Mass
atrocities and crimes against humanity committed primarily by state agents
and their allies continue to take place in Burundi, according
to the September 2019 report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi.
The Commission, moreover, found that President
Pierre Nkurunziza and many in his inner circle are personally responsible for
some of the most serious of these crimes.
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| Members of the pro-government Imbonerakure youth militia chase opposition protesters in Bujumbura on May 25, 2015, while a member of the police (in blue) looks on. |
They include “summary executions, arbitrary arrests
and detentions, acts of torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading
treatment, sexual violence, and forced disappearances.”
The Commission has been investigating the Burundi
crisis since 2016.
Its findings mirror those
of the International Criminal Court, which opened a separate
investigation in 2017 based on “a reasonable basis to believe that state agents
and groups implementing state policies … launched a widespread and systematic attack against
the Burundian civilian population.” The persistence of such
atrocities echoes Burundi’s 1972 and 1993 genocides and the
brutal civil war that ended in 2005.
The adoption of the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation
Agreement in 2000 created a comprehensive peacebuilding framework that, through
an inclusive power-sharing formula, addressed the root causes of Burundi’s violent
past.
The framework ushered in a period of stability and
hope, marked by two leadership transitions from President Pierre Buyoya to
President Domitien Ndayizeye, each of whom ruled for 18 months before the
transition to Nkurunziza in 2005. By this time, Burundi’s traditional political
parties were functioning as multi-ethnic coalitions, marking a break from the
divisive politics of the past.
Nkurunziza’s unwillingness to step down following
his second term in office in 2015, as stipulated in the Arusha Accords and the
2005 Constitution, reversed this hopeful path and set off the
current crisis.
His decision to pursue a third term coupled with
the resurfacing of the Hutu nationalist agenda of his ruling CNDD-FDD party
triggered months of protests and a failed coup attempt in May 2015.
It also set off a wave of defections
and tit-for-tat violence in the military, targeted killings of
civilians—often with ethnic undertones—and the launching of armed rebellions by
three separate movements. It is estimated that around 1,700 people have been
killed since 2015.
The September 2017 Final Report of the UN
Independent Investigation on Burundi, however, cautions that “no one
can quantify exactly all the violations that have taken place and continue to
take place in a situation as closed and repressive as Burundi.”
Despite the information shortage, ample evidence
points to a worsening situation under the veneer of calm that the authorities
have tried to project.
The number of Burundian refugees has exceeded
400,000 (out of a total population of 10 million), making Burundi a “forgotten
refugee crisis,” according to Filippo Grandi, the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees. At the same time, the state-sponsored militia, the
Imbonerakure (“those who see far”), has been implicated in mass atrocities
along with the police, intelligence, and elements of the military.
Imbonerakure deployments follow a four-tier
structure from the colline to the commune, province, and national level,
mirroring Burundi’s administrative units. Its members are a major contributing
factor of the continuing human displacement, especially in the northern,
eastern, and southern provinces, where their presence is particularly
entrenched.
The patterns of
violence have shifted from overt abuses in 2015 and 2016 to more covert tactics that began at the
end of 2016.
Firsthand accounts
captured in the 2017 UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi
report indicate that atrocities since then have been committed in
near-total concealment. Some involve killing victims in one location and
dumping their bodies elsewhere, including in neighboring countries, to avoid
detection.
The 2019 UN report also
confirmed numerous secret locations—including residences owned by senior
officials—where torture, rape, mutilation, other
forms of abuse, and killings occur on a regular basis.
These reports have been corroborated by media stories, local human rights monitors,
and the testimony of Imbonerakure defectors.
The 2018 Report of the UN Commission of
Inquiry on Burundi confirmed the existence of mass graves in
the Kanyosha and Mpanda collines of Bujumbura and in Bubanza and other areas.
It also corroborated previous findings of lists of civilians and military
members marked for execution.
Burundi has also witnessed a surge in
disappearances. Since 2015, the United Nations has consistently received
reports of forced disappearances in Burundi.
Hundreds of cases are
investigated and brought to the attention of the Burundi government each
quarter. The Ndondeza (“help me find them”) campaign has disseminated more than
400 photos of missing persons since 2015.
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| Burundian soldiers disperse protesters in Bujumbura. |
Atrocities by state
agents are not confined within Burundi’s borders. In 2018, the International
Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI) documented attacks, killings, and disappearances of
Burundian refugees at Uganda’s Nakivale refugee camp.
Most of the refugees
IRRI spoke to said they recognized Burundian intelligence agents and
Imbonerakure members, including some who had killed family members in Burundi.
IRRI also documented
complaints about threatening phone calls and text messages, as well as
suspected Imbonerakure agents taking photos in the camp.
Members of the
Imbonerakure, furthermore, regularly cross the border into
Tanzania to survey and intimidate Burundian refugees in Nyarugusu camp, where
most of Burundi’s refugees and exiles live.
Burundi’s self-inflicted political instability
has directly impacted living conditions. Its economic growth shrank from
4.2 percent in 2015 to 0.4 percent in 2019 under the weight of high-level
corruption and fiscal mismanagement. Since 2017, the government has been unable
to pay civil servants on time, a source of public acrimony given that the state
employs 80 percent of Burundi’s salaried workers.
Since 2017, the ruling CNDD-FDD has made “contributions” to the Treasury
mandatory for every family—a widely unpopular move given the
high levels of youth unemployment.
Contributing to the
economic downturn is a new policy introduced in 2018 that
requires foreign aid groups and charities to provide the government with staff
lists that identify their employees by ethnicity. Most groups chose to depart
rather than comply, further disrupting service delivery.
Burundi’s
health sector has been hit particularly hard by the political crisis. Only 500 doctors were still working in Burundi in 2017, according to the UN Children’s Fund. This is roughly half
the total present in 2010.
The
effects are dire: 5.7 million cases of malaria—including 1,801 deaths—were reported in
2019. Those numbers dwarf the 1.8 million infections and 700
deaths reported in 2017, illustrating the progressive deterioration of
Burundi’s healthcare system.
The East African
Community (EAC) is mandated to mediate the Burundi crisis, but persistent
frictions among its members have rendered it ineffective and prolonged the
conflict.
Of particular concern
is the escalating tension between
Uganda, the chair of the Burundi Peace Talks, and Rwanda, the EAC chair. A
December 2018 UN report found that Burundi, the DRC, and Uganda are now arming
and training Rwandan rebels, adding another layer of strain to the already
frayed relations between Rwanda and Burundi. A flare-up could have devastating
regional consequences.
The AU has been equally ineffective. After
abandoning its December 2015 decision to deploy a 5,000-strong protection
force, again due to bickering by its members and a threat by the
Nkurunziza government to shoot any AU troops entering the country, the AU sent
200 human rights monitors instead.
However, they operate
under tight restrictions imposed by the government, which largely confine the
monitors to Bujumbura. Tellingly, they have never made their reports public due
to fears that the Burundi government would expel them. Still, they are the only
external monitors in Burundi since the expulsion of the UN Human Rights
Commission. The BBC, Voice of America, and virtually all civil society and
media organizations have also been forced out.
Six EAC summits failed to persuade the CNDD-FDD
to attend talks chaired by Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and mediated by
former Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa.
Five negotiations were
held between 2015 and 2018, but none of the talks were face-to-face. The
CNDD-FDD instead initiated efforts to revise the 2005 Constitution in ways that dismantled key provisions of
the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement.
This was a major blow
to the negotiations, given that their core objective was to use the Accords as
the basis for resolving the issues that triggered the crisis, stabilizing the
country, and preparing it for democratic elections in 2020.
In May 2017, Mkapa presented a fresh road map at
the EAC Summit and issued a dire warning: “There is an impasse because the
government of Burundi is reluctant to talk to its opponents. Currently, it is
picking friendly stakeholders to talk to while ignoring the others.”
He also reminded the
EAC presidents of the “imperative need” for their “personal engagement” in
getting the Burundi government to commit to a serious dialogue without
preconditions. Mkapa, moreover, alerted the EAC presidents to the consequences
of the CNDD-FDD’s constitutional revision efforts.
“Whither the EAC-led
mediation whose dialogue I am facilitating? For I fear the region will find
itself before a fait accompli.” The Summit adopted the report but failed to
convince the Burundi authorities to join.
Passed without a viable opposition in May 2018,
Burundi’s new constitution confirms Mkapa’s worst fears. It dismantles two-thirds of the
provisions of the Arusha Accords, including the carefully crafted power
sharing structure. The Presidency now has the power to overrule Parliament.
Moreover, the delicate checks, balances, and quotas that regulated other
government branches have been nullified.
This includes the security sector, which has
been restructured so as to enable stronger CNDD-FDD control, violating fundamental precepts of
military professionalism requiring the independence of
militaries from politics. The ruling party had always been deeply suspicious of
the Arusha Accords’ quotas, which ensured 50/50 representation of former Hutu
movements (including the CNDD-FDD) and the mostly Tutsi ex-Armed Forces of
Burundi (ex-FAB). The arrangement had contributed to one of the more effective security sector reform
initiatives on the continent.
However, since 2015,
the CNDD-FDD has pursued an extensive purge of ex-FAB officers,
with numerous being killed or abducted. A law introduced in 2017 bestows “reserve force status” on
the Imbonerakure and places it within the military, describing it as “citizens
militarily trained for this purpose by the Burundi army and veterans.”
Mkapa saw the rollback of the Arusha Agreement as an affront because he,
alongside former Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and former South African
President Nelson Mandela, were central in crafting the Arusha Accords.
In February 2019, he presented a report at the EAC Summit calling for a review Burundi’s new constitution to keep the Arusha
provisions intact. The Summit adopted the report, but it was indeed a fait
accompli because the EAC cannot overrule a member state’s constitution. In the
face of EAC inaction, Mkapa resigned shortly after the Summit.
As the CNDD-FDD gears up for the 2020 polls,
intimidation, disappearances, killings, and ethnic rhetoric are all on the
rise. Lost in the Burundi tragedy is the irony that the trigger for the crisis
was Nkurunziza’s pursuit of a third term in 2015.
While not yet announced, Nkurunziza is expected to
run for a fourth term (extended to 7 years under the new constitution) and is
entitled to run for a fifth term in 2027. Reflective of the personality-based
political structure he has cultivated, Nkurunziza was officially named by his
party as “Supreme
Eternal Guide” in March 2019. - Africa Center
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