Besigye rejects Museveni's rule

KPFA Weekend News, 02.20.2011:

Audio link: http://goo.gl/3K2nu

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Anthony Fest: And this is KPFA/KPFB in Berkeley, or KFCF, 88.1 in Fresno.  The program is the Weekend News; I'm Anthony Fest with David Landau.   Turning now to news from Africa, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has been in power for the past 25 years, with military, diplomatic, and intelligence support from the U.S.  He officially claimed victory in Uganda's presidential election this morning, but opposition parties and election observers claimed widespread election fraud. KPFA's Ann Garrison has more.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni entered his 26th
year in power, after claiming victory, on 02.20.2011, in
yet another presidential election that opposition parties
declared fraudulent.

KPFA/Ann Garrison: In his introduction to a recent interview with Ugandan President Yoweri Musveni, Aljazeera host Mohammed Adow said that  Museveni had joined the League of African Rulers whose only wish is to stay in power forever. In conversation with Museveni, the Aljazeera host asked whether he would ever consider retiring, and criticized his extreme concentration of power, in his own hands.

Aljazeera's Talk to Jazeera Host Mohammed Adow:  Mr. President, your National Resistance Movement Party is run like a one man show, not an institution. You are the NRM and without you, some say, it's the end of the party.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni:  Oh, they must be sick, because NRM has got nine million members now.  Many of the things they do, I don't even know.  So anybody who said that I'm running that huge organization alone must be sick in his head or her head.

KPFA:   Opposition presidential candidate Dr. Kizza Besigye and the Democracy Group, a non-partisan election monitoring team, were collecting their own election poll tallies after Ugandans went to the polls on Friday, so as to publish their own results, but Museveni's Communications Commission made that impossible by ordering telecom companies to jam their SMS message reception. Besigye, his party and other members of the opposition categorically rejected the election results, and denounced the National Electoral Commission which Museveni selected himself.

They also accused Museveni and his party of ballot stuffing, unsealed ballot boxes, voter intimidation by the army, flagrant vote buying, and using state resources to win. Commonwealth observers observed the same irregularities.

Commonwealth election observers spokesman:  The power of incumbency in this general election, and during the campaign leading to it, was exercised to such an extent as to compromise severely the level playing field between the competing candidates and political parties.

KPFA:  Poverty, especially among Uganda's majority subsistence farmers, was the opposition's central issue, but, poverty also made Ugandans vulnerable to widely reported, flagrant vote buying by the rullng party. Besigye urged hungry Ugandans to take the money, then vote against the thieves who gave it to them, but Job Collins, who ran for Youth Member of Parliament in Uganda's Northern Region, and other members of the opposition said that many impoverished Ugandans feel too disempowered to defy the authority of those who paid for their votes.

Speaking to the press, Besigye said that the opposition rejected not only the election results but also any legal authority based on them:

Dr. Kizza Besigye has rejected the authority of Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni established by the
02.20.2011 election, because, he claims, it was fraudulent. 

Dr. Kizza Besigye:  We have rejected the outcome of this election.  We are rejecting the leadership that emerges out of this sham election.   And we are going to take steps, in consultation with the various people we have pointed out, all the stakeholders in our country, including the public, as to the means we are going to use to bring the country back to Constitutional rule.  

KPFA: Africa peace and justice activists in the U.S. have stepped up their calls for the U.S. to stop supporting both the Museveni regime and the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame since the October 1st release of the UN Mapping Report documenting their armies' war crimes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For Pacifica, KPFA and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.  

Was Obama an accomplice in David Kato's murder?

David Kato, LGBT activist, Advocacy Officer for
Sexual Minorities Uganda, slain by an assailant, who
broke into his home and hit him over the head
with a hammer until he was dead on 01.26.2011.

Would Ugandan LGBT advocate David Kato be alive if Barack Obama, the most powerful man in the world, had not asked Reverend Rick Warren to say the opening prayers, or invocation, at his inauguration on January 20, 2009, then attempted to justify the invitation with reference to Reverend Rick Warren's humanitarian work in Africa?

Warren had been a longstanding ally of Uganda's infamously homophobic Pastor Martin Ssempa, although outrage over Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, a.k.a. "Hang-the-Gays Bill," has since compelled him to take his distance.

In Uganda, Warren had, in March 2008, encouraged a schism in the Anglican Communion over gay Episcopalian Bishop Gene Robinson, and said "we shall not tolerate this aspect [homosexuality], not at all."

Warren had also, during his campaign for Proposition 8, California's gay marriage ban, equated homosexuality with incest, pedophilia and bestiality, in this interview on Beliefnet:



In 2008, after the outrage consequent to his invitation to Warren, Obama justified his invitation to Rick Warren as an instance of inclusion, including Reverend Rick Warren's voice as one of many in his inauguration:

Here is the White House statement of sorrow and affirmation of LGBT rights as fundamental human rights, in response to David Kato's murder in Uganda:

The White House

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release

January 27, 2011

Statement by the President on the Killing of David Kato

I am deeply saddened to learn of the murder of David Kato.  In Uganda, David showed tremendous courage in speaking out against hate.  He was a powerful advocate for fairness and freedom.  The United States mourns his murder, and we recommit ourselves to David’s work.

At home and around the world, LGBT persons continue to be subjected to unconscionable bullying, discrimination, and hate.  In the weeks preceding David Kato’s murder in Uganda, five members of the LGBT community in Honduras were also murdered.  It is essential that the Governments of Uganda and Honduras investigate these killings and hold the perpetrators accountable.

LGBT rights are not special rights; they are human rights.  My Administration will continue to strongly support human rights and assistance work on behalf of LGBT persons abroad.  We do this because we recognize the threat faced by leaders like David Kato, and we share their commitment to advancing freedom, fairness, and equality for all.

Of course we have to be glad that President Obama was moved, and/or obliged to make such a statement, but many questions remain unanswered, regarding Obama, Reverend Rick Warren, and the East African Presidents, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, Rwandan President Paul Kagame, and Burundian President Pierre Nkrunziza, all three of whom have promoted the criminalization of homosexuality, and provided troops in service to the American military agenda in Africa.

Unlike other forms of violence in Africa, David Kato's murder, and Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act, makes 10-20% of the world, regardless of racial and national identities, feel targeted. 

Erlinder on Tour: Documents Prove U.S. Complicity in Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:  American Law Professor Peter Erlinder is set to begin a speaking tour to present his 70-page compilation of original UN documents and evidence, as well as his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda between 1993 and 1995. Erlinder says that the U.S., its allies, and the Rwandan government are collaborators in an ongoing coverup of the truth at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder speaking
to the National Lawyers Guild, holding
a duplicate of the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there in May of 2010
to defend opposition leader
Victoire  Ingabire Umuhoza,
who is now in prison herself. 

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Peter Erlinder, international criminal defense attorney, and law professor at Minnesota's William Mitchell College of Law, will begin his speaking tour at George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. on January 24th, then visit Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Law Schools, then, Fordham University Law Shool and the Brecht Forum in New York City, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tour will coincide with DePaul University's Journal of Social Justice's publication of his original UN documents and evidence, and his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda, at the time of the epic massacres now known as the Rwanda Genocide. Professor Erlinder spoke to KPFA from his home in St. Paul Minnesota:

KPFA:  What do you think Americans most need to understand about what happened in Rwanda, and then in Congo?  What does this have to do with us?

Peter Erlinder:  Well, I think that what this has to do with us I'd like to answer first.  The United States has played an active role in destabilizing the Great Lakes Region of Africa for the last 25 years.  It's a role that the American people, however, do not understand, and because they don't understand it, they're not able to take action to change it.  But with respect to Rwanda, what the evidence in the files show, that have been kept secret until I was able to get them, is that actually it was the Pentagon that created the RPF, grew them from 2500 to 25,000 troops in a period of two years, provided the material and the support necessary for them to take over the country, that at the same time the State Department was attempting to get the RPF to agree to give up its power and to enter into a minority position in the government, the Pentagon was continuing to support them and make them an even larger military force, so there was no incentive for them to give up their militarily superior position.

Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader
that Professor Peter Erlinder traveled to Rwanda to defend
was taken, head shaven, handcuffed, and in pink prison garb,
to a Kigali court in handcuffs, where she was again denied
bail, on January 20, 2011. 

And the American people should also know that the UN documents and US government documents from FOIA disclosures that we have show that a U.S. engineered cover-up of RPF crimes began in August of 1994 because the State Department found out that the Pentagon was actually behind the RPF and therefore was responsible fundamentally for the Rwanda Genocide.  And that it's that connection to the United States that the American people don't know and is not acknowledged.  That's also the reason that the Rwanda Tribunal has had to prosecute only one side, because if Kagame ever is prosecuted, it's quite sure that he will explain the role of the United States in making him who he is.

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK, invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time.   Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo.   But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.

KPFA:  Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA.  For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison.

Audio link:
http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

Erlinder on Tour: U.S. Is Responsible for Rwanda Genocide and Congo Wars

 

Law Professor Peter Erlinder
speaking to the National Lawyers Guild
last year, holding the pink prison garb
he wore while incarcerated in Rwanda,
after traveling there to defend Victoire
Ingabire Umuhoza, the Rwandan opposition leader who
is now in prison herself.

KPFA Weekend News Anchor Cameron Jones:  American Law Professor Peter Erlinder is set to begin a speaking tour to present his 70-page compilation of original UN documents and evidence, as well as his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda between 1993 and 1995. Erlinder says that the U.S., its allies, and the Rwandan government are collaborators in an ongoing coverup of the truth at the International Criminal Tribunal on Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.  KPFA's Ann Garrison has the story.  

KPFA/Ann Garrison:  Peter Erlinder, international criminal defense attorney, and law professor at Minnesota's William Mitchell College of Law, will begin his speaking tour at George Washington University Law School in Washington D.C. on January 24th, then visit Philadelphia's University of Pennsylvania and Temple University Law Schools, then, Fordham University Law Shool and the Brecht Forum in New York City, and the University of Pittsburgh. The tour will coincide with DePaul University's Journal of Social Justice's publication of his original UN documents and evidence, and his analysis of what actually happened in Rwanda, at the time of the epic massacres now known as the Rwanda Genocide. Professor Erlinder spoke to KPFA from his home in St. Paul Minnesota:

KPFA:  What do you think Americans most need to understand about what happened in Rwanda, and then in Congo?  What does this have to do with us?

Peter Erlinder:  Well, I think that what this has to do with us I'd like to answer first.  The United States has played an active role in destabilizing the Great Lakes Region of Africa for the last 25 years.  It's a role that the American people, however, do not understand, and because they don't understand it, they're not able to take action to change it.  But with respect to Rwanda, what the evidence in the files show, that have been kept secret until I was able to get them, is that actually it was the Pentagon that created the RPF, grew them from 2500 to 25,000 troops in a period of two years, provided the material and the support necessary for them to take over the country, that at the same time the State Department was attempting to get the RPF to agree to give up its power and to enter into a minority position in the government, the Pentagon was continuing to support them and make them an even larger military force, so there was no incentive for them to give up their militarily superior position.

And the American people should also know that the UN documents and US government documents from FOIA disclosures that we have show that a U.S. engineered cover-up of RPF crimes began in August of 1994 because the State Department found out that the Pentagon was actually behind the RPF and therefore was responsible fundamentally for the Rwanda Genocide.  And that it's that connection to the United States that the American people don't know and is not acknowledged.  That's also the reason that the Rwanda Tribunal has had to prosecute only one side, because if Kagame ever is prosecuted, it's quite sure that he will explain the role of the United States in making him who he is.

Rwandan opposition leaderVictoire Ingabire Umuhoza,
in pink prison garb, and with her head shaved was
led to court where she was again denied bail,
on January 20th, 2011.   

It's also true that in 1996 and 1998, Rwanda and Uganda, both with the support of the US and UK,  invaded the eastern Congo and have occupied the eastern Congo since that time.   Reports to the UN Security Council from experts that were engaged by the Security Council have reported repeatedly, 2001, 2, 3, 2008, 2010, that the armies of Uganda and Rwanda are occupying the eastern Congo, killing millions of people, at least six million, and raping the resources of the Congo.   But unfortunately, because both of these are proxy armies that are convenient for the United States, we don't hear about those crimes, and the perpetrators of the crimes are not called before the International Criminal Court, and the American people are in a position where they don't realize that their country is actually responsible for the massive crimes in the Great Lakes Region of Africa, and we should care about that greatly because these crimes are being done in our name.  

KPFA:  Peter Erlinder, thank you for speaking to KPFA.  For Pacifica, KPFA, and AfrobeatRadio, I'm Ann Garrison. 

Audio link:

http://www.anngarrison.com/images/mp3s/erlindertour.mp3.

WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo, 04.29.2010

WBAI Radio interview with Professor Peter Erlinder egarding the lawsuit Habyarimana vs. Kagame, filed in an Oklahoma City, Oklahoma federal court on 04.29.2010:


Click to play:


WBAI Radio-N.Y.C.: Peter Erlinder on WBAI Radio-N.Y.C. re Rwanda and D.R. Congo

KPFA News: Rwandan Police in Haiti, 03.15.2010

KPFA News segment re Rwandan troops in Haiti, 03.15.2010:

Click image or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtkvraLh7Lk to play.

Frank Habineza requests that the Rwandan Government guarantee his security

Frank Habineza, Chairman of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda

On February 25th, after reports that he would be assassinated within 60 days appeared in Umuseso, a newspaper published in Kinyarwanda, the African language shared by all Rwandans, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda Chair Frank Habineza wrote this letter to the Minister of Internal Security requesting protection:

FRANK HABINEZA

           B.P. 6334 Kigali, Tel: 078 85 630 39,  Email: fhabineza@rwandagreendemocrats.org



25th February 2010

The Minister of Internal Security

KIGALI, RWANDA

Dear Sir,

              Re: Security Threat to My Life, Requesting for Protection

I would like to take this opportunity to draw your kind attention to very disturbing events that have in the recent past surrounded my daily life as the Chairman of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR), a party that, as you very well know, is yet to be registered.

Since early February this year, there have been several verbal reports about my imminent demise through assassination. At first I dismissed that information as ordinary rumours that form part of the occupational hazard of a politician’s life.  I had tried to ignore the various threats, intimidation, and harassment I have been subjected to, including those committed against our members since 30th October 2009.

However, subsequent events have forced me to reconsider all aspects relating to my security. Recent press reports published in UMUSESO No.396, of 22 Feb-01 March 2010, on Page two, reveal that there are people who plan to kill me in 60 days, according to reliable sources. I also have information which I can’t substantiate that there are planned robberies, beatings, grenade attacks, and harassment being prepared against my family in particular and other senior leaders of the party.  Other details indicate that we are supposed to be assassinated before the August 2010 presidential elections.

Similar events have happened to Ms.Victoire Ingabire. She was beaten by a mob at Kinyinya Sector in Kigali also in February 2010.

These security threats are preceded by an event that happened to me on 4th February 2010, while I was at Hotel Le Printemps, Kimironko, Kigali, sharing a soft drink with a friend Jean Paul MUDAHERANWA aka.   Suddenly, a certain person unknown to me approached us and greeted me in my names and then told me in a menacing voice, that they are watching me very closely and asked me why I was fighting them, yet they paid for my education. I reported the matter to Police on 5th February 2010 and on 9th February; i gave a full statement to Remera Police Station in Gasabo District.

In a country like Rwanda, which is supposed to follow the rule of law and try to be democratic, where a significant community is peaceful, these developments are very worrying.

The purpose of this letter is therefore to request you to use your good offices to verify these threats and, if they are found true, bring the perpetrators to book. I would also like to request you to ensure my security in particular and that of the senior leaders of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda and fellow opposition leaders in other yet to be registered parties.



I am looking forward to getting a kind consideration from you.



Yours Faithfully



Frank HABINEZA

Chairman, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda



C.C:

-  H.E. President of the Republic

-  The Right Hon. Prime Minister

- The Commissioner General of Police

- The Director General of National Security Services

- National Human Rights Commission

-  All Embassies in Rwanda

Rwandan political update, including claims of a plot to murder Frank Habineza

Posted 02.24.2010, via World News Journal, 02.23.2010

The President of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, Mr. Frank Habineza, yesterday's (Mr. Habineza's birthday) edition of Umuseso published claims of plot to kill him by the RPF. A translation of part of the article follows below. This issues follows yesterday's Nyarugenge Primary Court ruling that handed various jail sentences to editors of Umuseso after they were found guilty of defaming and invading the privacy of Cabinet Affairs Minister Protais Musoni. They will be allowed a chance to appeal. Charles Kabonero, the former Managing Editor and his predecessor, Didas Gasana, were given one-year and six months jail sentences respectively. They were also each ordered to pay a fine of 1 million Rwf. Richard Kayigamba was sentenced to six months and a fine of 1 million Rwf in a verdict that was pronounced in the absence of all defendants. The Rwandan government has threatened to close the newspaper permanently. While the paper has been accused many times of defamation and publication of inflammatory articles by various Rwandan officials, Reporters Without Borders has documented the Rwandan Government's repeated oppression of Umuseso and shown the government has often violated the right of freedom of speech to independent Rwandan periodicals in general. The well-known organization ranked Rwanda as one of the worst countries in the world for press freedom. Last year, they ranked 157th out of 175 countries and is the 4th worst country in Africa.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UMUSESO NEWSPAPER No.396 of 22nd February-01 March 2010

BAD PLANS-HABINEZA TO BE KILLED IN 60 DAYS

Translation of some text from Page 2.

………………. While Victoire Ingabire is in the process of being sent to prison, another opposition politician Mr.Frank HABINEZA will be killed within 60 days.

One of the security operatives who gave us the information had this to say Frank is going to be killed within 60 days, they have no case against him. They can’t charge him with harboring genocide ideology.

They have been trying to frame him up but have not yet succeeded, yet he is the one fully supporting (giving courage) to Victoire Ingabire.

Frank Habineza, who was physically threatened by an unknown person while at a Kigali Hotel known as Le Printemps admits having received this information but says he does not believe that this Government can do such a thing “I do not believe that RF can stoop so low by killing a person just simply because he/she has different views, but from what aim hearing anything is possible”

Arrangements are being made to kill Frank Habineza, the party he is reading is at road blocks, still struggling to get registered.

Dr. Peter Erlinder and "The Rwanda Genocide Cover-up"

Skulls of victims of one of the massacres during the 1994 Rwandan genocide are displayed at the Genocide Memorial Site church of Ntarama in Nyamata, Rwanda, in 2004.

On 01.20.2010, I published "Rwanda's 1994 genocide and 2010 elections" in the Digital Journal.

This morning I received the response,below, from Peter Erlinder, the Lead Defense Council at the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR).   Neither Dr. Erlinder, nor I, nor any of the journalists, Rwandan dissidents, exiles, or opposition Rwandan political parties deny that genocidal mass murder occurred in Rwanda. We disagree only with the onesided history, in which the former Hutu government and military are said to have conspired to commit genocide against Tutsis, and in which only Tutsis, not Hutus, were mass murdered.

The victorious, now ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party has made this history not only sacrosanct, but also a legal requirement, by passing laws against "genocide ideology"---meaning history that disagrees with their own.

Members of the RPF are now calling for the prosecution and incarceration of FDU-Inkingi leader Victoire Ingabiré Umuhoza for daring to say that Hutus were also targets of genocidal mass murder, upon her return from exile.

"Ms. Garrison,

Thanks for the article. As Lead Defense Council at the ICTR I have had a chance to closely examine a the violence associated with the RPF takeover of Rwanda, and have concluded that the "victors" have told the story of the 4-year war, and its aftermath.

During the past 7 years the Prosecutor at the ICTR, with the help of the Kagame government, US and UK have been unable to marshall evidence that the former military or government planned or conspired to kill civilians, much less Tutsi civilians.

In Feb 2009, the Judgement in the Military I (Bagosora) case found that NONE of the top four officers (including Bagosora) were guilty to conspiracy before or after the assassination of Habyarimana.

In Feb 2009, the former ICTR Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte admitted in her memoirs that she had been ordered to bury evidence of RPF crimes, including Kagame's assassination of Habyarimana which had been known to her office in 1997...by the U.S. State Dept.
 

'The Great Rwanda Genocide-Coverup' is beginning to unravel....but US, as you note, is deeply invested in maintaining a Prussian-style military presence in Central Africa. I have posted several articles and the - Rwanda Documents Project - has many of the contemporaneous confirming documents.  -Peter Erlinder"

Would someone please tell Paul Kagame that Greens are nonviolent?

 

Rwandan President Paul Kagame can't seem to understand that peace/nonviolence is one of the 10 key values of the Democratic Green Party, as it is of Green Parties all over the world.

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda's fourth attempt to convene, so as to participate in Rwanda's 2010 elections, ended in violence, chaos, and arrests.  Rwandan authorities now insist that the Rwanda Greens acknowledge that they sabotaged their own convention, and, promise not to do anything so violent to themselves again, before granting them a police permit for their fifth attempt to convene?

Would somebody please remind Paul Kagame and his government that the Global Green Party is nonviolent?  That nonviolence is one of the Rwanda Greens 10 key values, that it's one of the Global Green Parties 10 key values all over the world?    

And that this makes his argument that he can't let the Rwanda Greens convene in Kigali, for fear that they might do violence to one another, even sillier?   

It's such a silly argument that it might be funny, if most Rwandans didn't evidence signs of malnourishment, while surviving on one meal a day, despite living on some of the richest agricultural land on earth.  And, if participating in Rwanda's 2010 election weren't for many Rwandans, an issue of survival as much as self determination.  

From 256news.com, Uganda, 11.26.2009:

 Rwandan President Paul Kagame

Green Party Woes Continue, As Police Halt Conference Again
BY GODWIN AGABA
   
Thursday, 26 November 2009    

President Kagame Rwanda National Police on Monday, directed Rwanda Green party officials not to proceed with next scheduled conference that was to take place this week, citing divisionism within the party.

According to correspondences obtained by 256news.com, the party has failed to convince police that they will be no chaos again, sates the police latter of 23, November 2009, no 2527/NP/EKG/SGP/BK/09,and signed by commissioner general of police, Brig. General Emanuel K.Gasana. 

However Frank Habineza the interim party president said outsiders who are not party members sparked the chaos.

The Green Party said those who are behind the chaos and who started it as Kimenyi Claude who resides in Nyamirambo suburb and is the president of Rwanda money changers and he is former RDF officer and another one called Kayisire Emmanuel a broker operating in Gasabo district also former police operative, according to green party’s letter to police dated 23, November 2009.

Green party officials said that, Kimenyi threw a chair at the seated crowd hitting a woman as he shouted repeatedly “FPR oyee” – in support of the ruling Rwanda Patriotic Front.

Planting bio-fuels in Rwanda, while Rwandans go hungry

Rwanda's greatest natural resource is its fertile agricultural land, but most is centralized in the hands of government elites and planted in export crops, coffee, tea, flowers, and soon, bio-fuels----while Rwandans go hungry. 

On November 9, 2009, Benoit Ndagijimana, Deputy Secretary General of the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, a.k.a., the UDF-IINKINGI, a dissident Rwandan political party, protested the Rwandan government's dedication of 10,000 hectares of land, in Eastern Rwanda, to produce bio-fuels, in a consortium with U.S.-based Eco-Fuel Global and UK-based Eco Positive:

"This unique decision is made when prices of food commodities are increasing every day, but many Rwandans barely have one meal a day and display obvious undernourishment, and, when at least 60% of households in the rural areas of Rwanda suffer from different degrees of food insecurity.  This decision poses additional harms to the Rwandan peasants already afflicted not only by current land expropriation underway since July 1994 but also by forced villagization and technocratic regionalization of crops. . ."  http://hungryoftruth.blogspot.com/2009/11/udf-inkingi-condemn-decision-to-sell.html

Rwanda's greatest natural resource is its fertile agricultural land, but most of it is centralized in the hands of government elites and planted in coffee, tea, and flowers for export.   This Global Eco-Fuels investment, like Costco and Starbuck's investment in Rwandan coffee plantations, obviously undermines most Rwandans struggle to secure life's most basic necessity---food.

The best hope of redistributing Rwandan land to Rwandan people, for sustainable agriculture that might feed them, is a fair and honest election in Rwanda in August 2010, which the government of Rwandan President Paul Kagame, the U.S.A.'s greatest ally in Africa, is doing all it can to prevent----as evidenced by its repression of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda's four attempts to convene, and, its refusal to grant a passport to the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda's  First Vice Chairman Eugène Ndahayo.

If allowed to participate, the Rwandan Greens, the United Democratic Forces of Rwanda, and other parties would probably be able to form a coalition capable of winning the election:

For a critique of bio-fuels planting on the entire African continent, see the Pambazuka News, "Bio-fuels and neo-colonialism," which describes it as "a new and massive land-grabbing scramble in Africa, unprecedented since the fall of colonialism."

Eco-Fuel Global is based in Walnut Creek, California, U.S.A., in the San Francisco Bay Area.  Eco Positive is based in London, UK. 

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Group on Rwanda's application; not until after a fair election in 2010

"On Rwanda it should wait for next year’s presidential elections, send a strong observer group to decide whether they are fair (the last ones were not) and then consider the application at the next CHOGM in 2011."  -Journalist Derek Ingram, writing for "Commonwealth Conversation," Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative Group.

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda's fourth attempt to convene in Kigali ended in broken bones and arrests after agent provocateurs stood up chanting "Hail the RPF!  Hail the RPF!" and threw chairs, injuring some of the 1000 Rwandans in attendance.   (The RPF is Rwanda's ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front party.)

Since Rwandan authorities shut down the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda's failed attempt to convene on 10.02.2009, I've been reporting on the party's ongoing struggle for registration and a ballot line in the 2010 elections.

Rwandan authorities have now shut down the party's attempts to convene four times, last time violently.   (See OpEdNews: "Broken bones and arrests at Rwandan Green Party convention.")

As an American, I feel compelled to turn attention to this struggle for the most basic political and civil rights in Rwanda, because Rwanda is the U.S.A.'s strongest ally in Africa, the nation that the U.S. State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and, former President Bill Clinton, all describe, rhapsodically, as a shining beacon of hope for Africa. 

In fact, Rwanda has the third highest per capita prison population in the world, the highest in Africa, and many of these prisoners are political.  Homosexuality is a criminal offense, but there are no readily available records of how many Rwandans are now incarcerated for it.   Teenage girls are most often in prison for having an abortion.

Another writer, Umetezi, reported, in response to Derek Ingram's essay that:

". Members of one minority tribe (the Tutsis) have seven times more representation in the government, per-capita, than members of the majority tribe (the Hutus).

. In a discriminatory measure, the government recently banned the use of the French language in teaching and administration, despite the fact that the vast majority of Rwandans speak French in addition to Kinyarwanda. French has been used for decades as the language of commerce, education and law in Rwanda. French speaking Rwandans now find their entire careers and livelihoods at risk.

. Rwanda has gone from being a “low-inequality” country in the 1980’s to being in the world’s bottom 15% in terms of inequality today.

. One-third of Rwanda’s population now suffers from nutritional deficiencies, and life expectancy is among the 20 lowest in the world at only 44 years.

. Wealth and power are concentrated in the cities, the government’s stronghold, leaving 92% of the poor in underrepresented rural areas."

Party President Frank Habineza, introduces Party Secretary General, Charles Kabanda, who greets the congress with the party symbol. On his right is Party Second Vice President, Jeanine UWINEZA.  (This photo was taken before the disruption, broken bones, and arrests.)

Now, a state/RPF propaganda machine is publishing daily hit pieces to discredit the Rwandan Green Party and it's leader Frank Habineza, but all its mouthpieces keep dodging the most fundamental issue at the end of Derek Ingram's essay objecting to Rwanda's admission at the Commonwealth heads of state gathering later his month, November 2009:  "On Rwanda it should wait for next year’s presidential elections, send a strong observer group to decide whether they are fair (the last ones were not) and then consider the application at the next CHOGM in 2011."