Ingabire, you can’t have your cake and eat it

As has been her routine ever since she returned from self-imposed exile, Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, has made so many contradictory statements, you can’t even begin to list them. You can never predict what next her statement and message will be. However, there is clearly a method in whatever she’s been spinning — to mislead both the Rwandan public and the international community. It has been a choice of calculated and deliberate contradictions with double speak, designed to mask her true intentions. Nothing demonstrates Ingabire’s double-faced character than her attempt this week to grab headlines while continuing her smear campaign against the government, when she stage-managed a supposed request for protection in the UK High Commission. When the embassy threw her out, on the ground that they did not for one minute believe her story, she immediately hit her computer keyboard, shifting the blame on what she referred to as “my political organisation”, which put out an incorrect statement announcing that she had sought protection. She told the BBC and the VOA radio stations that she had not attempted to seek asylum but had gone to discuss with the diplomats “the current political situation”. Predictably, Ingabire has deliberately kept both versions of the story on her website. The presidential aspirant relinquished her refugee status in the Netherlands with a lot of fanfare, going around seeking financial support to enable her make a soft landing in her homeland. Not surprisingly, as soon as she arrived in town. Ingabire was knocking on the doors of the Dutch embassy, where diplomatic sources indicate that she applied and was issued a three year visa. When the British slammed the door in her face, the message was loud and clear, if only Ms Ingabire could discern it: You can’t have your cake and eat it. Ends

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Ingabire, you can’t have your cake and eat it