Green Party Watch

In a story posted to Digital Journal California Green Ann Garrison writes about the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and the influence memories of that time will have on elections to be held in that nation in 2010.

U.S., UK, and their allies justify their military support of Rwanda with the genocide narrative that identifies Rwanda as the Israel of Africa and its Tutsi population as the Jews, who deserve special protection because they have suffered a holocaust. The hero of this narrative is Rwandan President Paul Kagame, described as the extraordinary leader who has led Rwandas in their rise from the ashes of genocide, to swear, like the Israelis, “Never again.”……To register and get a ballot line in Rwanda, a party must first convene, and the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda has now tried to convene five times, only to be met with bureaucratic obfuscation and, on October 30th, violence. Their members have been harassed and arrested.

The full text of the report is below the fold, but does not include links and photos at the original story. read more »

Many times we are asked to do things in support of Green candidates or Green Party leaders, and because of the cost it’s difficult. Some of us have enough income to live well, while others of us are barely getting by. Today I offer you a dollar free way to help protect the life of a Green Party leader in Rwanda.

The following is from Ann Garrison’s blog.

I’d like to urge Green and human rights Tweeters to follow Frank Habineza, interim leader of the Rwandan Democratic Green Party, for the sake of Frank’s and other party members’ safety, and, for political rights in Rwanda.

Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s government should know that Greens and other human rights activists are watching Frank and the Rwandan Democratic Greens, especially during the next two weeks, as they continue their struggle to register as a political party with a ballot line, and convene in Rwanda’s capital city, Kigali, on October 30th, despite have been shut down by the state three times.

Please post to your Facebook pages, websites, e-lists, and/or blogs, and urge others concerned with political rights, in Rwanda, Central Africa, and beyond, to do so as well.

Canadian, Australian, European, and African Greens have all spoken out for the Rwandan Greens, and some have spoken to Rwandan Embassies. We’re waiting for a statement from the Green Party (in the-editor’s note) U.S.A., but this is not just about Green Party rights; it’s about political rights, and the safety of those fighting for them.”

LGBT human rights are also at issue, to say the least, in Rwanda, where official policy has long been that “homosexuality does not exist.” Frank Habineza told me he would try to contact members of the LGBT community willing to speak to press outside Rwanda, but also said that “they are so beaten down here that they are very hard to find above ground.”

So there it is folks. If you have a Twitter account, please consider adding Habineza to your list of folks to follow. This will let the repressive government in Rwanda know that the world, or at least a part of the world, is concerned about his safety, and will not allow him or the Green Party to be repressed.

The following was written by Ann Garrison, a Green in San Francisco. She has told me that I can re-publish this piece, originally published at Op Ed News

The international network of Green Parties may achieve something far larger, in Africa, than anything they’ve achieved locally, anywhere.

The Rwandan Democratic Greens have rallied round the internationally recognizable Green Party banner, and thus kicked a hole in the huge IMF/World Bank/U.S.-U.K. State Department/Clinton/Rev. Rick Warren lie about Paul Kagame’s Rwanda, the U.S.-sponsored dictatorship they all point to as a beacon of hope for Africa. And, in the lies wrapped around the covert U.S. War in Central Africa—the most lethal, but least understood, conflict in the world. read more »