In a day marked by chaos and, possibly, sabotage, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) was prevented for the fourth time in as many attempts from holding a legally organized meeting to become an officially recognized political party.
In Rwanda, a new party must collect at least 200 notarized nomination
signatures nationwide to register as an official party, including at
least five from each of the 30 districts of Rwanda. On October 30th over
600 Green supporters had come to the capital city of Kigali to give
their signatures, which would form part of the Greens’ registration
dossier with the Ministry of Local Government. Instead they were driven
away by police after the meeting was disrupted by unidentified men, who
forcefully penetrated the packed-to-capacity hall and threw a chair at
the seated crowd — hitting a woman, while shouting repeatedly “FPR oyee”
in French in support of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF in
English). People began to flee while others tried to fight-off the
assailants. According to the Rwanda News Service “people could be seen
falling as they ran out and away from the St. Paul hall premises, owned
by the Kigali Catholic Diocese. Deafening shouting could be heard as
people scattered to different directions. Party leaders could be seen
running up and down - seeming to have lost control of events.”
Curiously, the six police officers present began dispersing those who
were trying to restrain the attacker, rather than the attacker himself.
Within ten minutes, several dozen more appeared, some wielding guns and
batons. Backed by this armada, the Police Superintendent told the
hundreds of delegates that the meeting would not be allowed to continue
because the “situation could get out of hand.” “Due to security reasons,
we are asking the organizers of this meeting to postpone it,” he said,
as people inside and outside the hall shouted back in protest.
With the crowd dispersed, the party could not get signatures from the
hundreds waiting inside and outside the hall. To DGPR founder and
interim president Frank Habineza, the disruptions that began just before
the meeting commenced at 10 A.M. are no accident. “We have established
the man who started the shouting and threw chairs is an ex-soldier in
the Rwandan army and a former employee of Military Intelligence,” said
Habineza. “Another one was from the Local Defense Forces. This was a
well-planned sabotage done by security operatives. One of them even had
something like a gun-pistol, and this was seen by the US and Netherlands
Envoys and many others.”
“The police were not helpful at all. It looked like they were
compromising us,” added Habineza. “They released the ones who caused the
trouble and instead arrested our members, one of them a mother.
Thankfully our members have been released but were forced to make
statements to the police. They were asked why they decided to be members
of our party.” Several people are injured, and woman went to intensive
care with back injuries. Others complained bitterly that they had lost
property including phones, handbags, wallets and money.
This was the second time in less than a month that a DGPR meeting was
broken up before signatures could be submitted. On October 2nd, more
than 900 people from all 30 of the country’s districts had traveled from
across Rwanda to a similar meeting in Kigali, only to be told at that
time by the Nyarugenge District Mayor that, even though the Greens had
secured a location and a notary, it had to resubmit their request for
permission to hold the meeting.
On October 1 the Notaire (Notary Public) had called Habineza at 5 P.M.
to tell him that the Notaire would not be available the next day to
verify the DGPR signatures, because the Minister of Justice had not
granted him permission to do so. “When I called the Minister of
Justice,” recalls Habineza, “he told me the Notaire does not need his
permission to conduct such a function. Who can we believe? What are we
supposed to do?” Twice earlier the DGPR had to postpone their delegate
conferences because the Notaire claimed he is not in position to notify
the party’s nomination signatures. This time they found another notary,
but then were told they had to reapply anyway.
The continual delays have cost the DGPR great financial expense,
something the fledgling party can ill afford. But perhaps the human cost
its members have had to incur has been even greater. In a country where
84% of the people live on less than $2 a day, many supporters traveled
long distances at great personal cost and sacrifice to be in Kigali,
some bringing babies and others abandoning their jobs to be at the event
that did not happen. “I don’t know how I will get back to Rusizi
district [in western province] - a five hour journey, moreover without
accomplishing what had brought me here,” said Annonciata Nyirakanyana
while breast-feeding her son, after the October 2nd event was cancelled
Party Founded in August 2009
The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) was officially launched on
August 14th, 2009, at a press conference at the Hotel Laico Kigali, with
an audience including representatives from the Embassies of the US,
Sweden and the Netherlands, as well as the BBC, SABC, Newvison-Uganda,
Africa Press Agency and Umuseso Newspaper. Perhaps unknowingly
foreshadowing the challenges the new party would soon face, Habineza said:
“Today is a great day for Rwanda. Time has finally come where Rwandans
can boldly stand for their democratic rights and values, where Rwandans
can live without fear of being arrested or reported to the secret police
and be charged for imaginary cases. Time has reached when Rwandans can
ask the political leaders to answer for their bad governance and
corruption cases. Today is the day, when Rwandans are standing up to say
NO and publicly demand for their rights. This is the day, when all the
people of Rwanda who are not in accordance to the ideology of the ruling
party can speak out their mind and sleep without fear of any kind. Today
we ban negative words, used to undermine humanity in Rwanda, such as,
‘IGIPINGA’ (not in line with the current regime), ‘UMWANZI W’IGIHUGU’
(enemy of the state) and many other bad words being propagated.”
At the same time, Habineza laid blame at the hand of the RPF led
government. “We would also wish to express our serious disappointment
with its failures in various sectors, such as: unfair distribution of
resources (land distribution in Eastern Province) the parliament that
defends only political interests and not peoples’ interests-sic! (full
of women and passed a law against mothers), mal-functioning government
institutions (such as corruption in local government structures and
ministries), non-government organizations that are closing offices due
to lack of funds and others much favored and with big budgets because
they are considered pro-government, the private media (which has been
denied advertisements from government institutions and thus limping) and
many more other failures. It is due to these failures and despite the
visible progress in terms of infrastructures development, health,
education, ITC and others. The majority of Rwandans continue to suffer
from extreme cases of poverty, hunger, diseases, injustices, illegal
arrests, extra-judicial imprisonment, political persecutions, lack of
good governance and non-respect for human rights.”
The party’s strategy was to quickly gather its nomination signatures and
then hold a platform convention with the idea of challenging the 2010
elections, but only if the constitution and electoral laws were changed.
DGPR Secretary General Andrew Muganwa said that there had been lack of
democracy in Rwanda since monarchical time and the RPF was
“blind-folding the world with imaginary multi-party politics, when in
reality it was a single party taking decisions and others follow.”
With the DGPR, Rwanda has eleven political parties, with six of them
recently forming a coalition with the ruling RPF. Only two can be
regarded as real opposition while the others are not yet allowed to
operate. At the same time Habineza argues that the entire electoral
process is faulty from registration to vote counting, leading to obvious
vote rigging.
“Why hold expensive electoral processes when the winner is known before
elections? Its only months to the presidential elections, but no one has
declared their candidature, no one is allowed to campaign because the
constitution was manipulated. Our party would not be involved in such an
exercise that deprives our members of their democratic rights,” Habineza
noted.
“Everything in Rwanda needs to change for the sake of democracy. The
institutions need to work independent of the government and political
parties need to have sound voices like other democracies,” said
Habineza. “The RPF has manipulated all the laws to its advantage. The
constitution is changed without any consultations. There is no
functioning civil society, no press freedom, not even freedom of
association.
The DRGP thought they had just that on October 2nd, when they gathered
900 strong in Kigali to collect nomination signatures. Then despite
prior permission, their meeting was abruptly cancelled by the district
mayor. Immediately afterwards the DGPR issued a call for international
Green support. Signed by Habineza, Toussaint Hinvi of the Green Party of
Benin and Coordinator for West African Greens Network, and Board member
of Burundi Green Movement Anne Marie Bikirabake, the appeal generated
response from Green Parties in Europe, North America and Africa,
petitioning Rwandan President Paul Kagame to remove all obstacles that
are hindering the registration of the DGPR.
In its letter, President Sylvio Michel of Vertes-Fraternels of Mauritius
demanded that Kagame use his powers to “facilitate the party in
formation by instructing and or advising the relevant officials” who are
dealing with the registration process “to do whatever they are required
to do”. Edmond Edouard Gouan, president of the Parti Ecologique Ivoirien
in the Ivory Coast wrote that “this is not the first time such tactics
are being used to delay and or deny true and long lasting evolvement of
democracy in Rwanda”, and Rwanda needs to “observe and respect all legal
provisions relating to the formation and establishment of political
parties.”
The Green Party of Canada’s (GPC) Leader Elizabeth May linked the DGPR’s
status to Kagame’s professed claim to support action on climate change,
stating “Rwandan society can and should be among the leading societies
on the African continent in the efforts to combat climate change and
environmental degradation” and that the GPC “stands in solidarity with
the aspirations of the peoples of the continent of Africa to have their
nations and communities embrace and build democratic societies
democratic, inclusive and peaceful society.
With the events of October 30th, the international Green response has
only begun to grow. The Green Party of the United States issued a
statement on November 2nd, “We protest all violence and obstruction
aimed at peacefully organizing political parties throughout the world.
We especially deplore actions taken to prevent our fellow Green Parties
in other nations from participating in the political process. The
Rwandans who’ve been blocked, intimidated, and injured by provocateurs
are heroes in the struggle for democracy.
Next Steps
For the 32 year old Habineza, who is also one three African Greens on
the Global Green Coordination – the coordinating body of the Global
Greens, this international support is very timely and welcome. Since his
days as a student at National University of Rwanda in Butare, the
intellectual capital of the country, Habineza has been working on issues
of democracy, justice and the environment in his country. While a
student in 2000, he challenged Rwandan Brigadier General Richard
Rutatina with controversial questioning: demanding to know why the
General denied that Uganda never assisted Rwanda in the struggle during
the General’s visit to the university and threatening the General with
incarceration.
An advocate for a free press in a country where most of the media is
controlled overtly or covertly by the government, in 2002 Habineza
worked for the now defunct Rwanda Herald newspaper whose publisher was
declared ‘persona non grata’ after the paper published an editorial
calling for the release of former President Pasteur Bizimungu, after
which the paper was shut down by local police. In 1999 Habineza started
the Rwanda Wildlife Clubs (RWC) on campus to promote preservation and
expansion of trees around campus. Its now called Rwanda Environmental
Conservation Organisation. After graduating he served as Principal
Secretary to the former Minister for Lands, Environment, Forestry, Water
and Mines, Drocella Mugorewera, who is now in political exile.
Ultimately it was ongoing violation of human rights, combined with
environmental destruction and the lack of the basic tenets of a civil
society that led Habineza and others to found the DGPR.
Neither human rights nor environmental health can be achieved in a
non-democratic, un-free, dictatorial and tyrannical regime, according to
Habineza, who calls for the privatization of government media organs to
allow for their independence to report on these and others of his
country’s ills.
In a radio interview with the BBC after the October 30th meeting was
disrupted, he said that the DGPR would not be deterred. Habineza said
the disruption was clearly planned and he suspected ties to the
governing RPF. Accusing them of hiding behind such actions, he said “If
they want to want to prevent us from going to the elections [in 2010]
and receive 99% of the vote, let them say it.” Vowing to fight on,
Habineza added “Enough is enough. We can never go backward. We are only
going forward.”
The DGPR plans to hold another delegates congress soon, but only after
assurances from the government to provide security for its members. They
are also calling for the international solidarity and action. Referring
to the Rwandan genocide that left between one-half million and a million
Rwandans dead, Habineza said “The International community can not commit
the same mistake like it did in 1994, when genocide was happening and it
just kept quiet. We need international support now.”
For more information: www.rwandagreendemocrats.org
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