Rwandan political prisoners from left: Victoire Ingabire, Deo Mushayidi, Bernard Ntaganda (freed in 2014), and Charles Ntakirutinka
Five Rwandan political parties and organizations, Amahoro PC, FDU-Inkingi, PDP-Imanzi, PS-Imberakuri, annd IHURIRO-RNC have united in a common platform.
The platform calls for the unconditional release of all political prisoners including Mrs. Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza, President of FDU-Inkingi, and Deo Mushayidi, President of PDP-Imanzi.
The platform once again condemns in the strongest terms possible the decision of the RPF-Inkotanyi and its stalwarts to change article 101 of Rwanda’s national constitution in order to allow President Kagame to rule indefinitely and hence condemn the Rwandan people to a perpetual repressive dictatorship.
Conscious of the need to build a culture of mutual understanding and of the need work together to maximise efforts geared to bring political change in Rwanda through peaceful means;
Bearing in mind the need to build a solid foundation of trust and confidence between political organisations opposed to the Rwandan regime;
In the aftermath of the high level and serious discussions between members of the Platform Amahoro, FDU-Inkingi and IHURIRO- RNC;
It has been decided, as from the 14th of August 2014 to broaden the platform, formally composed of Amahoro, FDU-Inkingi; IHURIRO Nyarwanda RNC. The new platform will henceforth be composed of the following five political organisations: Amahoro; FDU-Inkingi; PDP- Imanzi; PS-Imberakuri and IHURIRO- RNC.
The five political organisations have agreed on and signed two documents that govern their working relationship.
The first document:
Memorandum of understanding between the Political organisations Amahoro; FDU-Inkingi- PDP Imanzi- PS Imberakuri- IHULIRO RNC
The MoU reinforces the aims and objectives of the platform, which are vision and core objectives including the aim to bring about the right political governance that befits the people.
In order to consolidate the values of equality and mutual respect between the contracting parties the following decisions have been agreed upon:
a) Each political organisation will be represented on the Coordinating Committee of the Platform and the presidency of the CD will rotate every 6 months between the five political organisations;
b) Decisions will be taken by consensus.
The second document:
Code of conduct of the following political organisations: Amahoro- FDU-Inkingi- PDP Imanzi- PS Imberakuri- IHULIRO RNC.
This documents sets out broad outlines of expected conduct of the leaders of the contracting parties in their working relationship and the latter are called to ensure that their members also abide by it. These include: mutual respect; openness; avoiding any action that discourages anyone or organisation, opposed to the Rwandan regime even if there are not members of the platform; avoiding any interference in the working of other political organisations or in the private lives of other people; to value every person; to be careful in the choice of words used in meetings of the platform or in public that are likely to promote rumor mongering or that are inflammatory.
Members of the new platform have agreed that the code of conduct will form the basis for accepting any other political organization that wants to join the platform.
