Burundi: Happy New Year anyway (Part Four)
(Socio-economic assessment)
It is no accident that Burundi occupies the second last place in the world economically. The military clique in power since 2005 has ruined the country in all sectors. The average Burundian is today unable to eat twice a day: not enough harvest because of lack of foreign currency to buy fertilizers, high unemployment rate because no industries, companies, projects, public interest works, and tourist activities because the country was under economic sanctions, etc…. In addition to this poverty that affects everyone, the leadership of the cnddfdd, instead of taking time to mobilize all the people behind the development, he spends a lot of time planning for exclusion and elimination (physical, political, psychological, socio-economic) by all means of Tutsis and political opponents. The latter, in addition to having an empty stomach, still live in panic fear of death. An imbonerakure can at any time arrest and eliminate whoever he wants from the members of the two groups of people without any prosecution. His family is not even entitled to the corpse to bury it with honour. This is the general climate
For the case of this year 2020 which has just ended, the pattern has not changed except that in addition to this generalized poverty within the population, the military clique demanded from all Burundians contributions for the May 2020 elections. Anyone who did not pay this “debt” was no longer entitled to any state service. Sometimes someone who did not have a “receipt” in their pocket was not allowed by the imbonerakure to go to the hospital, church, market or even the tap to draw water. During the entire election campaign, the election period and at least a month after the election, people were not concentrated on production work, but on various demonstrations.
Covid-19 which has ruined economies around the world did not stop Burundi from holding elections; the military clique was not concerned with the death of Burundians, but with making a semblance of elections to stay in power. It was after the elections that they took some unsuccessful steps just to gain support from WHO. It doesn’t look like covid-19 has affected the Burundian economy too much except the airport which was temporarily closed and the slowdown in cross-border transport of goods. Today, Evariste Ndayishimiye’s speech echoes that of the campaign period. He and the late President Nkurunziza were saying that Burundians do not need to wear masks because they are protected from Covid-19 by God. While other countries are already thinking about the vaccine, Evariste Ndayishimiye said in his 2020 end-of-year communication that Burundi does not need a vaccine, that the Burundian sky is protected from the coronavirus by God.
President Ndayishimiye is doing everything today to look for work for the members of the cnddfdd, especially the imbonerakure, while at the same time putting a rope around the necks of the Tutsis and the Hutus of the opposition. The exchange offices which were managed by the majority of Tutsis were all closed. The famous NEVA announced in its public conference on December 30, 2020 that no bureau de change will ever be allowed to reopen its doors. In his communication, he also said that the companies Onatel and Regideso, will be given to other managers who will be able to give profits to the state because the current managers have made them go bankrupt.
People need to know how to read between the lines. An extremist that he is, Evariste Ndayishimiye knows that many of the technicians, engineers and other experienced workers employed by these companies are Tutsi and have employment contracts. It is difficult for him to hunt them as he wishes. He, and his clique, are trying to find who to sell these companies to, a private economic operator member of the cnddfdd or a new company fomented by themselves. Then, these new bosses will proceed with the new recruitment of personnel and will have work who they want: mainly members of the cnddfdd (Hutu as Tutsis) and a few Tutsis who will agree to bow to the military clique or Tutsi women who will agree to sleep with them.
What justifies the bankruptcy of these companies? At their heads are chiefs, members of the cnddfdd appointed by the authorities, directors and heads of departments are also appointed within the party’s headquarters. These are the people who need to be held to account instead of penalizing the little technician. The revenues generated by these companies are sent to the party’s accounts, the rest are unpaid bills from various state and party services (water, electricity and telephones). The economic embezzlements made by these officials go unpunished because they are influential members of the cnddfdd. When these companies will be sold as announced by Evarsistes Ndayishimiye, his Hutus will be included in the new companies created, others will be recruited after having dismissed all the Tutsis under the pretext of ethnic balances (the Tutsis who will remain are those announced above). This is the plan of President Ndayishimiye, who believes himself to be clever in taunting the Burundians in his communications by speaking of the unity of the Burundians while he is digging graves for the Tutsis and the Hutus of the opposition.
URNHITAMWONEZA reminds Burundians that there will be no peace for the Hutus alone without the Tutsis and vice versa; that there will be no country for cnddfdd members only; that all Burundians must live together as brothers, otherwise we will all die together like idiots as Martin Luther King said. Wanting to ruin, neutralize or physically eliminate the Tutsis and political opponents will neither give peace nor fulfilment to the Hutus of the cnddfdd. It would be better to all stand up together to fight this ideology of exclusion and genocide and the military clique that carries it; lasting peace for all will depend on the victory of this fight.