Translating Ingabire Victoire’s Rubandanyamwishi Coded Messages for Non-Rwandan Audiences

Ingabire Victoire Umuhoza is being sanitized in a carefully choreographed campaign. She has published in Aljazeera, the Guardian, OpenDemocracy and different other media.

Ingabire’s backers want to change her from the ethnic extremist she is, to an international female face of opposition in Rwanda.

However, either knowingly or unknowingly, Ingabire’s financiers are letting her continue spreading an old divisionist ideology. Ingabire knows she is fooling non-Rwandan readers, while sending her coded messages to Kinyarwanda speakers both in Rwanda and outside.

In a recent interview with British newspaper The Times, Ingabire depicts herself as concerned about unemployment in Rwanda.

When Ingabire claims “we have so many young people without jobs”, in actual sense is saying “rubandanyamwinshi”, which is the RTLM hate radio narrative to refer to “Hutus”.

For the article for OpenDemocracy, Ingabire writes about the policy to help women work from gazetted places. She alleges the women operating as street vendors are arrested. “Majority of woman are struggling to raise children,” wrote Ingabire.

In actual sense, Ingabire is writing that “Hutu women in rubandanyamwishi are not being allowed to work in towns, yet they have children whose fathers are in prison”.

The article published by the Guardian, Ingabire claims Rwandans are unhappy, using the terms “population happiness deficit”. To the non-Rwandan, this is a legitimate concern for the population. Wrong and totally misleading.

Ingabire is actually saying “in Rwanda it is the Tutsi with all opportunities, who are happy, while the rubandanyamwishi are oppressed, that is why they are not happy”.

Coded messaging in Rwanda came to prominence during the pre-1994 era. “Democracy” was code for rubandanyamwishi rule, which the political class was well aware the people understood.

On the infamous RTLM radio, broadcasts constantly used the language “fighting for the rights of rubandanyamwishi”. The outsider who is non-Rwandan may not immediately notice that, the person on the microphone was communicating to in a format they is believe is understood by whoever the message was intended for.

During the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, meetings were held in which interahamwe militia were encouraged to go to “work”. The marauding killers knew exactly what to do.

Ingabire is not campaigning for democracy, free speech, freedom of assembly, women rights, or end to dictatorship. Ingabire knows in her mind that she is sending coded messages to rubandanyamwishi audience that is keenly following. Her mind tells her that they are listening. Ingabire feigns concern, ‘I feel your pain’.

We Rwandans understand the dangerous genocidal code messages Ingabire is using. The western backers may be knowingly or inadvertently sowing seeds of ethnic divisionism in Rwanda.  

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