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Victoire Ingabire: Genocide ideologue is the West's ideal leader for Rwanda
Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza.
Rwanda's President-elect Paul
Kagame secured an astounding 99.18 per cent of the just concluded vote,
according to the National Electoral Commission's provisional results. The
landslide victory was welcomed by all Rwandans.
Unsurprisingly, Western media
and Rwanda’s critics, chose to discredit Rwandans’ choice, some going as far as
calling the elections a sham or undemocratic. Most of their writings, focused
on ‘lack of opposition’, despite seeing President Kagame competing beside Frank
Habineza of the Democratic Green Party, and independent candidate Philippe
Mpayimana, for the presidential seat.
One such media critic is The Guardian, a UK based newspaper, which on July 18 published an opinion titled: “Paul Kagame banned opponents like me from Rwanda’s election. No wonder he cruised to victory”, penned by Victoire Ingabire, a self-proclaimed opposition leader.
Ingabire claimed that
President Kagame’s victory was not a sign of popularity, but a sign of a
‘democracy’ that silences all dissent, including herself.
Rwandans are used to Western
media idolizing Ingabire as the perfect political opponent, and a victim of
suppression, but Rwandans know more about Ingabires’ ‘democracy’ than these
Westerners, who prefer to write and speak from their office hundreds of miles
away, ignoring the reality.
In her article, Ingabire
claimed that if she had been allowed to stand in the elections, she would have
emphasized the importance of reinforcing existing reconciliation policy by
remembering ‘all victims of Rwanda’s troubled history’.
To any outsider, this might
look like a genuinely good or well-intentioned speech from someone who wants
positive change in her country. But, to the contrary, Ingabire’s claims simply
highlighted her genocide ideology in all its forms. In 2010, after landing, in Kigali she visited
Kigali genocide memorial centre where she delivered a speech questioning why
there is a memorial of the Genocide against the Tutsi only while – according to
her – there were Hutu victims also to be remembered.
After all these years,
Ingabire never hides her double genocide ideology, even after she was arrested,
tried and sentenced for genocide denial. Rwandans would never choose a leader
who wants to take them back to the dark days of genocide.
When giving her a platform,
Western media, do not question Ingabire’s ties to genocidaire movements,
including the notorious FDLR, a genocidal militia, currently operating in the
east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Although she was not in the
country during the Genocide against the Tutsi, in 1994 Ingabire was welcomed in
the Rassemblement Republicain pour la Democratie au Rwanda (RDR), which was
formed by remnants of the genocidal regime, army and Interahamwe militia in
Mugunga refugee camp, in eastern DRC. The RDR’s objective was to re-organise,
re-arm, and forcefully return to Rwanda and finish the mission of exterminating
the Tutsi.
Ingabire knew their agenda and
wholly supported it. She also headed RDR’s successor, Forces Democratique
Unifies (FDU-Inkingi) since 2006. The former was a combination of number of
genocidal groups.
Among others, FDU-Inkingi,
which she led, collaborated with FDLR commanders. Evidence provided to Rwandan
prosecutors by Dutch Police after a search of her home in the Netherlands,
shows that Ingabire travelled from Europe to meet FDLR commanders in Kinshasa.
Dutch authorities also shared a document with minutes of the Kinshasa meeting
including military deployment plans.
Rwandans deserve better
leaders. They deserve progressive politicians.
Not collaborators with terror groups, something that Western media
conveniently sweep under the carpet.
In a recent interview with
France 24, Maria Malagardis, a French journalist, said that Ingabire has allied
to each genocidal force after the genocide to constitute a political grouping,
participating in meetings envisaging to create an army to overthrow the
post-genocide Rwandan government, while sending money, through Western Union,
to genocidal militias in DRC.
“I was very surprised when
journalists talk about that case, when they interview her, they never talk
about the past of that woman,” said Malagardis.
It has become a common pattern. Western media and rights organizations easily buy into the lies of people like Ingabire and become accomplices. But like everyone who harbours the genocide ideology, Ingabire is venom to Rwandans. She is a danger to society, especially the Rwandan society which is still healing.
