Green Party Watch

The Christian Science Monitor reports on calls for investigation of the murder of Rwandan Democratic Green Party Vice President Andre Kagwa Rwisereka:

Rwanda’s election season is in full swing and prominent critics of President Paul Kagame are turning up dead ahead of the Aug. 9 vote. Are the killings politically motivated?

That possibility has United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon concerned enough that he has urged Mr. Kagame’s government to conduct a full investigation into the latest death: that of Democratic Green Party vice chairman Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, who was found last week nearly decapitated.

But the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch (HRW) says that an autopsy is needed after conflicting police statements have muddied the waters. read more »

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 »

Voice of America reports from Rwanda:

The leader of the opposition Democratic Green Party of Rwanda has called on President Paul Kagame’s government to help end the escalating violence ahead of the general elections scheduled for August this year.

Frank Habineza said the period leading up to the election is contributing to the ongoing violence.

Habineza’s comments follows last week’s shooting death of Leonard Rugambage, acting editor of the banned Umuvugizi independent newspaper in the capital, Kigali. read more »

The Green Party of Minnesota joins human rights advocates and people of good will across the world to call on the U.S. government, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations to prevail upon Rwanda to release Peter Erlinder immediately. We applaud his defense of the human and civil rights of Rwanda presidential candidate Victoire Ingabire, who was charged in April, 2010, with the same crime of which Erlinder is accused — genocide denial.

Ingabire’s party, the United Democratic Front (FDU), works closely with the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, within the Consultative Council of Opposition Parties. Both parties have suffered governmental persecution and severe limitations on their ability to organize. read more »

Jeffrey Gettleman of the New York Times has written an article entitled “Seeking order, Rwanda pursues dissenters and the poor” that describes how the ruling Rwandan regime has persecuted political dissenters, including the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda.

Charles Kabanda used to be a leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the Tutsi-dominated ruling party, but split with it in the late 1990s, he said, because “they were ruthless.”He recently worked with the Green Party, but said it had been repeatedly blocked from competing in the elections. Government officials said the Green Party failed to meet requirements like getting 200 valid signatures from all over Rwanda. Mr. Kabanda simply shook his head.

“ ‘Enemy, enemy, enemy’ — that’s what they call anyone who thinks differently,” he said. “This government’s record is dreadful. It’s only you, the international community, who is showering them with flowering praise.”

Over at World News Journal, David B posted the letter, which is copied in full bellow the fold.
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On 2/18/10, Amnesty International released a statement condemning intimidation of opposition parties, including the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, and urging Rwandan president Paul Kagame to “use the elections as an opportunity to show the government’s commitment to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.”

Amnesty International has strongly condemned a worrying attack on a Rwandan opposition group as the country prepares for presidential elections in August 2010. read more »

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 »

Sent in from RNA (Rwanda News Agency)

Friday, 20 November 2009

Kigali: The scheduled founding conference of the troubled Green Party did not take place Friday as the group wait for a Police certificate from the new Commissioner-General, Brig. Emmanuel Gasana. But not without new allegations, RNA reports.

A man by the names Gaston Bihibindi is claiming that he was detained for three days without food at the magnificent multi-million dollar Ministry of Defense building known locally as “Pentagon”. Mr. Bihibindi is not the only one accusing unknown individuals driving tinted double cabin Toyota pickup trucks of snatching them from their homes or as they walked.

The local weekly UMUSESO details ordeals of eight people identifying themselves as Green Party activists, who were apparently arrested on October 30 after the failed conference which police halted citing insecurity. The men were apparently detained at an infamous but not gazetted facility in Kimironko, an outskirt of Kigali.
read more »

The video below is from Ann Garrison, who has been covering the suppression of the Green Party in Rwanda. If you want more information about this I highly recommend her website.

From the Youtube description:

Rwandan security operatives and police broke up the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda’s attempt to convene in Kigali, Rwanda on 10.30.2009. I reported this on several blogs and on the OpEdNews, and notified KPFA Radio 94.1FM-Berkeley, which called me on 10.01.2009, with this result. Unfortunately they were not able to reach interim Rwanda Green Party leader Frank Habineza, but Frank can be heard in an on-the-ground BBC report, saying: “There is no rule of law in Rwanda! . . . If you want to keep us out of the elections, and you want to get 99% of the vote, then you have to say it! Enough is enough! We are going forward! We are not going back!”

(Thanks to Marnie for the video link)

Posted by David Doonan at the Green Pages Facebook page.

Dear Greens,

Its indeed been a terrible day, the man who started the shouting and threw chairs, we have established that he is an Ex-Soldier and a former employee of Military Intelligence, the other three people who joined him, one of them had something like a gun-pistol, it was also seen by the US Envoy and Netherlands Envoy and many others.

This was a well planned sabotage done by security operatives. Another guy was also from the Local Defense Forces. The police was not helpful at all. It looked like they were compromising us.

What is surprising though is that the police has released the guys who caused trouble and rather arrested our members one of them a mother. Thankfully our members have been released but made statements at the police. They were asked why they decided to be members of our party.

Several people are injured, one Lady is in intensive care. Her Back is having a problem. Am still finding out how many are injured.

Keep us in prayers
Frank Habineza

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.)

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 »