Green Party Watch

WASHINGTON, DC — The Green Party of the United States expressed shock and sadness over news of the barbaric killing of André Kagwa Rwisereka, Vice President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (http://www.rwandagreendemocrats.org).  Mr. Rwisereka’s body, discovered July 14 after he was missing for several days, showed evidence of murder.

US Greens have joined Green Parties around the world in extending their sincere condolences to Mr. Rwisereka’s family and community and the Rwandan Green Party.

Green Party leaders are calling on the Obama Administration to support a full investigation of this murder and the deeply disturbing allegations that André Kagwa Rwisereka’s assassination was politically motivated, tied to the current political leadership of the Rwandan government of President Paul Kagame and his ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RFP), which has close ties to the US.  The Kagame government has consistently prevented Greens and other opposition parties from freely registering as political parties. read more »

In an article written by San Francisco Green Ann Garrison, San Francisco Bay View is reporting the murder of Rwandan Democratic Green Party vice-president Andrei Kagwa Rwisereka. Garrison writes that Rwisereka was

found dead, his head almost completely severed from his body, in the wetlands of the Makula River near Butare, Rwanda, on the morning of July 14, 2010.

The Rwandan Greens have tried to find a place in civil and political life in Rwanda, but the government of President Paul Kagame has made that participation almost impossible. Reports from Greens in Rwanda make mention of armed thugs breaking up meetings, police and political figures refusing to allow Greens to register their party and ignoring requests for investigations of violence done to Green leaders and their supporters. Non-violent representatives of other political parties have suffered similarly, and arrests and detentions for long stretches appear to be a tool of repression. read more »

This should tell the world what Rwanda, the U.S.A.’s closest ally in Africa, and its President Paul Kagame are:

The Rwandan Democratic Greens tried, for the fourth time, to hold their founding convention in Kigali, but this time the police came instead.

I just spoke to Frank Habineza, interim Rwandan Green Party leader, who is in a Kigali hospital trying to arrange an X-ray for a Rwandan Green, a woman with a broken leg.

Another would be Rwandan Green woman has a broken back.

More are injured, and I believe he said some are in jail. He was on a cell in a hospital and I always have to work to understand his sweet French/Kinyarwanda English accent as well.

He wasn’t able to give me any more details now. He had to hurry off to help his friend with the broken leg.

No news on the Web yet. Frank said to watch the BBC and the Rwandan News Agency websites. I told him the state run Rwandan News Agency website won’t let me on their damn website. He himself had to pay them $250 to get on to pick up the articles he sends me, which are almost always yanked off the site as soon as they’re posted.

I didn’t have a chance to urge Frank to Twitter, but I’m going to try calling again to urge him to do so on my way to San Francisco Superior Court in an hour. Frank Habineza’s twitter account.

I have to run and I’ll be gone all morning, but we obviously we need to get on the phones to the White House, the Rwandan Embassies, and the press.

Greens of course, and I addressed this mostly to Greens, but this isn’t just about Greens, obviously. No one should wind up in a hospital with broken bones, or in jail, for attempting to convene a legal, nonviolent political party.

This is the Rwanda that Bill and Hillary Clinton and Reverend Rick Warren point to as Africa’s future, “a shining beacon of hope for Africa.” Bill Clinton hung a Global Citizenship Award around Rwandan President Paul Kagame’s neck a week before Reverend Rick Warren presented him with the same International Medal of Peace he presented George Bush with last year.

This is the Rwanda that the U.S.A. uses to control the vast geostrategic mineral wealth of its neighbor D.R. Congo.

(Anyone feel free to post this note to Green Party lists and websites, and wherever else, ASAP.)