Victoire Ingabire: lies, lies and bloody lies

I have tried to ignore the so-called politician Mrs. Victoire Ingabire but I have to say, “enough is enough already”. Her supporters have called her the ‘female Nelson Mandela’, the ‘Rwandan messiah’ and what not, but I think they’ve gone a step too far. Recently in a Radio Netherlands article, which I found to be totally biased, her family talked to a reporter about their ‘heroic’ mother. This ‘puff’ piece was geared to pull at the heartstrings of the Dutch and the narrative that it attempted to convey was this, ‘this poor, heroic woman, who left her loving family to fight for the democratic rights of her people, is being prosecuted by an evil military government’. Throw in the fact that the rumor mills on the Internet are filled with FDU-Inkingi propaganda alleging that she is being tortured in prison and poisoned slowly and you have a perfect storm. Or do you? I believe in fighting fiction with fact. Our rich language, Kinyarwanda, has a saying that I believe is relevant here. “Truth goes through fire and doesn’t get burnt”. It goes without saying that lies are as flammable as simple paper. And, honestly, her lies are monumental to say the least. I won’t even bother talking about her political ideology because it’s not worth my time, but rather I will rebut some of the lies that her supporters, and family, have spread. According to her supporters, she was handcuffed to a chair and forced to sit on the cold concrete floor of the police cell that she was placed in. Lies.I’m sorry, but if you looked at her as she was brought to court during her bail hearing, she didn’t look like someone who’d sat on the floor for any amount of time. She was immaculate. If I was ever forced to sit on a cold floor, handcuffed to a chair I would have certainly looked the part. I mean, if a long day at work makes me look bedraggled, I can only imagine how I’d look after a couple of days in ‘her circumstances’. I simply don’t buy it. Throw in the funny business of her being poisoned slowly and you have simply a myriad of lies. Remember when Peter Erlinder, the genocide denier, told all and sundry that he was being poisoned? Well, he was taken to King Faisal Hospital where medical experts performed toxicological tests on him. Guess what? Eventually he, himself, told the Court that he was treated in a manner that was exemplary. What does this tell us? It simply shows us that the Rwandan penal system doesn’t need to poison its inmates, and treats them humanely. Ingabire’s lawyers have access to her and while it’s true that the Red Cross hasn’t gone to see her it wasn’t because it wasn’t allowed to but simply because it didn’t ask to. That is on record. And anyway, if she was indeed maltreated in the police cells, I’m thinking that she would have told the court this during her bail hearing. I’m not an experienced criminal lawyer, I’m merely a degree holder, but if I was her attorney I would certainly urge the court to release her on grounds of maltreatment. Even if this was ignored by the presiding judge I would be happy to have that allegation in the public domain. But did we hear that coming from either her lawyer or herself? Nope. Oh, and back to that family interview on Radio Netherlands, I have one question. Where was her mother, Theresa Dusabe, in that lovely family portrait? Was it because she was a killer, found guilty in absentia by a Rwandan Gacaca court and sentenced to 30 years for her crimes? sunny_ntayombya@hotmail.com.

Opinions

Victoire Ingabire: lies, lies and bloody lies