Frank Habineza Biography
Frank Habineza was born in Mityana, Uganda on 22 February 1977. Frank Habineza attended the National University of Rwanda from 1999 to 2004, graduating in Political and Administrative Sciences with a major in Public Administration. While at University he started a student association campaigning for environment protection.
Frank Habineza Work Experience
Frank Habineza later became a personal assistant to the Minister of Lands, Environment, Water, Forestry and Mines, Drocella Mugorewera. Frank Habineza was the official correspondent of Rwanda Newsline and UMUSESO while he was a student in Butare. He also worked for the former Rwanda Herald Newspaper, whose publisher Asuman Bikika was declared ‘persona non grata’ in mid-2002
He was for three years (2006–2009), National Coordinator for the Nile Basin Discourse Forum in Rwanda (NBDF), a civil society platform that had over 50 NGOs involved in the conservation of river Nile. He resigned in May 2009. He was also President of the Rwanda NGOs Forum on Water, Sanitation and Environment-RWASEF and founder Chairman for the Rwandan Environment Conservation Organisation (RECOR).
Political career
He founded the Democratic Green Party (DGP) in August 2009 as an alternative to the dominant Rwanda Patriotic Front.In April 2010 three leading members of the DGP resigned due to disagreements over Habineza’s activities. They said that the party was being manipulated by foreigners, and denied statements made by Habineza that Rwanda was helping the UK and the US plunder timber from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and that Rwanda had deployed troops in the DRC. In July 2010 the vice-president of the DGP, Andre Kagwa Rwisereka, was found dead near a wetland in Butare with his head cut off. He had been repeatedly stabbed. Habineza was among opposition leaders who called for an independent international investigation into the murder, which may have had a political motivation.
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Frank Habineza