Burundi: What is the truth about the 1972 killings? (First part)
Burundians need to know the truth about all the cyclical violence that has rocked the country. Who are the planners and the executors? Who are the victims? How and why do people make the decision to kill their neighbours? This is the work that should be done by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The goal is to find out who did what and decide if justice is needed in order to get to “never again”. However, the current finding is that this truth is still being manipulated for political purposes. The famous truth and reconciliation commission chaired by Pierre Claver Ndayicariye has been active these past few months to unearth remains of bodies thrown into mass graves. It makes the public understand that these are bones of the Hutus killed in 1972. The testimonies of the people who guide this commission in this work are not at all sufficient or credible to determine the time that the bone has just passed under the ground. We need the right technology that Burundi does not have today. The truth is unique, and sooner or later it will be known
Hutu extremists continue to urge Hutus to exterminate Tutsis by presenting the 1972 killings as genocide of Hutus by the power of Michel Micombero. A certain Kenny Claude Nzeyimana continues to broadcast programs on these killings which he describes as genocide. While insulting the Tutsis (as he often does when he opens his mouth), he claims that the killers called Maï Mulele from Zaire (DRC) who attacked and killed Tutsis along the coast of Lake Tanganyika, in Nyanza Lac, Rumonge and Vyanda were elements positioned by President Micombero to find an excuse to kill the Hutus. Why sacrifice these Tutsis? What had they done to deserve death? He also talks about the elements that were sent to Tanzania and that entered that day demanding the return to a monarchical state.
We all know that Tutsis died during this attack by Mai Mulele from Zaire (current DRC), we also know that the repression of power was very violent and many Hutus, intellectuals, traders, and others who had some social consideration were killed. It’s Burundians who died, and that’s unfortunate.
To arrive at the 1972 killings, we would like to take a look behind to show the origin of this cyclical violence between Hutus and Tutsis. The historians we have approached tell us that everything comes from the Belgians during the colonial period. They had under their responsibility Rwanda and Burundi; which called Rwanda-Urundi. The Belgians imposed what they called indirect administration; and in the reforms made between 1925 and 1932, they dismissed all the customary Hutu chiefs and replaced them by the Tutsi and Ganwa. They said that no Hutu is capable of leading. A first approach of dividing Hutus and Tutsis or simply pitting Hutus against Tutsis because they believed that they were the most numerous. With the start of the search for independence of Burundi by Prince Louis Rwagasore, the Belgians activated the Hutu sensitive cord telling them that before thinking of freeing themselves from the settler, it is first necessary to get rid of the Tutsis. A speech that did not hold its way in Burundi, but in Rwanda, the Hutus chased the king and the Tutsis; which constituted for them a sort of revolution / independence of 1959 from the majority over the minority, led by Joseph Kayibandade.
Even if Prince Louis Rwagasore, in the company of Pierre Ngendandumwe advocated the unity of the Burundian people, extremist Hutus like Mirerekano were still seeking to bring about a change in Burundi like that which was operated on in Rwanda. This Mirerekano even managed to revolt the gendarmerie before fleeing to neighbouring Rwanda following the multiple faults committed. He will return after an amnesty from the king to participate in the 1965 elections. He has not disarmed at all. He then set up, in collaboration with a certain Nzobaza, a kind of militia, the Mirerekano youth who will commit a massacre of Tutsis in Bukeye in 1965
In our tomorrow edition, we will tell you in detail how certain politicians, soldiers and gendarmes prepared a coup and the assassination of King Mwambutsa, in order to put him on the back of the Tutsis, a pretext to exterminate them
URNHITAMWONEZA still regrets that no light has been shed on all these killings by the successive powers so that the culprits are held accountable. We also regret that there are extremist politicians today, who, instead of seeking the truth to reconcile the Burundians, distort the minimum information available on these facts to stir up hatred between Hutus and Tutsis, or quite simply to incite the Hutus to exterminate the Tutsis (people who were not even born at the time of this ethnic violence in 1972). We will continue to monitor their inflammatory words; they too will have to answer for whatever they sad one day.