Burundi: Happy New Year anyway (part two)
(Security report: continued)
The year 2020 has passed, we enter the year 2021 with a little hope that it will not be like last year for the Burundians. Hundreds of Burundians, Tutsis and members of the CNL, have been horribly killed, others arrested and improperly imprisoned, women and girls raped, killed and then beheaded, despite a semblance of lull in the country.
Human rights organizations speak of 368 people who have been killed, including 278 since Evariste Ndayishimiye took power in June 2020; 182 people who were tortured; 59 missing persons; 821 people arbitrarily imprisoned; 33 girls and women who were raped.
On the security front, today we are talking about two attacks that marked the year 2020 and which gave the criminals of the cnddfdd the opportunity to continue their genocidal plan. Tutsi and CNL members were killed, tortured and imprisoned.
The first spectacular attack took place on February 19, 2020 in Kirombwe in rural Bujumbura. So-called rebels burst into broad daylight at around 11:00 a.m. and quickly declared themselves members of the FNL. Some were wearing Burundian police uniforms. Witnesses said they were harmless; they even came across a group of 2 policemen, but neither group reacted. What kind of rebels! Two days later we will see on social networks, on a mountain, the corpses of young people shot after being tied up and others still alive, with the police and the population watching them with great joy. The government will say that the security forces neutralized this group of rebels. Witnesses said that among the young people arrested, there were well-recognized imbonerakure. Others are said to be identified as FNL members. An operation, in the eyes of neutral observers, would rather be prepared by the military clique in power to settle scores with the opposition.
The second attack which made a lot more noise was carried out by previously unidentified elements who would have infiltrated from the DR Congo via Lake Tanganyika on August 23, 2020 and who passed through the province of Rumonge . These elements were reported as quickly as possible in certain localities in Rumonge, Bururi, Bujumbura rural, Mwaro, Muramvya and Kayanza and Bubanza provinces as if there were no security forces to intercept them. This worried more than one, especially as the power of Evariste Ndayishimiye was radio silent. However, attacks were reported in particular in Mukike of rural Bujumbura, Bugarama of Muramvya on the night of August 28 to 29, 2020, others in Rango commune of Kayanza province on September 14, 2020. Spokesmen of the Red Tabara movement (Patrick Nahimana and Jutine Ntwari) will come out of their silence from September 16, 2020 to say that it is their elements who operated these attacks. The movement will issue a press release on September 17, 2020 to give an overview of these penthouses since August 23, 2020: 28 soldiers and police, 15 imbonerakure killed; 3 dead, 6 wounded and 1 captured on his side.
The authorities continued to deny that there were no rebels who had attacked the country, but that they were armed bandits. But many deeds and gestures have shown that this group, small it could be, frightened the military clique in power: Prime Niyongabo, Chief of General Staff of the FDNB quickly organized moral talks for representatives of all divisions in Gitega and Kayanza; the imbonerakure were remobilized in all the provinces of the country with a message that the country was attacked (in particular in Gitaba in Rutana on September 15, 2020, in Shombo and Bwambarangwe respectively in Muramvya and Kirundo provinces on September 20, 2020, Gisuru in Ruyigi on September 26 2020, Rwegura-Muruta in Kayanza on Sep 30, 2020); they resumed paramilitary training and the distribution of arms in reinforcement to those which had long been given to imbonerakure (especially in Makamba / Mabanda, Gisuru in Ruyigi, Gihanga in Bubanza). Other facts: two fishing boats, suspected of transporting the rebels, were badly set on fire by the navy on 11 Sept 2020; part of the Rukoko was burnt on September 16, 2020 to limit rebel infiltration; the deputy police spokesperson read a press release banning karaoke and prayer vigils from 17 Sep 2020; the governor of Rumonge held, on the same date of September 17, a special meeting attended by the administrative staff, the police, fishermen and a representative of the national security council to ask them for more surveillance of the lake
This journey will end with the attack, on September 25, 2020, of two households in Kabarore by elements of Red Tabara (according to the ministry of Gervais Ndirakobuca) and 19 of them will be arrested on September 29, 2020 by members of the Rwandan defence forces in the kibira. The leader of this group will say that they crossed the border in the kibira without knowing it and found themselves in the hands of the Rwandan forces, while the spokesperson for Gervais Ndirakobuca continued to shout that these elements attacked the two. Kabarore households from Rwanda and retreated to the same country.
URN HITAMWONEZA believes that all these attacks which end in failure or which are simulated by the power only reinforce the power in its project of genocide of the Tutsis and the Hutus of the opposition. These are opportunities for him to make arbitrary arrests and he himself knows what he does with people who are arrested. Many are tortured and subsequently killed, very few are officially imprisoned. Instead, Burundians are being called upon to think about the best way to change things without many innocent victims