Burundi: Happy New Year anyway (part eight)
(Assessment in relation to the responsibilities of the crimes)
We are in the last part of our analysis of the balance sheet for the year 2020 to prepare for the year 2021, which promises to be more dangerous than the previous year in terms of human rights violations in Burundi.
Recall that the reports of organizations fighting against human rights violations in Burundi show that 454 people were killed, including 202 corpses which were discovered in 2020; 52 people were reported missing; 89 women and girls raped; 124 tortured; 1181 people arbitrarily imprisoned.
The report for 2019 gave a toll of 466 people killed, including 219 corpses discovered. Each year we remain in the average of 450 people killed including 200 discovered corpses, thrown especially in lakes and rivers. The most recent example is Aimé Irambona, this deputy head of imbonerakure in Gitega who was surprised on the night of December 26-27, 2020 with the corpse of Ezekiel Ndayisenga, freshly killed, and two large stones in his vehicle. He was going to throw him into the Ruvyironza. The two large stones should be tied to the corpse so that it never rises to the surface of the water. This is the technique used by these criminals.
The main responsibility for these crimes is President General Evariste Ndayishimiye, “the Herod of Burundi”. The others responsible are the death squads he maintains, which are mainly his imbonerakure militia, his intelligence service (SNR), some elements of his presidential guard and some zealous elements of the army and the police.
The most dangerous elements that participate in many cases of human rights violations are the imbonerakure simply because they are scattered all over the country. And Evariste Ndayishimiye is doing everything possible to provide them with the necessary logistical means so that they are truly operational.
The other major supervisors of these imbonerakure and who activate them at any time are in particular the minister Ezéchiel Nibigira. Everyone will remember his speech in Kayanza on August 29, 2020 when he called on the imbonerakure militia to resume their patrolling work “immediately”; a job that the governor of this province, Colonel Remy Cishahayo, had formally forbidden them, promising them prison for anyone caught on patrol. He knew what he was talking about because this work is legally entrusted to the defence and security forces. The governor will find at his office, dated November 2, 2020, a bag containing grenades. He tried to play down this terrorist act, but the message was clear.
Minister Nibigira’s speech reminded those who remember the events in neighbouring Rwanda, of the speech of Ngirumpatse Mathieu, then president of the MRND who said: I gave orders, that the prefects and the presidents of the party do everything to that the interahamwe be deployed throughout the country. '' This was before the genocide of the Rwandan Tutsis in 1994. Another no less dangerous element is the current president of the National Assembly, the demobilized colonel Gélase Daniel Ndabirabe, who, in his speeches, has never ceased to sow divisions and activate these criminals. Let us also mention Joseph Ntakirutimana, long deputy secretary general of the cnddfdd who played an important role in the coordination of the imbonerakure militia. This former governor of Ngozi in 1993 should rather answer in court for his responsibilities in the genocide of the Tutsis in 1993 by the Hutus of Frodebu (UN investigation report: S / 1996/682 of 22 August 1996). We cannot cite them all, but we cannot ignore Sylvestre Ndayizeye, national leader of this militia, who was also quoted in the NGO report Human rights initiative in Burundi ” released. end of January 2020 entitled “A facade of peace, fear in everyday life”. According to this report, Sylvestre Ndayizeye would have held meetings with the imbonerakure in the national office of the cnddfdd party in Bujumbura in June 2019 and in Cibitoke in September 2019, to prevent them from circulating on social networks images of the corpses of people killed, recommending that they no longer arrest and imprison opponents, but rather kill them and hide the evidence so that the international community thinks that there are no human rights violations in Burundi.
We stop there, the list goes on.
URN HITAMWINEZA once again reminds the UN Security Council, EU, AU and the Great Lakes sub-region that instead of building relationships with known criminals, instead, should support the efforts of all those who seek the recovery of the Burundian nation. Rather, criminals should be arrested and brought before competent courts and let the peace-loving Burundians organize themselves to choose a responsible and unifying leadership, capable of leading the Burundian people to lasting peace for all and to development.