Western media organizations are deliberately putting Victoire Ingabire in the spotlight, portraying her as a ‘Rwandan opposition leader’ while failing to mention that she is a criminal mind; convicted and pardoned, but unrepentant.

 

Her sole agenda is tarnishing the good image of Rwandan leadership, while claiming to fight for political space. 

 

On July 26, Spanish newspaper El País published an article crafted after an interview with Ingabire, accusing the Rwandan government of “silencing opposition”.

 

An uninformed reader is likely to be trapped in this narrative, and believe that Ingabire is really an opposition leader, who does her best to fight for change.

 

Ingabire is not what her backers and Western media portray her to be.

 

The beginning: Who is the real Ingabire? Does she qualify to be a politician in post-genocide Rwanda?

 

Ingabire, 55, is the daughter of Rwandan genocide fugitive Thérèse Dusabe, a former midwife at Butamwa Health Center in Kigali’s Nyarugenge District who was nicknamed “the doctor of death” for her role in brutally killing pregnant Tutsi women during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

 

She killed their babies by hitting them on walls.

 

Ingabire herself was convicted for divisionism, genocide denial, and collusion with FDLR – a terrorist group formed by the very criminals that committed the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and are now operating in eastern DRC.

 

She was sentenced to 15 years in jail but, in 2018, released on a presidential pardon after promising to change and play her role in Rwanda’s development.

 

However, her statements in Western media keep harboring genocide ideology, promoting double genocide theory, undermining the country’s foundation for unity, and tarnishing the country’s image all because of her genocide ideology background.

 

In the El País article, Ingabire claimed that she wants Rwanda to have complete reconciliation but at the same time, she said: “They say that I’m going to be elected only by the Hutu because I’m a Hutu. But this isn’t true, I have many supporters among the Tutsi.”

 

In a nation that has decided to move on and leave the divisionism that resulted into a genocide behind, Ingabire still preaches ethnic divisionism.

 

Her way of politics takes Rwandans back to the darkest history. This is no longer welcome in Rwanda.

 

Rwanda’s system is very clear on who should be a politician in the country.

 

The 2013 Organic Law governing Political Organizations and Politicians prohibits anyone who has been sentenced to an imprisonment equal to or exceeding six months; or committed crimes of Genocide against the Tutsi, to be in the management of a political organization.

 

Ingabire does not qualify to be a politician or to head any political organization. She was sentenced to 15 years in jail, after being found guilty of minimizing the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

 

Ingabire’s so-called political party, DALFA-Umurinzi, will not be allowed to participate in Rwanda’s political space unless it changes its agenda which focuses on divisionism.

 

DALFA-Umurinzi has the same agenda as FDU-Inkingi which was also headed by Ingabire. It collaborated with the genocidal group FDLR and is part of the P5 coalition, an association of terrorists, which in October 2019, launched an attack in Kinigi, northern Rwanda, killing more than 10 civilians.

 

Does the Government of Rwanda silence the opposition?

 

Not at all.

 

After the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, Rwanda’s political space is a densely woven social fabric. To get to where the nation is, it has taken modern Rwanda, discussions from village to village, from Gacaca to Ndi Umunyarwanda.

 

National unity is the only agenda. The RPF-led government fully knows that unity is strength. And that’s what it will fight for, whatever the cost.

 

But the so-called opposition figures have continued the Genocide-era mindset of denying Rwanda of her social fabric. They don’t see Rwanda as an idea of a nation but as, among other things, the sum of particular interests. These interests are not organised around economic or social interests but around the weaponization of individual grievances.

 

Any opposition party or individual that goes with the country’s legal system is very welcome in Rwanda.

 

The Green Party of Frank Habineza, PS Imberakuri of Christine Mukabunani, PL, and PSD are some of the opposition parties enjoying political space in Rwanda. They have seats in parliament and in ministries.

 

The opponents whom Ingabire claims to be silenced are those who failed to comply with Rwanda’s legal system. They claim to liberate people from political oppression yet they do not understand what Rwanda went through to rebuild the nation in the post-genocide era.

 

Rwanda can never tolerate these self-styled politicians.

 

They are unfit to lead Rwandans as they deny existence to the very social fabric they pretend to represent.

 

Thérèse Dusabe’s horrific actions during the genocide against the Tutsi: Were they really invented?

 

Community-based Gacaca courts, commended by renowned scholars for providing transitional justice to Rwandans after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi, sentenced Ingabire’s mother, Dusabe, to life imprisonment for disemboweling pregnant Tutsi women and removing the foetuses, which she would smash to death in a horrendous manner.

 

Ingabire’s mother was a medical practitioner during the Genocide working with Butamwa Health Centre.

 

Dusabe’s horrific actions were witnessed by Butamwa’s people including Sebastian Muhizina, whom they jointly sentenced to life for their role in masterminding the Genocide by calling for meetings and sensitizing the Interahamwe militias to kill the Tutsi. Muhizina is still serving his sentence.

 

Ingabire lies that the accusations against her mother are invented to whitewash her mother’s name.

 

Ingabire is the one who helped her mother to flee to Europe, from Zaire (now DRC), where she had been hiding like thousands other Genocide masterminds and ideologues. Now, she will do everything to defend her.