Rwanda. Children born to Tutsi women married to non-Tutsis. The case of Yolande and Yvonne Makolo.
In the context of the war of
aggression waged by Paul Kagame of Rwanda against the DRC with his Tutsi troops
of the M23/AFC, a controversial statement was made in late December 2025: Major
General Sylvain Ekenge's controversial statement.
More precisely, on December
29, 2025, General Sylvain Ekenge, the then spokesperson for the FARDC (the
Congolese armed forces), wanting to warn Congolese officers against marrying
Tutsi women, stated that these Tutsi women were being used to infiltrate other
communities because, when they are married to non-Tutsi men, they deliberately
avoid having children with them and instead systematically and clandestinely
manage to have children with their Tutsi cousins or brothers. As all Rwandans
know, in Tutsi tradition, incest is tolerated and even recommended for certain
causes.
Reactions
This warning was perceived
as a “stigmatization of the Tutsi” and therefore a manifestation of ethnic
hatred. The DRC government immediately condemned these remarks, and the officer
hierarchy (the General Staff) quickly sanctioned him by suspending him from his
duties.
However, the warning issued
by General Sylvain Ekenge does not constitute hatred or stigmatization of the
Tutsi people, as it is a historical and ethnographic truth. All Rwandans, Hutu, Tutsi, and Twa, know that Tutsi women receive this instruction from a very young age, under certain circumstances, as it is part of their tactics for conquering and dominating other ethnic groups, tribes, or communities. Moreover, the Tutsi
themselves teach their descendants that, more than five centuries ago, this is
how they were able to conquer the Bantu kingdoms in Rwanda and Burundi, on
their way from Abyssinia via the Rift Valley, herding their cattle and thanks
to their sisters (already) married to Hutu traditional chiefs to spy on and
distract them while awaiting their conquest.
Furthermore, there are
several examples in Rwandan literature and history.
This is an opportunity to
remember Father Alexis Kagame. Father Alexis Kagame was a Rwandan historian,
ethnologist, and philosopher who became the intellectual leader of the Tutsi
people by articulating their cosmology in contemporary terms.
Alexis Kagame (not to be
confused with the current Rwandan dictator Paul, who is also Tutsi but not related) was born in 1912 into a family of historians at
the royal court. He quickly acquired an intimate knowledge of Tutsi oral traditions
during those years and became a close friend of King Mutara III Rudahigwa. He
thus became a member of the custodians of the dynasty's esoteric codes (Abiru)
and, as an intellectual, was authorized to record them in writing for the first
time, since the history and secrets (Ubwiru) of the ruling Tutsi-Nyiginya
dynasty had previously been transmitted orally among them.
In 1943, Father Alexis
Kagame published his first book, an oral history of ancient Rwanda. This book
was followed by several volumes of poetry and finally by a multi-volume epic
work, Inganji Karinga.[1]
https://books.google.com/books/about/Inganji_karinga.html?id=yl0vHAAACAAJ
In this book, Father Alexis
Kagame recounts how the newly formed Tutsi kingdom of Gasabo conquered the larger, more populous Hutu kingdoms it encountered in
Rwanda. It achieved this by conquering them militarily, notably through the Tutsi
princesses who offered themselves to the Hutu kings to create the
"great" Tutsi kingdom of Rwanda, which the first European explorers
and colonists would discover in 1985.
Alexis Kagame also recounts,
among other things, how the Hutu kingdom of Nduga was conquered by the Tutsi
kingdom of Gasabo, including the anecdote of the woman named "Bwiza bwa
Mashira budashira irora n'irongorwa." He further describes the
attempts to conquer Gisaka, again by sending a Tutsi woman to marry the Gisaka's Hutu
king. Numerous attempts were also made to infiltrate the Kingdom of Burundi
through marriage, notably during the reign of Mibambwe III Sentabyo,
father of Yuhi IV Gahindiro in Rwanda, and under Ntare IV Rugamba
Rutaganzwa, known as “Rugayi,” in Burundi. This occurred between 1790 and
1850. The conquest of these Hutu kingdoms by the Tutsi is also recounted by
Western historians such as Baudouin Paternostre de la Mairieu.[2]
With the advent of the
Republic following the Social and Popular Revolution of 1959, Father Alexis
Kagame, although Tutsi and among the notables who held the esoteric codes of
the ruling dynasty (Umwiru), did not flee Rwanda. On the contrary, he continued
his career as a Catholic priest, writer, and educator. Under the Republic (the
first and second), Father Alexis Kagame was cherished, respected, and
recognized as a philosopher, linguist, historian, poet, and Catholic priest. He
received numerous decorations from the government, and the Church even bestowed
upon him the honorary title of "Monsignor" a few years before his
death in 1981.
It was during the Republic
(1961-1981) that, in addition to his many other publications, he published a
historical work that remains the definitive reference of the history of colonial and post-colonial
Rwanda. This two-volume work is titled " Un Abrégé de l'Histoire du Rwanda
1853-1972." [3]
http://197.243.22.170/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=251&shelfbrowse_itemnumber=519
The Most Striking and Current Case
On this highly controversial
and therefore sensitive subject of politically and hegemonically motivated
marriages and procreation among certain Rwandan Tutsi women married to
non-Tutsis, we felt it would be interesting and instructive to review the case of
sisters Yolande and Yvonne Makolo.
Who are they?
Yolande
and Yvonne Makolo are two sisters who are currently among the highest-ranking
political and economic figures in Paul Kagame's Tutsi dictatorial regime in
Rwanda. One of them (Yolande) is currently the Spokesperson for the
Rwandan Government with the rank of Minister. In these roles, she appears as a
cantankerous and insolent woman, not a politician or a diplomat. The other (Yvonne)
has been the CEO of RwandAir, Rwanda's national airline, since 2018.
Family Roots and Background
They were believed and
acknowledged to be the daughters of a Zairian (Congolese) father from the Luba
tribe, originally from Kasai, named Romain Makolo, and a Rwandan Tutsi
mother named Speciose Kayihura, originally from Butare, Rwanda. Speciose is the
daughter of Michel Kayihura, a former dignitary of the Rwandan royal
court before 1959, who, during the 1959 Revolution, went into exile first in
Bujumbura, Burundi, and then in Kenya.
Speciose Kayihura stayed in Bujumbura, Burundi, before joining her father, Kayihura, in Nairobi, Kenya. It
was in Bujumbura that Speciose was put in contact with François Rukeba,
who was then the leader of the Tutsi terrorist militia known as the “Inyenzi,”
which launched attacks on Rwanda from 1961 to 1968. It was also in Bujumbura
that the mother of the Congolese women, Yolande and Yvonne Makolo, was put in
contact with a certain Mulefu, a former Tutsi sub-chief from Bufundu in
southern Rwanda, who was then a refugee in Burundi and the father of a daughter
named Jeannette Nyiramongi.
After a short stay in
Bujumbura, Burundi, Michel Kayihura settled in Kenya. There, as an agricultural
and veterinary assistant, he pursued university studies and later became a
doctor and professor.
Romain Makolo, a Zairian
engineer and senior executive at Gecamines (the General Mining Company) in
Mbuji-Mayi, married Spéciose, the daughter of Michel Kayihura, whom he met in
Kasai. They had a child together, officially, a daughter born in 1978, whom he
named Yolande and gave his surname, Makolo.
Shortly after, Speciose and
Romain Makolo settled in Nairobi, where the husband worked as an international
civil servant. It was there that they had a second child, a daughter named
Yvonne.
In Nairobi, Speciose, the wife of Romain Makolo, was put in contact with the sister of the last Tutsi feudal monarch, Kigeli V Ndahindurwa, who was living in Kenya, as well as with other former dignitaries of the Tutsi monarchy exiled there.
It was also in Nairobi,
Kenya, among these Tutsi monarchists, that Jeannette Nyiramongi, daughter
of Mulefu, was sent in 1988 to marry a Ugandan army officer, a Major named Paul
Kagame, whom she had never met before. He was chosen by these Tutsi
dignitaries because this Ugandan Tutsi officer absolutely had to marry a Tutsi
woman before launching the planned 1990 war to conquer Rwanda. This was so that
he could leave descendants if he died on the front lines. This is a common
practice among Tutsi warriors.
Jeannette Nyiramongi, also known as Jeannette Kagame, is currently the First Lady of Rwanda. It
was in Kenya that Yolande completed her secondary and higher education before
continuing her studies in Canada.
Dramatic Turnaround
Shortly after the 1994
military conquest of Rwanda by Tutsi forces from the Ugandan army, under the
command of Paul Kagame, Speciose Kayihura, like her father Michel Kayihura,
returned to Rwanda with her two daughters, whom she declared to be Rwandan
without disclosing that they were fathered by Romain Makolo, a
Zairian/Congolese man. This was all the easier to accept since the
"supposed" father of these two girls, Romain Makolo, was no longer
with her to deny or clarify the identity of his "supposed" daughters.
They nevertheless kept the Makolo name, not because they recognized him as
their father, but because it was the name inscribed on their diplomas from
several universities, and it would have been difficult for them to falsify
them.
Confirmations of the Thesis
Rwandans familiar with
certain Tutsi practices and customs in their struggle for survival as a
minority ethnic group, or as dominant figures (the Tutsi people consider
themselves superior and more intelligent than other communities), immediately
understood that Romain Makolo, a Muluba from Kasai, had fallen under the
control of the Kayihura clan and was therefore not the biological father of the
children he believed he had with his Tutsi wife Speciose Kayihura.
Their two daughters, Yolande and Yvonne Makolo, thus have a Rwandan Tutsi from the Kayihura and Kagame clans as their true biological father. This is why Yolande and Yvonne Makolo present themselves, as their mother confirms, as Tutsi by both parents and are therefore completely and solely Rwandan, and are thus accepted as such by the Tutsi in power in Rwanda under Paul Kagame.
Probabilities of Biological Fathers
In this scenario, it is highly probable that the Tutsi woman, Speciose
Kayihura, cheated on her Congolese Luba husband, Romain Makolo, with a Tutsi
man and then invited her Tutsi cousins or childhood friends to father
children with her, which would then be attributed to the Congolese man as the
“father.” Several avenues should be explored to identify the biological
father(s) of these daughters.
First, there is the
possibility of identifying Tutsi exiles from the years 1959-61, who were
pioneers and among the founders of the RPF, such as Tito Rutaremara, Jacques
Bihozagara, or even Barthélemy Bisengimana Rwema, who, as a student,
was a colleague of Juvenal Habyarimana at Lovanium University in
Leopoldville from 1958-60 and later served as Chief of Staff to President
Mobutu.
Then there are the Tutsi
figures within the country who, thanks to their flourishing businesses or
positions, had easy access to and from Zaire in the 1970s, such as Assinapol
Rwigara, Valens Kajeguhakwa, and others.
But only the mother knows
the secret of which of these Tutsi figures is the true biological father of her daughters. Since only DNA analysis could reveal the true father(s) of these
two women, now high-ranking officials in Kagame's Tutsi regime, and since that
is not currently the topic in question, we will leave it at that!
Moral of the Story
In the DRC, as everywhere
else, except in countries where dictatorships reign, like Paul Kagame's Rwanda,
technicians and politicians, despite defending and serving the same ideals, are
sometimes in conflict, and in such cases, it is the technicians who suffer.
This is why a technician serving or acting under the orders of a political body
should think twice before making a statement, or carefully consider their words before writing anything, even if they deem it obvious, taking care
not to offend politicians.
Thus, General Sylvain Ekenge
told the truth, but his actions were politically untenable. He was unjustly
sanctioned despite having committed no disciplinary offense in his capacity as
an officer, let alone any criminal offense.
The case of Yolande and
Yvonne Makolo, daughters born to the Tutsi woman Speciose Kayihura, married to
Romain Makolo, a Congolese Muluba from Kasai, who today identify themselves as
Tutsi by both parents and therefore Rwandans rather than Congolese, should give
pause to those who denounce General Sylvain Ekenge's warning and unjustly
sanctioned him for political reasons.
These are some of the
consequences of marrying a Rwandan Tutsi woman when one is not Tutsi oneself
and belongs to a tribe targeted for infiltration or reviled because it is
despised by the Tutsi. This is because a cousin or brother of your wife can
become the biological father of your children.
This does not constitute
hatred or stigmatization of the Tutsi ethnic group, as these Tutsi would have
us believe to portray themselves as victims and justify their war crimes and
crimes against humanity.
Moreover, no one has said or
claimed that all Tutsi women marry and have children under these conditions.
Many Tutsi women marry for love, as is the case everywhere in the world.
This is what General Ekenge
wanted to point out. He is now, unfortunately, being punished for it. In
politics, there is no logic, no room for sentimentality or feelings.
References
1-Alexis Kagame. Inganji Karinga. 1ere Edition, Kabgayi, 1943. Alexis Kagame. Inganji Karinga. 2e Edition, Kabgayi 1957.
2-Baudoin Paternostre de la Marieu. Rwanda. Son effort de développement. Bruxelles, Éditions A. de Boeck, 1972.
3-Alexis Kagame. Un Abrégé de l'Histoire du Rwanda 1853-1972. Tome 1. Editions Universitaires, Butare 1972. Alexis Kagame. Un Abrégé de l'Histoire du Rwanda 1853-1972. Tome 2. Editions Universitaires, Butare, 1975.
Note:
This article is also available in French.
posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 9:55 AM
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