Burundi: When and how would Burundi be equipped with a truly national army and police? (Eighth and last part)
During our long journey, we saw together that the CDS have always been instruments to come to power and to stay there. It is unfortunate that during the history of our country, these bodies have not separated from the interests of the rulers to change things for the interest of the country and its people, because they must normally be the last ramparts, those who intervene to restore order in the country when the situation becomes catastrophic. While it is true that today when the military rises to say no to the cacophony sown by politicians, the whole world rises to cry out for the coup, at least the situation is calming down and people are organized otherwise. The recent situations in Bashir’s Sudan and Mali are telling. We argue that instead of the country falling into the abyss, professional, Republican CDS (where they exist) step in to put order and empower the people.
We have seen in the case of Burundi, which concerns us, that the origin of the various crises that have grieved the country is the system of “divide and rule” initiated by Belgian colonization. The fact of considering the Hutu as an incapable being when at the beginning he had a very important role to play in society, the fact of showing that there is a clear difference between the Hutus and the Tutsis even going to want to demonstrate that they are not of the same origin, was a beginning of hatred of the Hutus towards the Tutsis (considered as minority but dominant) which pushed them to exterminate them. The case of Rwanda in 1959 has always been the model that extremist Burundian Hutus have always tried to emulate without success. But human lives have always perished. In these various attempts, the CDS or just the army has always been the tool to use. That’s why those who wanted to use them manipulated them to get them on their side. Some witnesses tell us that the Hutus were over 80% in the army until the First Republic. Things started to change with the events of 1972 that we described to you. During the indiscriminate repression of Micombero power, our sources tell us that Hutu soldiers were allegedly used to kill Hutu civilians, and they were in turn killed. Today, the cnddfdd uses the military or police or imbonerakure to kill people and are in turn eliminated to remove the evidence.
Successive military powers have always used the military to change things (stress that at this level the balance between Hutus and Tutsis had shifted towards Tutsis who outnumbered Hutus); they are the same who killed President Ndadaye Melchior, whose death was the trigger for genocide against the Tutsis in 1993. Radicalized by the genocide ideology learned in Rwanda, it is the same criminals who were at the base of a rebellion that mourned the country for more than 10 years. The pretext was the return to democracy, but in reality, it was the search for a social revolution like that of Kayibanda of 1959. They succeeded with the cnddfdd which did not win the war, which entered the country through agreements which they subsequently violated. Today, this cnddfdd system has killed, still using the CDS and its imbonerakure militia, thousands of Tutsis and opposition Hutus, it has impoverished the Tutsis, the others have been imprisoned, others forced in exile. Ndayishimiye’s new power is working to bring in all those outside the country on the pretext that security is total while the same power continues to kill whoever it wants with total impunity. It is not for love that he does it; this power brings them together to exterminate them one day. The 1994 model in Rwanda risks being reproduced in Burundi if nothing is done immediately.
The CDS have always been called upon to commit all the crimes that the cnddfdd power has always planned, especially since currently, the balance has fallen on the Hutu side (the Hutus outnumber the Tutsis, with power and command on their side, still determined to do battle with the Tutsis). All the elements are in place to complete the genocide of the Tutsis and the Hutus of the opposition.
To all these CDS members, we ask you to serve your country and not your masters who manipulate you. There is not a sufficient salary to pay a professional military or police officer who truly defends the interests of the country and its people without distinction. But, a responsible power should do everything to ensure that the CDS are the best treated, with advantages that allow them to do their work without worrying about the ration, the school fees of their children. The strategy used by the men in power is to offer you an insufficient balance, to impoverish yourself so that you can easily manipulate you with a few tickets or advantages and thus use you as objects in shady missions. Even the missions outside the country in which the CDS participate have become a way of buying the consciences of the members of the CDS because it is one of the greatest advantages that every military and police officer expects because he knows that if he comes back alive. , he can alleviate the weight of his family responsibilities. The expectation of this advantage prompts our military and police to allow them to be manipulated. Unfortunately, the same power still seeks to enrich itself by taking a large share of the salaries of these soldiers on mission.
Our country is rich, the military, police and the common people are poor because all the wealth of the country is in the hands of a handful of men in power.
It is time for things to change so that the military and police are treated up to the constitutional missions they must perform without manipulation. Officers, non-commissioned officers and enlisted men must thrive. The right person in the right place. Educated NCOs can pass tests and move up to grade, and enlisted men as well. Officers qualified in fields that do not exist in the military can be hired in other government departments to give their full contribution. This is how all the country’s resources should be used for its development instead of putting money in juicy places just because they are members of the ruling party and leaving brains to rot (simply because they are Tutsi or opposition).
The people should be attentive, not be satisfied with the crumbs offered to them by Ndayishimiye who manipulates them with tempting words while the poor peasant cannot even manage to eat twice a day, to obtain medicine for headaches. If this power really loves its people, action must be taken with words. Bring people together in villages, build them houses, and give them drinking water, electricity, health canters, schools. Formerly cultivated land which no longer produces anything should be exploited with modern techniques, with qualified agronomists, in order to produce sufficient food for all and find surplus to sell it outside. This is what the small peasant who is a member of the cnddfdd, the cnl or who does not belong to any political party, Hutu as Tutsi, needs.
If the power of Ndayishimiye and his clique is not able to do it with the means coming from the basement that the country has, it is high time that the non-commissioned officers and troops (who are more numerous than the officers within the CDS), refuse these crumbs offered to them by the power, to change the situation and to allow the leaders who can it to be able to form professional CSDs who defend the interests of the people (without distinction) and not only people in power. Arriving in a developed country, with professional and republican CDS (who cannot be manipulated because they have enough to live on better), this is why URN HITAMWONEZA is fighting and sooner or later, we will have to win this fight with the help of all Burundians animated by the spirit of reliving a country of peace and security for all, of social justice and integral development.
