Press Release of the Public Launching of the party

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 publically 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.

This is the day we have been waiting for and Change has come to Rwanda. Time has come when we can have a binding constitution, which cannot be changed any time, without the consent of the electorate.

Time has come to have meaningful Electoral and Political Parties Laws.

Today the, 14th August 2009, the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) is officially launched and declared publically. As the law requires, after this official launching , we shall call for a Party delegates congress, to elect party leaders and sign its official documents, after the party registration, we shall call for another congress to decide the party action program.

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) will be a political Organization whose aim is to strive for the promotion of green principles and values, such as : participatory democracy, rule of law, good governance, fair distribution of resources, ecological wisdom, social justice, non-violence, sustainable development and respect for diversity.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we the Greens democrats believe that our green values and especially environmental protection can neither be attained nor be sustained in non-democratic, un-free, dictatorial and tyrannical regimes. Because whatever you protect others come and destroy.

It is therefore reasonable and realistic to understand that the green values can never be separated from democratic values of Freedom (Freedom of Press, Expression, Association and Worship)

They can neither be attained nor sustained in a political and socio-economic environment that is both unfair, unjust, un-free and tyrannical.

Therefore, as our political organization strives to promote its green vision and values, it can neither abandon nor ignore the promotion of rule of law, good governance, political rights and civil liberties.

Our organization will strive to organize all the resources to ensure Rwanda becomes both a free, fair, just and democratic state.

We, as the Rwandan Green Democrats, adhere to all international human rights laws and principles, the promotion of democracy, rule of law, good governance, fair distribution of natural resources and other related democratic values.

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (DGPR) however much we appreciate the achievements made by the present 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.

Among the above mentioned issues, it is the opinion of this political organization that the core root of all these problems of political and social-economic bad governance is the lack of democracy and institutional independence in Rwanda.

For us and in principle, any democratic government should and must be free and without fear of prejudices, be elected by the people. The Citizens of Rwanda should be able to elect their representatives in a free and fair election. They should also be able to call back their leaders in case they don’t fulfill their promises. This is indeed missing in Rwanda.

Furthermore, to insure the system of checks and balances which in our organization’s view is the cornerstone of any democratic government and system, the independence and free operations of other governance partners such as the media, civil society, business community, faith based organizations, community based organizations, donor community and other related social-economic stakeholders, remains always imperative.

Therefore the implementation of our noble green values and objectives will demand us to strive for these democratic values and objectives too. In fact to us, the protection of environment in a meaningful, sustainable and reasonable manner will require us to strive for these noble ideas of democracy, rule of law, good governance, fair distribution of natural resources and others.

We believe it’s only in a free, fair, just and democratic society that the noble green values can be both attained and sustained.

It would be therefore unwise, unreasonable and meaningless to try to even imagine that the Democratic Green Vision can be attained without a proper democracy in Rwanda.

Done at Kigali, 14th August 2009

Frank HABINEZA

Interim Party President