KIGALI - Three senior members of the yet-to-be-registered ‘Democratic Green Party of Rwanda’,  yesterday, announced that they were abandoning the organisation in protest of the nefarious behaviour of their president, Frank Habineza.

The Secretary General, Charles Kabanda, Secretary for Information, Vincent Nshimiyimana and the Deputy Treasurer, Jeanne Marie Vianney Kantengwa called a press conference at the party headquarters to announce their decision.

"During the recent African Greens Conference held in Uganda, Habineza made utterances and allegations that we do not believe in and are not in line with the party principles,” said Nshimiyimana, reading from a statement.

"He lied to the meeting that our party has two million members in the country, which is not true.  He also alleged that Rwanda was facilitating the UK and the USA to plunder timber from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and that it had deployed troops in the DRC, which everyone knows, is not true.”

They also said that their party was being manipulated by foreigners, using Frank Habineza.

"It was very evident during the Kampala meeting that Habineza was very cosy with his foreign handlers and spent most of the time with them,” said Nshimiyimana.

"It vindicated our suspicion that the whole thing is actually being ochestarted by foreign interests. Frank Habineza was clearly being manipulated to suite someone else’s interest.”

Reliable sources informed The New Times that when Habineza tried to mobilise members of the African Green Movement to tarnish Rwanda’s image and President Paul Kagame, he failed and was advised to "go slow”.

"A member of the Nigerian delegation told Habineza that it would be wasted energy because Kagame was regarded as a hero in Africa, Nigeria included. He stressed that they were bound to fail in their enterprise, since this campaign against Rwanda wouldn’t succeed anywhere in Africa,” said a source who attended the meeting.

The defecting members declared that much as they do not  politically agree with Rwanda Patriotic Front (RPF), they were not prepared to remain in a party that is clearly a foreign creation peddling falsehood. They announced that soon they will be forming their party.

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