PRESS RELEASE N° 007/P.S.IMB/09

After being summoned by the Political Commission of the Senate according to the letter dated 14/12/2009 No 1404/Clerk/SEN/AA/MC/2009;

The Leadership of the Social Party IMBERAKURI would like to inform all the Rwandans and our supporters in particular the outcome of the above meeting in the following lines:

Article one :

The Social Party Imberakuri was accused by the above Commission of harbouring genocide ideology, divisionism, and insecurity for the Rwandan national unity, disrespect Gacaca Courts and undermining Government programmes by criticising the banning of French language in Rwanda.

Article 2 :

After analysing all the above accusations against the leadership of the Social Party Imberakuri and in particular, the authenticity of the bill of indictment since it was not signed by those who claim to author it and the authority who issued this bill is not identified; the leadership of the Social Party realised that such accusations lacked credibility and could not be taken seriously.

Article 3 :

The leadership of the Social Party Imberakuri could not respond to such accusations immediately as it was demanded by the Senators. Thus, it requested for more time to study and fully understand those accusations, since all the accusations were of grave magnitude, of serious nature and composed in the bill of indictment of almost 15 pages. We argued that it is a fundamental right of the defendant to be given time to study and understand all the accusations labelled against him/her in order to defend him/her.

Article 4 :

The leadership of Social Party hereby condemns in the strongest terms such ugly acts of the above Commission who did not want to give our Party the requested time to be able to fully understand those accusations and allegations and later come up with a defence; instead they withdrew the above bill of indictment and dissolved the meeting. This cowardly act undermines the principle of a fair trial enshrined in the Rwandan Constitution, and the international law which gives the right of the accused to be heard.

Article 5 :

The Social Party Imberakuri takes such acts and accusations very serious and our Party is seriously concerned with these new developments orchestrated by the Kigali regime under the leadership of RPF. The intentions of the above Commission and the Kigali regime are crystal clear, they fear political competition, and their intentions are to disorganise our Party in the same way they did to the MDR and other parties which were later dissolved using the same tactics, oppressive laws and undemocratic means.

Article 6 :

The Social Party Imberakuri would like to inform the RPF as the ruling party, to be brave enough and refrain from these ugly acts which do not only tarnish the name of Rwandese and the Rwanda’s image , but also undermines the democratic principles. There is no doubt that if RPF continues to turn blind eye to such ugly acts and allow them to pass unchecked under their watch, history will judge them accordingly, it will also demonstrate a failure to uphold and live to its promise on democratic values as highlighted in Rwandan Constitution.

The leadership of the Social Party Imberakuri would like to appeal to all the democratic nations and all friends of Rwanda, NGO’S, in general and all the supporters of the Social Party Imberakuri in particular to help our Party at this trying moment because we are unfairly and undemocratically harassed.

YOUR ASSISTANCE WILL BE A CLEAR TESTEMONY THAT YOUR ARE ACTIVISTS OF TRUTH (IMBERAKURI)!!!

Done at Kigali, 14th December 2009

President and Founder of Social Party Imberakuri.

Maître NTAGANDA Bernard

(Signed)