Frank Habineza and the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda under fire

I am sad to write, that our friends form the Greens in Rwanda, headed by Global Greens Coordination member, motor of the African Greens and friend of the Global Young Greens – Frank Habineza – are still being persecuted from a government that fears electoral competition. Please read the letter below.

Frank Habineza

On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 1:23 PM, Frank Habineza <habinef@yahoo.com> wrote:
For Immediate Press Release: Security Threat to Frank HABINEZA

On Thursday 4^th February 2010, around 15 30 hrs at Hotel Leprentemps in Kimironko, Kigali City, i was intimidated and threatened by an un-known man, whom I suspected to be a security operative.

I had gone to the hotel to met a colleague: Jean Paul MUDAHERANWA aka. Sunday.  When I arrived, I observed the presence of two other men. One of them left in about 10 minutes.

Shortly thereafter, the unknown man who had remained behind, well dressed, presumed to be in his late thirties, brown and tall, suddenly stood up and walked towards me. He said in a rather strong voice “Frank, why don’t you recruit me in your party?, I responded to him that no problem, and asked him his names, but he declined to tell me.

He then continued, “Frank, we know whatever you are doing, we are following you very closely, remember, we paid  school fees for you ( meaning government bursary at University), why are you fighting us?. What do you want from that Woman Ingabire Victoire?, be very careful, we are monitoring you very closely….”.

I was disturbed by his abrupt aggressiveness and reference to what I had done two days ago and what I was to do later, Thursday evening. I was very surprised because the two events he referred to were factual.

I responded to him that, aim not an enemy of the state and that having different ideas from the ruling party RPF does not make am an enemy of Kagame. I also pointed out to him that Victoire was given a Rwandan passport and National ID by the government, that had they believed that she was  a state enemy, they should have not given them to her………….. , so they should stop to intimidate people like that.

This incident follows, Ingabire Victoire’s attack on Wednesday 3^rd Feb 2010, where her passiport and ID were stolen and her Aide Joseph Ntawangundi was seriulsy beaten and injured.  Several other forms of intimidation and harassment have also been subjected to members of the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda since 30^th October 2009 during our Party congress that was sabotaged violently, and they were detailed in a press leases issued on 24^th December 2009.

This morning, 5^th Feb 2010, I reported the matter to Remera Police Station and will make a follow up later in the day.

I would like to appeal to the Government of Rwanda, to take these matters very seriously and ensure that security of all Rwandans and especially in the opposition political parties is guaranteed especially during this presidential elections period.

I would also like to emphasize that being in an opposition political party does not qualify someone to be an enemy of the state, and disagreeing with the current regime in power, does not make one to be an enemy of government.

Time has come for Rwandans to play mature politics. Politics that will ensure a sustainable development of Rwanda, a Rwanda that is free from poverty, free from fear and harassment, a Rwanda that fully recognizes freedoms of Press, Expression and Association.

Done at Kigali on 5^th February 2010

Frank HABINEZA

President, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda

Frank HABINEZA, Founding President, Democratic Green Party of Rwanda/
President, African Greens Movement ( AfGM)/
Co-Africa Representative to Global Greens Coordination (GGC)
Mob: + 250 78 85 630 39
Email: fhabineza@africangreens.org
http://www.rwandagreendemocrats.org
http://www.africangreens.org
http://www.globalgreens.org

SDRs from the IMF for Climate Financing?

Please take note of this insightful blog from Liane, co-head of the Washington office of the hbf.

The IMFs Sales Pitch for Climate SDRs

Published on 05.02.2010 by Liane Schalatek

In the past, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has often been accussed of “mission grab” –its attempt to gain legitimacy, relevance and more international power by assuming tasks it is not well suited for. Well, it seems to have done it again… this time with a daring proposal on climate financing.

This at least is one way to explain the announcement that IMF Managing Director Domique Strauss-Kahn made during the World Economic Forum in Davos just a few days ago that IMF staff is working on a proposal for a “Green Fund” worth billions of dollars, which should help a world shaken up by the global financial crisis to pursue a low-carbon growth strategy going forward.

The idea of a “Green Fund” with up to US$ 100 billion in just a few years sounds vaguely familiar.  In fact, didn’t the Copenhagen Accord, the political declaration which kind of saved the COP15  from total failure, talk about a “Copenhagen Green Climate Fund” in just about the same amount? Indeed,seen in this light, the proposal by Mr. Strauss-Kahn almost sounds like a sales pitch: Why, if the world is so bound and intent on creating a Green (Climate) Fund, aren’t you looking at an well-established institution with a stellar reputation such as the IWF to work out the details of such a fund or administer its resources?  Especially, since the head of the IMF has an idea how the US$100 billion needed can be raised, at least in part.  By the way: this is a sticky point in the Copenhagen Accord: it does not address where the money could or should come from, except in a rather oblique reference to a  “wide variety of sources, public and private, bilateral and multilateral, including alternative sources of finance.”

So called “Special Drawing Rights”  (SDRs) are the solution, according to Strauss-Kahn. Very conveniently, those SDRs, an international reserve asset created by the IMF in 1969 and based on a basket of four key international currencies, are manged internationally by the IMF.

Currently, some US$ 324 billion worth of SDRs are ready for use by countries — a hefty increase, and with this some added importance internationally for the IMF, was approved last fall by the G20 to safeguard against the collapse of the international financial system.

The SDRs proposed for the Green Fund are supposed to be created additionally and be made available to developing countries and industrialized countries saddled with enormous debts from dealing with the global economic crisis in order to confront climate change. It was in Copenhagen just a few weeks earlier were George Soros, the billionaire investor and head of the Open Society Institute had made a similar SDR-based proposal.  At the time, IMF officials declared it  interesting, but pretty hard to do. Now, IMF head Strauss-Kahn explained the organization’s apparent change of heart during a panel discussion in Davos with his personal reflection about the (non) results of  Copenhagen and the need to think “outside the box.”  The IMF is planning to quickly start discussions with central banks and finance ministers on the feasibility of such a Green Fund.

The proposed mix of actors — the IMF, central bankers and finance ministers — worries civil society observers. They point out that central bankers, even more so than finance minsiters, would insist on tough conditionalities being fulfilled as prerequisite for countries accessing such a fund.  Given the major donor countries’ disdain for the UNFCCC or its financial mechanism, the Global Environment Facility (GEF) — with the latter being seen as largely inefficient and slow –, it is more than unlikely that such a Green Fund would be placed under their control.

One possibility could be the creation of a joint IMF-World Bank control committee, conceivably with participation by the regional development banks, especially since the World Bank already administers a portfolio of climate investment funds.  Those, by the way, have garned more pledges and contributions in a short time than several existing UNFCCC adaptation funds, the LDCF and the SCCF,  which, to this day, seven years after their establishment, are still awaiting the fulfilment of some rather meager pledges by the industrialized countries .  Thus, in such an arrangement the control of donor countries over the Green Fund would be assured.

Of course, such a control structure (based essentially on “one dollar-one vote”) would be unacceptable for many actors in the developing world. Southern activists waste no time pointing out that movements in developing countries will not stand for a role of the IMF in climate finance — the harsh conditionalities of structural adjustment programs and their massive sozial repercussions are still a livid memory.  But the rejection of a possible IMF role in climate finance is even more fundamental, based on a normative principle, namely the obligation of the rich countries of the North to repay their climate debt to the South.

Creating SDRs, so the fear of these activists, will just allow Annex 1 countries to “offset” their climate debt, similarly to the way industrialized countries are offsetting their emissions via the CDM.  Also, SDRs might be just too tempting for some governments in developing countries to keep in order to bolster their balance sheets instead of disbursing them quickly for climate projects.

So, is there a possible future for SDRs in climate finance?  This, of course, depends on whether many open questions and heavy concerns, especially in developing countries, can be dealt with satisfactorily.  The intentions of the IMF might become clearer once the organization releases its promised paper in a few weeks detailing the proposal.  The debate about the pro and cons of “climate SDRs” will continue in any case.

Who is on board?

The “soft deadline” passed this weekend and 31 countries representing almost 3/4th of global emissions have signed the Copenhagen Accord and put in their numbers. THE numbers: how much they want to reduce their emissions. Interestingly, the big players (US, China, EU) are there together with the rather small guys (Bangladesh, Samoa, Costa Rica). Sadly, the difference in ambition is not very far, and if then the Global South is getting ahead stronger.

There is a very good graphic from the USCAN (Climate Action Network in America): here.

Of course, it is still to be determined if the US Senate will pass the Waxman-Markey bill with the 17% reduction still in it. Probably, Obama will have to give in on crucial issues like nuclear power plants, drilling for more oil and gas as well as “clean” coal. I hope that this will satisfy the Republican guts and once the law is passed improvements can still be made, e.g. the EPA forbidding coal-plants (even with CCS) or the Dept. of Homeland Security saying “nay” on nuclear crazyness (except in Texas maybe).

Massachusetts Murder!

A Letter to Massachusetts:

Dear Swing-voters in Massachusetts,

you indeed have a reason to end a decade-long rule by one party over the Senate seat that was filled last week. Even more taking into account that your informal royal family – the Kennedys – have taken this spot for so long. Despite me being a strong supporter of the policies usually attached to these Democrats, I refuse to like the fact that people hold quasi-lifelong seats.

Anyhow, this decision was more than about Dems vs. Reps. It was about the sake of milions of uninsured Americans that are dying due to little illnesses in their trailers in Arkansas or their slum-flats in  Detroit. You killed them by postponing health-care reform even longer! More to it, you took part in the destroying of the world as now it becomes even more unlikely to get the – already weak – Waxman-Markey bill through Congress. Hence, an international treaty or even actions in other nations become more distant. You are in part responsible for the death and suffering of billions of people around the world. And this comes on top of your already huge amount of “climate sins”.

Dear voters in Massachusetts, the once beloveth state. You screwed it up. Better try next time! Mid-terms are coming up. Make sure to vote a reform-friendly and climate-thoughtful politician!

Yours sincerely,

Georg P Kössler

Greenwashed Snowmens in Berlin

One year ago, I reported from a wonderful civil-society action that took place in the beatiful town of Uppsala, where snowmen demonstrated against climate change: “Snögubbar mit klimatförandringar“.

Real snowman

This past weekend, the energy company ENTEGA, which is in part owned by German coal-giant and oligarchist E.ON – one of Europes dirtiest energy-producers – called in prominent spots all over the city of Berlin for a demonstration against climate change. Sounded good. But when those people who did not already got too suspicious how someone “good” and “green” can afford this massive media-campaign including fancy youtube-videos showed up, they were greeted by nice ladies at the entrance to Berlins ost centry place (where the Castle of Berlin once stood, right next to the Dome and Boulevard Unter den Linden). Further (and despite cold and a wonder-white-winter in Berlin) there were millions of liters of fake snow. What’s the climate balance of this? What were the political demands? Think about climate change – act – change your energy provider.

This is a new breach of strategies. When big companies use ways that look nice and tiny and sweet to get attention and imply them being green, the interested public might get totally confused who is “green” and who’s not. ENTEGA got the “Green Tomato” two years ago for good greenwashing.

Unreal Greenwash-Alien

New smart model fails in Ecuador

Pic form the Website "Yasuni depends on you" - click on it!

Some days ago, the President of Ecuador officially said that their model of saving their precious and valuable rainforests has failed as not enough money was collected. Raffael Correa has pledged in2007 to keep a total of 850 Barrel crude oil in the ground below the Yasuni Rainforest if the Western Nations pay what Ecuador will thus loose by not selling this oil. A total of 49% of the demanded money was already promised by nations like Sweden or Germany. However, Correa said now that he is sick of being treated as a colony and the experiment failed.

Why? We don’t know. Ecuador looses a first-mover advantage PLUS international fame.

Read more on the Initiative her:  Save Yasuni

Is this totally bad? Well, who knows what Ecuador would have done after receiving the 3,5 bn EUR? Maybe the next government would oppose the system and still get the oil out of the ground: Ecuador would cheat the climate, the natre and the West. Unlikely, but not impossible.

Taking the world hostage by saying “pay or we kill” the environment is actually not the very best tool in diplomacy. It has the right beginning (money from the Global North into the Global South) and the right end (no more oil), but everything in between seems wrong. Let’s change the middle part and make out the “then” a “and”. We need massive global investment as well as government-to-government transfer of money AND a tight protection of natural reserves including keep oil (everywhere!) in the ground.

Maybe it is important to make TWO NEW LAWS:

1. Outlawing the extraction of oil until 2030 worldwide. In the Global North by 2020.

2. Transfer of 2% of the OPEC-nations GDP per year in (social, economic and ecologic) sustainability projects in the Global South.

or

For every barrel of oil extracted, the country responsible (the extracting country and the buying-country together) pay US$ 100 climate-fee (natural gas: US$ 50) that goes into a UN Climate Change Fund.

Sounds like a dream? Some years ago it was a mere wish that states were bargaining over a treaty that pays one side for protecting a piece of nature. Well… maybe it was to dreamy, but we got quite a way: there was a good draft.

Draf Obama and Hu discussed on until a few minutes ago…

CLICK HERE

(Source: Timesonline)

We have a deal (but what kind of deal)?

Some voices are standing opposite to what the media was collaborating today. The Green politician Hermann Ott told the German newspaper “Taz” that a political binding agreement was already hammered out between the USA and China. Supposedly, 24% will be the amount that developed countries want to mitigate until 2020 – calculating the loopholes this comes down to a lousy 10%. Emerging countries will be fed with some additional money.

Is this just a single voice or does something ly in the air? Tomorrow we will know.

Greetz from Kopenhagen

Freezing, Frustration, Exclusivity and Beatings. COP-15 became the moment the UNFCCC lost all trust.

Tuvalu rockz the COP – but does it help?

Demo in support of Tuvalu (pic by Robert vanWaarden)

Right now, the negotiations within the CMP in the main plenary are stopped again and a small group of people is meeting in one corner of the room to find agreemend under the guidance of Connie Hedegaard, the COP-President. Tuvalu seemed to have insisted on its proposal to first deal with what kind of outcome COP15 will have before negotiation more details of it. This was – as voiced told me – supported by China. The question comes down to a more significant thing: will there be reductions for China? Todd Stern, Special Climate Envoy for the US said yesterday

“If you care about the science — and we do — there’s no way to solve this problem by giving the major developing countries a pass…We’re not talking about the same kind of need for actions from the vast majority of developing countries. But the major ones, it’s going to be absolutely essential.” (here)

China is opposed to it “in principal”, as I was told. The main fault line of Climate negotiation is slowly coming to the front of the room. While Tuvalu’s proposal is primarily about the kind of agreement (legally or only politically binding), the question is if it will be an new “Copenhagen Agreement” (=kills Kyoto) and thus probably don’t have an Annex-1 with developed nations. The question, who at all has to give mitigation-aims in a legal form is then new on the table. China wants to use Tuvalu it seems to push for a clear reinforcement of the two tracks of Bali – a shared vision and a Kyoto-revisal with new numbers for developed countries only.