Before you boarded, you had to identify your luggage. After you identified it, they would put it on a trolley, drive it over and put it into the airp/lane compartment. Curiously, as I was looking around for my bag, I couldn’t find it. I looked around. Other people were picking out their bags. I kept searching.

Immediately, I realized that in my bag there were books from the college, army uniforms, compasses, pocket knives, the kind of things you need when you are in the field. I saw a man there supervising. He had picked out my suitcase and put it between his legs. He had documents in his left hand and a walkie-talkie in his right hand. He was talking to some people. So I quickly thought: should I ask him why, what’s wrong with my luggage?

The man was standing between the luggage and the plane. He was quite busy talking into the walkie-talkie. I decided to go behind him and gently picked my bag from between his legs and put it on the trolley. Maybe he didn’t realize it. He kept standing with his legs apart as if something was still there.

While I was sitting in the plane, I watched that man for a long time. Another man came and they walked away. He seemed to have forgotten there was something he was supposed to be watching. I think what made it easier for me was all the confusion in Addis.

Kinzer comments: with this brazen maneuver, Kagame escaped from a police force that would certainly have arrested him and perhaps either killed him or turned him over to his enemies in Rwanda. He soon learned that other agents had also been waiting for him in at least two other cities. In Brussels, immigration officers had detained Jeannette as she left her plane, and taken her to an interrogation room.

“Are you alone?” she was asked.
“Yes.”
“But you were supposed to come with someone else.”
“Yes, but I am alone.”