By Ann Garrison
Green Party Watch
October 30, 2009
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. http://twitter. com/habinef
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.
Note:
Anyone feel free to post this note to Green Party lists and websites, and wherever else, ASAP.
Related Materials:
Green Party banner over Rwanda
Sad day for democracy in Rwanda
New Green party cries fowl over possible sabotage
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