The Rwandan Patriot

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 wome...

  The falsehoods. The fabrications. The Rwandaphobia. Ladies and gentlemen, join me in a rapturous welcome to the Genocide denial lobby unwilling to let us mourn our dead in peace. The chorus we are seeing this week is expected. First, it was Human Rights Watch through the usual brands Lewis Mudge and his mentor Keneth Roth. Then came caste-traumatised Indian Anjan Sundaram via The New York Times. The latest, is the Patrick Karegeya pained concubine. She is definitely not the last. The perpetrators of the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, their offspring, and their white backers, are running a well-oiled campaign to maintain the alternative “truth”. The script is the same. Single out President Paul Kagame. Paint him as self serving dictator reigning over a powerless people, and solely responsible for the mess in Congo. However, those happily insulting Kagame, are quickest to petition Twitter or Facebook to ban people who come to his defense. The other bit of the script is ...

In the United Kingdom, anything you post on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media platform could bring the cops to your door. It can be anything, from grumbling about a bad service at the airport, or speaking about victims of a bombing in Afghanistan. According to accounts by two news platforms, The Verge and The Register , arrests and charging of those who fall fowl of the law concerns what is commonly known as “section 127”. Latest figures are not available . However, going back some years, the data is staggering. In 2012, over 3,000 were arrest for posting different things online. That year, to be exact, 1,423 people were found guilty and were jailed or fined up to £5,000 which is about Frw 6million. So how many have faced same wrath in Rwanda? Imagine if less than 10 are arrested in Rwanda.                          

Last year in September, The New York Times carried an extensive investigation into social media arrests in Germany. The Times found that there is no national database that keeps data on social media arrests. However, the paper found more than 8,500 cases tracked by different agencies. Overall, more than 1,000 people have been charged or punished since 2018, a figure many experts said is probably much higher. How many were arrested in Rwanda for what they post on social media? The jury is out there for you to decide.                    

Dr David Himbara never recovered from being refused entry into Village Urugwiro. Around the end of 2009, Himbara was replaced from his job in Office of the President. The following day, Himbara woke up very early as usual going to work. At the entrance, the presidential security couldn’t let him in. It’s obvious, because security protocols require that any guests are recorded beforehand. He had no invitation. Arrogant as he had always been, Himbara probably imagined that he would walk into the presidential office whenever he pleases. I highly doubt anyone else, including the President’s family, apart from the First Lady perhaps, have that right of unfettered access. The Presidency and the holder, is an institution of a country, whose security becomes of paramount importance. However, Himbara had convinced himself, from years of having access there, that he could walk in at anytime he wished. In his usual English language bravado, Himbara shouted at the guards at the entrance, a...

  Playing the usual suspect, Dr David Himbara rants about a new innovative financing program by the IMF, from which Rwanda has acquired $319m. For his blog readers, Himbara paints the financing as adding to Rwanda’s debt portfolio. The IMF, World Bank and other international bodies have assessed Rwanda’s borrowing as manageable, reason being that for every cent taken in, there is a clear plan as to what it will do and how it will be repaid. Historically, nations have relied on taking risk to be able to get significant resources for development. Countries need big money, which very often isn’t available locally. The uniqueness of the IMF program is such that only three nations, including Rwanda globally have been able to tap from the Fund. The IMF’s experts are better placed to determine Rwanda’s ability to do good with the money. Himbara’s twisted propaganda against the IMF funding is the usual blackmail, with the hope that the Rwandan government comes out on the defensiv...

Last week, the government of DR Congo assumed it had the upper hand, claiming that M23 rebels, and by extension Rwandan troops massacred 120 civilians in Kishishe. The numbers have since changed. I won’t speak of the outlandish fabrication that Rwandan troops are on Congolese soil. It needs to be treated with the contempt it deserves. The mere suggestion that Rwandan troops have killed civilians, should make it to the Guinness Book of World Records, as one of the most deranged claims of the century. The people of countries where Rwandan troops have actually operated or still do, must be laughing so loud. I won’t have to say much, instead recommend you ask the Mozambicans in Cabo Delgado region, Haitians, South Sudanese, Central African Republic (CAR),   Malians, and Darfurians, to mention but a few. In Congo itself, Rwandan troops brought home hundreds of thousands of Rwandan refugees, saving them from disease, hunger and all the bad that war creates. Arising from the Rwa...