International
Three things Western media should know about Ingabire Victoire
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.