talent can be marketed, and it can generate income…That is why we have invested in infrastructure, to allow more Rwandans to participate.”

In May, the NBA financed a new ultramodern basketball court for a high school in an impoverished area that had been heavily affected by the genocide.

The NBA describes its operations in Rwanda as part of a strategy to grow the game globally, including across all the 54 African countries.

“We are always in regular contact with the U.S. State Department and will continue to rely on their guidance as it applies to our engagement across Africa,” Mark Tatum, NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer told the Journal.