WHAT AMERICA AND THE WORLD NEVER KNEW ABOUT RWANDAN (TUTSIS)

(In their own words )

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  Paul Kagame (photo credit, WSJ): The Master of Ubwenge: “Able to set a house on fire, and had unimaginable capabilities to hide the smoke” (A Rwandan saying)…

Be shocked! Be baffled! Wake up! Remember, you’ve been victimized and made a fool by some Rwandan anytime you spoke to one: president of the US or a simple American citizen; a leader or a simple citizen of the whole world. Read on ladies and gentlemen:

All Rwandans in general, and Rwandan Tutsis, in particular, are liars from childhood.

“Let us (start) with this recent analysis by (the Rwandan) Shingiro Mbonyumutwa: ‘The use of manipulative lying has always constituted a primordial element used for conquest and as the power for domination in Rwanda. This strategic lying that consists of making up accusations against the other person in advance has nothing abnormal about it, it is only the continuity of the culture.’… Ubwenge, ‘(this) Rwandan form of intelligence’ was a shock to the Western explorers and researchers, including Rwandans, who studied it.” (From Gaspard Musabyimana’s “The Culture of Lying in Rwanda”).

However, it is not just any type of lying as the rest of the world knows about telling lies. For Rwandan Tutsis, lying is more than telling lies. It is a science, it is their culture, it is a way of life.

A Rwandan in exile, Gaspard Musabyimana cited above and living in France, tried to define this science, this culture, this “Ubwenge” as it is called in Kinyarwanda (the language spoken by both Tutsis and Hutus in Rwanda solely). He wrote, in the above-cited document:

“The culture of lying (telling lies) called Ubwenge is, in Rwanda, an undeniable cultural fact.  The manifestations of this culture can be observed even today.  This word has no equivalent in French.  Its meaning combines together the French words for intelligence, lies, cunning or deviousness, shrewdness, duplicity, concealment or cover-up, and treachery” (intelligence, mensonge, ruse, malignité, duplicité, dissimulation, et fourberie).

For Rwandans in general and Rwandan Tutsis in particular, telling lies is part of their being, in the larger sense given in the definition above, it is, for them, a positive asset, a trait they are proud of, and a practice that they brag about among themselves.

Here is how their philosophers put it:

“… If the Mututsi (one Tutsi, plural Batutsi) acknowledges that the European is competent in the technical field – electricity, physics, mathematics, etc., – if the Mututsi acknowledges the European possessing the intelligence of the book (ubwenge bwo mu gitabo), the Mututsi deplores the European’s lacking shrewdness or wit. Knowing how to distort and disguise the truth, how to deceive without arousing any suspicion is a science that the European lacks and that the Mututsi is very proud to possess; the genius of plotting and the art of lying are, in the eyes of the Mututsi, arts for which he prides himself about: this is the uniqueness of the Mututsi and, by contagion and as defensive reflexes, the uniqueness of every Munyarwanda (Rwandan national).” (By a Tutsi philosopher and a Catholic priest, Stanislas Bushayiga, who was boasting, in 1958, about the superiority of the Rwandans and their culture – science – of Ubwenge over the Europeans). (G. Musabyimana).

“White people are not intelligent…”

Another Rwandan philosopher, perhaps one of the preeminent Rwandan philosophers, Monsignor Alexis kagame, who wrote about and frequently compared, in the 1950’s, this Rwandan “intelligence” to the European (or Western) form of intelligence, he used to state, speaking about… “… the Europeans and all whites in general that ‘…the Whites have knowledge, but they are not intelligent.’” (G. Musabyimana).

Which “intelligence” is Monsignor Alexis Kagame talking about? The one underlined above and spoken of by Stanislas Bushayiga: “Knowing how to distort and disguise the truth, how to deceive without arousing any suspicion is a science that the European lacks and that the Mututsi is very proud to possess.” Former Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama and most goodhearted Americans know something about this “science”, unless they are still imprisoned in Ubwenge…

Rwandans are the only people on earth who do not believe in the truth. A saying, in the language of Kinyarwanda goes, “Ukuli Kurazirwa” (The truth kills). From infancy, the child is taught to never tell the truth and all the techniques and the manners of telling lies without ever arousing any suspicion is drilled into the male and the female child. In other words, the world has been victimized by Rwandans, especially since the 1990’s.

“In 1940, Paul Dresse, one of the Belgian administrators in Rwanda, wrote a book in which he describes the Art of Lying among Tutsis: ‘The Tutsis are unique in their obsession with pretending… But, this disposition favors also duplicity and this is what makes this race one of the greatest liars that one can find under the sun. … the art of lying is not something that is purely verbal. The face, the entire body must accompany the ‘veracity’ of the speech” (G. Musabyimana).

Americans, Europeans, Asians, Africans, the world has fallen victim to this “science” and, even today, heads of states, governments, media, and citizens of the world are still being victimized by this “Art of Lying,”… thinking and believing that the Rwandans’ seemingly sincere show of emotions and tell-tales of (“disguised and distorted”) horrors that, in the most part, are twisted to impress, are the real truth, whereas it was simply Ubwenge, the first nature of Rwandans.

Antoine Nyetera, a Tutsi prince who died in 2012, was one of the Tutsis who truly became a Christian like Kizito Mihigo – the young genocide survivor who sang of justice and reconciliation between all Rwandans and even between Rwandans and Congolese, and who was murdered by Kagame – so, Nyetera saw the peace negotiations of Arusha in 1993 between the Tutsi rebels of the RPF (Rwandan Patriotic Front) from Uganda who were led by Paul Kagame, and the official and elected government of Rwanda that was led by President Habyarimana, a Hutu.

This is how Antoine Nyetera relates how America, Europe, Australia, and Asian countries that made up “The International Community” and the “Peace Facilitators”, how they were lied to without any of these nations’ leaders or their representatives ever suspecting that these Rwandans (Tutsis and Hutus) were lying to them, rolling them like chicken legs in the flour of Ubwenge:

“At the end, the biggest lie by the RPF (Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front) was to make the International Community believe that it wanted to participate in the Peace Accords that were negotiated in Arusha, and that it was interested in power sharing through elections. The International Community, the foreign governments called the “Facilitators” contributed large sums of money in order to support these negotiations; while the RPF, on its side, had no intention that these negotiations succeed. Louis Claes, the then-Foreign Affairs Minister of Belgium declared before the Belgian Senate Inquiry which wanted to obtain more information about the events that took place in Rwanda, that in early 1994, he had met RPF leaders in Kampala who declared to him that they were not going to participate in the expanded transitional government that was demanded in the accords that both parties had signed in 1993.”

Recently, a writer and a journalist with over 20 years of covering Africa, Michela Wrong, who had reported from the African Great Lakes region for Reuters, BBC, the Financial Times, including, from Congo-Zaire from 1994 onto the removal of President Mobutu Sese Seko in 1997, has written a book about the assassination of a Rwandan Tutsi officer by the Rwandan Tutsi President Paul Kagame (she has published 3 non-fiction books and a novel) titled Do Not Disturb, The Story of a Political Murder, and an African Regime Gone Bad, that deals with the murder of Colonel Patrick Karegeya, one of the main characters in the Rwandan Tutsis’ rebellion and overthrow of the Habyarimana regime in 1994. A close associate of Paul Kagame, Karegeya was murdered in South Africa on direct orders of the same Kagame. In an article in The Literary Hub which promoted the book, she published an excerpt titled “The Virtue of Lying? Unmasking the Truth About the Rwandan Genocide”. In it Michela Wrong writes:

“Look up the word Ubwenge in a Kinyarwanda dictionary and the translation reads ‘wisdom’ or ‘sense.’ But it can also be translated as ‘cunning,’ ‘deception,’ a quality Rwandan children are encouraged to develop, seen as the ultimate sign of maturity. It goes hand in hand with the concept of Intwari, which French historian Gérard Prunier defines as ‘the quality of impassivity, aloofness, being beyond and above events, implacable.’”…

And this is how, according to Michela Wrong, did those journalists, reporters, politicians, and NGO’s who were unaware of Ubwenge, view the Rwandans:

“These were men supremely skilled at seduction, intellectual, emotional, or sexual. American diplomats weary of negotiating with sleazy Great Lakes politicians thrilled at the puritanism of these thin, driven young men in camouflage. NGO workers who were new to Africa’s Great Lakes listened to their tales, hearts pounding with sympathy and outrage—initially, at least. Reporters, photographers, and filmmakers became lifelong friends or ended up jumping into bed with them. Intensity, along with imminent danger—and the Great Lakes has always been a dangerous place to live and work—is one of the great aphrodisiacs.”…

Today, after these many years, the world must needs to reassess its blind support for Rwandan Tutsis who, as their philosophers said, especially toward white people, in general, that they hold them in contempt and mock, laugh at, or make fun of them among themselves that “they have knowledge by they are not intelligent”; or, as Michela Wrong wrote,

“Throughout the writing of my book about the murder of Patrick Karegeya, I kept thinking about the Epimenides paradox. The one that runs: “‘All Cretans are liars,’ says Epimenides,… the Cretan.'” It came to mind because Rwandans kept telling me that deceiving others, being economical with the truth, was something their community reveled in, positively prided itself upon.Especially when dealing with Western outsiders. A proof of superiority, not shame, when successfully achieved. So much so, that the practice had worked itself into the language. ‘Naïf comme les blancs’ (Naive as the white folk), Rwandans will say of someone, in the same way that other cultures will say ‘as thick as two short planks‘ or ‘as dumb as a post'”.

“One of Rwanda’s prime ministers, Agathe Uwilingiyimana, shocked the head of a UN peacekeeping force by telling him: ‘Rwandans are liars and it is a part of their culture. From childhood they are taught to not tell the truth, especially if it can hurt them.’… A successor told me the same thing over coffee in a Brussels hotel lobby many years later: ‘In Rwanda, lying is an art form. When you, as a white journalist, leave a meeting, they will be congratulating themselves: “We took her for a ride.” Lying is the rule, rather than the exception.”…

Then, lastly, a Rwandan Tutsi PhD in Political Economy, David Himbara, who has worked and lectured all over the world and worked for Paul Kagame’s regime twice and, in the end, had to run away for his life and now lives in Canada where the Canadian government protects him, wrote an article in Medium.com titled “Kagame’s Rwanda is a Serial Lying Nation”, in which he demonstrates the subject of the title of his article, that Kagame’s Rwanda has been lying all along about its economic miracle. This same Dr. Himbara testified at a hearing in the US House of Representatives that one of the reasons Kagame wanted him dead because he resisted Kagame’s orders for him to publish lies about Rwanda’s economic data… Actually, as Antoine Nyetera quoted above said, since the 1990’s, world leaders have been lied to, and, today, as Michela Wrong writes in her article, these leaders do not dare come out and admit and denounce the lies told them by Rwandan Tutsis, including their leaders, beginning with Paul Kagame, having been victimized by “a culture that glories in its impenetrability, that sees virtue in misleading”, as Ms. Michela Wrong writes…

To the Tutsis, as Monsignor Alexis Kagame wrote, these world leaders and their people “are not intelligent!”

For the sake of grasping the full picture of the murderous nature, beside Ubwenge, of these Tutsis of the Kagame regime since the1990’s in both Rwanda and the Congo-Zaire, here are two books whose authors have faced assassination threats and attempts from these Tutsis even though they do not live in Rwanda: In Praise of Blood, by Judi Rever from Canada, and “Joseph Kabila”, Identity Thief, Impostor, and Rwandan Trojan Horse in Congo, by Yaa-lengi Ngemi from the United States of America.

PS: The American Congolese Council is the group, in the US, campaigning for the DRC.

IT IS TIME AMERICA, YOUTUBE, FACEBOOK, AND THE LIKE WAKE UP FROM RWANDA’S LIES AND MANIPULATIONS

“Joseph Kabila” and Paul Kagame’s Rwandan soldiers in Congolese uniforms kill innocent Congolese like beasts, then go burry them in mass graves or burn their bodies… Millions have been killed.

[Item: YOUTUBE HAS BEEN MANIPULATED AND LIED TO BY RWANDAN AGENTS LEADING YOUTUBE TO BLOCK CONGO COALITION’S SHOWS (MAYBE OTHERS) EVEN THOUGH THESE SHOWS ARE IN A CONGOLESE LANGUAGE AND DO NOT SHOW OR USE ANY VIOLENT VIDEOS. THESE LIARS COMPLAINED TO YOUTUBE BECAUSE THE PRODUCER IS DENOUNCING THE CRIMES THAT PAUL KAGAME HAS BEEN COMMITTING IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO. SO, BELOW, IS A DESCRIPTION OF WHAT CONGO COALITION IS SPEAKING ABOUT].

Let us start with a book by a Canadian writer and researcher: In PRAISE of BLOOD, The CRIMES of the RWANDAN PATRIOTIC FRONT, by Judi Rever. The consequence of this courageous foreign correspondent and Canadian woman writing about the truth that has cost the lives of others, even Rwandan Tutsis and fellow war colleagues of Paul Kagame such as Colonel Patrick Karegeya who was assassinated by Kagame in December 2014 in South Africa, for Judi Rever, as Ann Garrison who reviewed her book wrote that as Judi Rever “traveled on three continents to collect witness testimony” about the crimes of Kagame’s RPF from those who participated in them and who couldn’t keep silent because the horror of these crimes were too great to bear, “both European and Canadian secret service agents warned her that her life was endangered by Kagame’s assassins. In Brussels, as she was checking into a hotel, two Belgian agents appeared on either side of her and said they would be accompanying her for the remainder of her time in Belgium.”

Judi Rever’s book is just the latest in tons and tons of evidence, from all quarters that have documented the criminality and the horrific nature of the mass killings that are being perpetrated by Kagame’s soldiers, militias, and rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this includes the UN’s own investigative Mapping Report of October 1, 2010, which is still collecting dust in UN drawers uninvestigated.

In fact, the Congo has been known as the rape Capital of the world because Rwandans have been raping and mass-killing Congolese to the point that the Gynecologist surgeon Denis Mukwege, who has been “repairing” these women won the Nobel Peace prize in 2018.

The question is, how can the Free World allow a fiend like Paul Kagame to have killed millions of innocent people, including 4 heads of State, his own people both Tutsis and Hutus, citizens of many nations including the US and Europe, and he continues to send his assassins to try kill the like of Judi Rever with impunity?

The KEY for this mass killer, Paul Kagame, to still be free is something that the world does not know and is ignorant of, as he continues to assassinate, to poison, and to mass murder Congolese people in their own country and his fellow Hutus and Tutsis. For Paul Kagame and for the Tutsis who work for him, including those he sends around the world to kill both Tutsis and anyone who disagrees with him, all the other races are “NOT INTELLIGENT” except the Tutsis.

Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Barack Obama know something about Paul Kagame lying to and playing with them like with little children.

From the time of Bill Clinton’s first term, Paul Kagame and his fellow Rwandan Tutsi who became “president” of Uganda in 1986, Yoweri Museveni (whose original Rwandan Tutsi name is Yoseri TUBUHABURWA), Bill Clinton and the “international community” who were funding the negotiations of Arusha in early 1990’s in order to “bring democracy in Rwanda” and peace between Hutus and Tutsis, were manipulated, fooled, lied to, and made to believe that Kagame wanted Peace whereas he had no intention to do what he was making them believe. In Rwandan language this strategy comes from and is called UBWENGE.

These three are Rwandan Tutsis, yet, America and the world has been fooled and manipulated through Rwandan Culture of Ubwenge and the three are laughing at the world:  Paul Kagame, Yoseri Tubuhaburwa (YM), and Hyppolite Kanambe (JK)..They control the African Great Lakes…

Ubwenge is Rwanda’s ancestral culture and belief system. It is a science that teaches all Rwandans that “… Europeans, white people in general, are not intelligent,…” as wrote Rwanda’s iconic philosopher and thinker, Monsignor Alexis Kagame in the 1950’s. For Paul Kagame, he has demonstrated the superiority of Ubwenge in that he manipulated successfully Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, Barack Obama, and many other leaders, political, religious, and institutional.

Unfortunately for Americans and for the world, everyone believes that what Rwandans tell them is the truth, whereas, for Rwandans, they can never tell the truth, because, in their language of Kinyarwanda and according to their ancestral culture Ubwenge: ukuli kurazirwa (the truth kills). Thus, Ubwenge makes ALL Rwandans liars, manipulators, and cold-blood and emotionless killers…

On January 8, 1994, former Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwiligiyimana declared, in front of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and the head of the UN in Rwanda: “Rwandans are liars and it is part of their culture.  From childhood they are taught to not tell the truth, especially if it can hurt them.” (Paul Kagame sued a French writer and researcher, Pierre Pean, for writing about Ubwenge as a Rwandan culture. Kagame sued him in France all the way to the French Supreme court, and Kagame lost!)

Paul Kagame’s Rwandans have infiltrated governments and societies all over the world, and, in America, Canada, and Western Europe, most of them have used Congolese identities (Mobutu made the mistake of hiring a Rwandan Tutsi, Bisengimana, as his presidential advisor, who then gave Zairian passports to Rwandans and sent them all over the world to study with Zairian scholarships); also such as most of “Congolese” refugees who have been brought to America since 2001. This is why countries and governments, and international institutions such as the UN cannot bring themselves to stand up and put an end to Paul Kagame’s mass killing enterprise. Today, all Congolese representations all over the world are manned by Rwandans with Congolese identities and all work and conduct policies under Kagame’s orders. Why, because the guy known as “Joseph Kabila” – who is actually in charge of the DRC instead of Felix Tshilombo “Tshisekedi” – is himself a Rwandan Tutsi and not Congolese, and he was never adopted by Laurent Desire Kabila. Even Rwandans Tutsis such as Dr. David Himbara, has written about Felix Tshisekedi’s control by Paul Kagame.

In case Youtube, Facebook, or any other entity wants to know more, they can contact the American Congolese Council through congocoalition@hotmail.com, or contact Congo Coalition Youtube at 929-800-0153 (WhatsApp) in the USA.

THE CULTURE OF LYING IN RWANDA

Gaspard Musabyimana, a Rwandan living in exile in France and the author of this document.

 

(Published on October 1, 2009 by Gaspard Musabyimana)

[Translator’s note: The document below was first published in French with the title, “La Culture du Mensonge au Rwanda“, by a Rwandan exiled in France.  He wrote it in support of and to help for the defense of the French writer, Pierre Pean, who was sued by Paul Kagame and his government because he wrote, in 2005, a book titled “Noires Fureurs, blancs menteurs” (Blacks Furious, White Liars) in which the author accused Paul Kagame of hatred towards both Hutus and Tutsis who had remained in Rwanda – while he, Kagame and other Tutsis had gone into exile for refusing to live under the leadership of the Hutu majority, their former slaves, in a democratic Rwanda – and whom Kagame called “traitors” because they had been living in peace with their fellow Hutus.  Pierre Pean wrote that Kagame and all Rwandans in general use systematically “lying” and “covering up” or “concealment” as a modus operandi and culture… Paul Kagame sued and lost.]

 

The culture of lying (telling lies) called Ubwenge is, in Rwanda, an undeniable cultural fact.  The manifestations of this culture can be observed even today.  This word has no equivalent in French.  Its meaning combines together the French words for intelligence, lies, cunning or deviousness, shrewdness, duplicity, concealment or cover-up, and treachery.

This phenomenon was favored by the royal society of yesteryear when the truth could not be told just for the truth sake.  The Rwandan society was highly hierarchal, from the serfs all the way up to the lords and then on up to the top where was the king.  Instead of telling the truth to one’s superiors, it was hidden or deformed in order to acquire favors from the lords (ukuri wabwiye shobuja, ukumubakishwabo).

Professor Charles Ntamapaka explains this phenomenon, as applied to the justice system in traditional Rwanda: “Contrary to the West, the judge is not bound by the truth, neither is the truth the object or the aim of justice.  The opinion of the individual is entirely subordinated to that of the interest of the group.  The aim of justice is not to give to everyone what is due him or her, rather it is intended to reestablish social harmony, to respect social hierarchy and the established rules.  Thus, the family, the clan, and the tribe form a unit in which each member is part of the whole.

“The relationship with the authority imposes another view and vision of the truth: the use of the truth by the authority for its own interests.  What is considered as the truth is the one that is close to the opinion of the chief.  One does not become a witness against any authority; one always seeks to be of the same view as the authority, and the poor will always lose in any trial that opposes him to the chief or to his agents.

“(…).  One must be careful, which leads to being duplicitous toward the authority.  The best “truth” is the one that does not hurt one’s interests. The main interest is to be of the same view as the authority, whether parental or political.” (1)

In spite of the fact that this trait of Rwandan culture has diminished with time, namely due to Christianity (Thou should not lie), and education, many parents subtly inculcate to their children this Rwandan form of “intelligence” even today: never say what you ate, where you are going, where you are coming from, etc.  One has to answer vaguely: “I am coming from there.” “I do not know where I am going”…

In his book (2), Valens Kajeguhakwa, a very rich Rwandan businessman reveals that he “decided that it was important to develop” in his children, “the taste of secrecy and the sense of dissimulation.” Someone gave the following striking example that illustrates teaching how to lie:  “One day I went to visit a friend in Brussels in Belgium.  The telephone rang. His 14 years old son answered.  The caller asked: ‘is your father there?’ The child answered: ‘Let me see.’  He put down the telephone and looked at his father who was sitting not far from where he was right there in the living room.  The father shook his head.  The son picked up the telephone and answered: ‘My father is not in.  He went out.’  Here is a son who is “intelligent” in the manner of Rwandans.”

The double talk, dissimilation, ruse, one saw these during the Arusha negotiations (between the two Rwandan factions that preceded the Rwandan civil war and genocide of 1994).  The foreign observers, when seeing the Rwandan government delegates and those representing the RPF joking and speaking to one another in their language of Kinyarwanda, they thought that peace was already won.  They were ignorant of the fact that in Rwandan culture, “saying ‘yes’ does not keep the person from changing his mind and saying ‘no’.” (kwikiliza ntibibuza uwanga kwanga).

Ubwenge, “the Rwandan form of intelligence” was a shock to the Western explorers and researchers, including Rwandans, who studied it.

The German Richard Kandt (German explorer who became, in 1909, the Imperial Resident of Germany’s East African colony, the Deutsch-Ostafrika which comprised today’s Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi – then the little kingdom called “Rwanda-Urundi”) studied and wrote about “Ubwenge” in 1921 in his book, Caput Nilli.  Thus, Captain Ramsey, who arrived at Runda on March 20, 1897 in order to meet King Musinga, was introduced to a certain Mhamarugamba who agreed to accept the protection of Germany.  Two years later, it was Reverend-fathers Brard, Barthelemy, and Brother Anselme to be misled or scammed.   The same Mhamarugamba, dressed in king’s apparels, received them in Nyanza and gave them the authorization to settle in the South of the country where they founded the first Catholic mission of Save.

In 1939, the canon of Lacger, in his book The Ruanda, underlined the betraying, the intrigue,… that he found in an endemic fashion in the court of the Rwandan king.

In 1940, Paul Dresse, one of the Belgian administrators in Rwanda, wrote a book in which he describes the Art of Lying among Tutsis: “The Tutsis are unique in their obsession with pretending.  ‘Showing off’, making themselves look noble and important through everything, this is the great endeavor with these aristocrats.  This disposition has, certainly, its good side: it develops ‘self-control’, and the Tutsi must be able to dominate himself when he is angry.  But, this disposition favors also duplicity and this is what makes this race one of the greatest liars that one can find under the sun.”  And he continues: “As a result of this study, Tutsis are born-diplomats.  They would be careful with their words to the point that, if you question one of them on a subject that he knows perfectly well, you would see him pass the question on to his neighbor in order for him to give himself time to prepare his answer.  Nevertheless, the art of lying is not something that is purely verbal.  The face, the entire body must accompany the ‘veracity’ of the speech.  That is why the Tutsis are born comedians, very gifted at making the facial expression that goes with any circumstance, and they do this instantaneously.”

Thomas Kamanzi, a Tutsi who conducted research in collaboration with the Belgian Andre Coupez, they collected the oral literature that they published in a book titled, in French, Litterature de Cour au Rwanda, published in London in 1970.  In it they define Ubwenge (ubweenge) as “Treachery” and that it is part of the character of the Tutsi.

In 1958, Stanislas Bushayiga, a Rwandan Tutsi Catholic priest, boasted about the merits of Ubwenge with these words: “… If the Mututsi (one Tutsi, plural Batutsi) acknowledges that the European is competent in the technical field – electricity, physics, mathematics, etc., – if the Mututsi acknowledges the European possessing the intelligence of the book (ubwenge bwo mu gitabo), the Mututsi deplores the European’s lacking shrewdness or wit.  Knowing how to distort and disguise the truth, how to deceive without arousing any suspicion is a science that the European lacks and that the Mututsi is very proud to possess;  the genius of plotting and the art of lying are, in the eyes of the Mututsi, arts for which he prides himself about:  this is the uniqueness of the Mututsi and, by contagion and as defensive reflexes, the uniqueness of every Munyarwanda (Rwandan national).”

On January 8, 1994, former Rwandan Prime Minister Agathe Uwiligiyimana declared, in front of Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana and the head of the UN in Rwanda: “Rwandans are liars and it is part of their culture.  From childhood they are taught to not tell the truth, especially if it can hurt them” (in Le patron de Dallaire parle : Revelations sur les derives d’un general de l’ONU au Rwanda, Jacques Roger Booh Booh, Paris, Editions Duboirs, 2005).

A Dutch pastor of the Presbyterian church in Rwanda in charge of the biblical and theological training of Rwandan citizens in Rwanda between 1961 and 1994 by the name of C.M. Overdulve considered, rightly so, that Rwandans’ lying practice is a culture.  He stated it in an article he published in November 1997 titled, “Fonction de la langue et de la communication au Rwanda.”

The same year was published a book that contained the different presentations by the Catholic Priest Andre Sibomana, who was also a great journalist and editor of the Catholic daily Kinyamateka, along wih Herve Deguine of “Reporters Without Borders”.  Simona acknowledges that traditionally, lying is valued; that to all the traditional tools one needs to add ruse and lying in order to have a chance to survive.

French professor Pierre Erny, who taught for many years at the National University of Rwanda, published, in 2003, an article titled “Ugbenge: Intelligence and ruse in the Rwandan and Rundi’s fashion.”  Through his research, he found out that Ugbenge or ubwenge designates intelligence, ruse, resourcefulness, the fact of being shrewd, a value that is particularly manifested through the art of lying without being caught, a sort of “oblique language”.  He adds, “In a society in which the truth is not a dominant element on the scale of values, where not only that everybody is susceptible to hide the truth, but that ‘lying’ is considered among the Fine Arts and one of the most exciting games of the spirit, no one is fooled, and everyone knows what to expect and how to adjust one’s behavior.  In other words, only the outsiders get fooled.”  And he pertinently concludes: “I think that the day when passions would settle down and one would begin to see more clearly, it would appear that the drama of Rwanda, during these last twenty years, would have been that Rwanda has been dominated, from one end to the other, by lying, a sort of lying that would have been practiced with an art and an intelligence that would have approached depravity, at least in our eyes.”

In 2007, Father Serge Desouter, who lived in Rwanda for more than twenty years, published through Harmattan Publishing company, a book titled Rwanda: le process du FPR (the trial of RPF).  When discussing the art of lying among Rwandans, he underlines: “This manner of communicating and exchanging information is know in Rwanda as Ubwenge.  What Europeans call “lying” is, in Rwanda, nothing else but what is famously referred to as ubwenge, therefore, anything else but the “real truth”!…

Antoine Nyetera, another Tutsi who is a descendant of the royal lineage of the Banyiginya and a great collaborator of the Catholic priest Alexis Kagame, in a book he is writing, speaks extensively of the art of lying among the Rwandans in general, and among the Tutsis in particular.  He reveals that traditionally, this phenomenon was inculcated subtly, even sneakily, to the children from their tender age.

One can extend the argument made on the culture of lying by citing the definition of ubwenge found in the dictionary “Rwanda-Rwanda et Rwanda-francais”, published in 2005 jointly by l’Institut de Recherches Scientifiques et Technologiques (IRST) of Butare-Rwanda and by the Musee Royal de l’Afrique Centrale (MRAC) of Tervuren-Belgium.  Ubwenge, according to this dictionary, is “A human quality that is complex and much appreciated; it allows one to have an advantage over humans and over things of life.  It indissolubly combines intelligence, ruse, experience, wisdom, lucidity, dexterity.  Depending on context, one or the other is privileged, but the different French translations cannot hide the fact that this Rwandan concept is unique.  The French has no word that is equivalent to it.  Those that approach its meaning are “tricky” and “shrewd” in one of its meanings (according to LeROBERT, “Who has the ruse and the sneakiness in order to take advantage over others would always overcome, would always succeed”).  If, for instance, in a game of bucket, a player beats another regularly, he is considered to have more ubwenge than the other; which implies an abstract reasoning, the strategy taking into account the psychology of the adversary, then using ruse in order to cheat as is allowed by the social conventions (ubwenge) and the individual skills required for one not to be caught, knowing that the cheater who gets caught by the adversary loses.”

Colette Braekman, the journalist of Le Soir, could not have said it better when she wrote: “With gusto, displaying no sign of trouble, beside the hands that agitate and the long legs that cross or uncross, Kagame can deny the obvious evidence and lie to you while looking at you right in your eyes.” (Colette Braekman, Belgian writer for Le Soir in her book, Les Nouveaux Predateurs, Paris, Editions Fayard, 2003, p. 213).

Let us conclude with this recent analysis by Shingiro Mbonyumutwa:  “The use of manipulative lying has always constituted a primordial element used for conquest and as the power for domination in Rwanda.  This strategic lying that consists of making up accusations against the other person in advance has nothing abnormal about it, it is only the continuity of the culture.”

During the time of feudality, the best of public education was taking place in the royal court.  One learned, among others, how to manipulate lying in order to accuse in advance one’s adversary, without hesitation to attribute to him those lies.  It was honorable.  The oratory art, it was said, consisted of confounding one’s adversary thanks to the hiding of the truth.  The aristocrats, and, by contagion, all Rwandans were very proud of this art of hiding the truth.  Monsignor Alexis Kagame who compared this ubwenge to the European instruction (education) regularly said about the Europeans and all whites in general that “the Whites have knowledge, but they are not intelligents.” Monsignor Kagame stressed his belief and teaching on the day that the wives of Canadian professors who were teaching at the National University of Rwanda went to complain to him that their Rwandan houseworkers lied all the time.  His answer was sharp: “but, ladies, they do not tell lies! It is perspicacity.”

There are so many other examples that attest to this phenomenon.  The art of manipulative lying is a unique and personal attribute that the aristocrats were always proud to possess and to manipulate.

And the Rwandans have very well understood it.   Doesn’t one of their proverbs say that “the truth you were going to tell the king you hide it from him in order to better use it at the right time and obtain favors from him”?  Seen under this angle, lying is not a sin.   Neither is manipulating the truth.  The essential task is in knowing how to lie in such a manner that no one would find out that you are lying; so that your listener does not even realize that you are pulling the wool over his eyes or literally duping him.   Another Rwandan proverb complements the one above in that it boasts of the mastery of being able “to set the hut (house) on fire and having the unimaginable abilities to hide the smoke”.

 

REFERENCES:

• Charles Ntampaka, Revue Dialogue, no. 221 mars—avril 2001.
• Vlens Kajeguhadwa, De la terre de paix a la terre de sang. Et apres ? Paris, Editions Remi Perrin 2001, p. 155
• Stanislas Bushayija, “Aux origins du probleme Bahutu au Rwanda”, Revue Nouvelle, Tome XXVIII, no. 12, decembre 1958, pp. 594-597.
• Jacques Roger Booh Booh, Le patron de Dallaire parle : Revelations sur les derives d’un general de l’ONU au Rwanda, Paris, Editions Duboirs, 2005.
• Antoine Nyetera, De la lance a la Kalashnikov. Relations socio-politiques Hutu-Tutsi au Rwanda, de l’ere precoloniale a nos jours.
• Colette Braekman, Les Nouveaux Predateurs, Paris, Editions Fayard, 2003, p. 213.
• Shingiro Mbonyumutwa, Rwanda : A quand la Democratie ? Paris, Editions L’harmattan, 2009, pp. 107-109.