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Rwanda: PS Imberakuri accuses Senate of planning to ban the party

By RNA Reporter
December 22, 2009

Kigali: The controversial leader of the Social Party Imberakuri has accused Senators who summoned him over allegations of divisionist politics, of behaving like judges, RNA reports.


Mr. Bernard Ntaganda said Monday that the Senate Political Affairs Committee conducts business unfairly because it has not been able to differentiate between allegations and facts.

On December 14, Mr. Ntaganda appeared before the Senate Committee headed by Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF) strong man Dr. Joseph Karemera – who immediately handed Ntaganda a document containing the allegation list.

The sheet contained accusations including that PS Imberakuri was promoting divisionist politics and having Genocide Ideology. There were also other cases but these two carry the most weight and can lead to the banning of any political party and possible lengthy jail.

The session turned sour when Mr. Ntaganda told the Senators that he needed time to read through the document and prepare a written response. The seemingly angry Senators said they just want him to give details of how his party operates and why such allegations were coming from party members. Senator Karemera said some of the information had come from recordings of his comments at several other platforms.

Unmoved, Mr. Ntaganda said to would go public through media to let the international community know what had transpired at the meeting.

In an interview with BBC French service Monday, Mr. Ntaganda said he believes the Senate is being “used” in an effort to build a case to ban PS Imberakuri “like it happened with [Democratic Republican Movement - MDR]”, which was disbanded years ago over similar cases.

The document given to me by the Senators containing the allegations was not even signed, Ntaganda said in the interview. “It was like a pamphlet.”

He accused the Senators of playing politics.

In one of the statements which have raised some eye-brows, Mr. Ntaganda’s party colleagues claim he commonly describes the party as coming to work in the interest of the majority. This was used by the Genocide machine to refer to Hutus against the Tutsis.

Related Materials:
Rwanda: Opposition leader denies genocide ideology charge

posted by Mamadou Kouyate @ 12:05 AM