Genocide Warning: Burundi

8 September 2014

Since its independence from Belgium, Burundi has been confronted with ethnic violence between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority, as has its neighboring country, Rwanda.

Between 1959 and 1962, an estimated 50,000 Hutus were killed by the Tutsi Government. In 1972, the Tutsi army murdered an estimated 150,000 Hutus, including nearly all educated Hutus, in an attempt to “decapitate” the Hutu leadership. This was clearly a genocide, but no government protested. In 1988, another 25 000 Hutus were killed at Ntega and Marangara in northern Burundi, in massacres personally investigated by the President of Genocide Watch.

Peace talks led by Burundi President Buyoya resulted in the first multi-party elections in Burundi. However in 1993, Melchior Ndadaye, the first Hutu president of the country, was murdered. His assassination set off a 12-year civil war, marked by a downward spiral of revenge killings that some have called a “bilateral genocide” by the two dominant groups against each other. This bilateral genocide killed an estimated 300,000 people in Burundi, mostly civilians.

In 1994, the UN Security Council formed the Burundi Commission of Inquiry under UN Security Council Resolution 1012, written by Genocide Watch President Gregory Stanton, while he served as a State Department Foreign Service Officer. The Commission Report recognized that genocide had been committed against Tutsis, but the part of its Report that recognized that genocide had been committed against Hutus by Tutsis was suppressed by the UN after objections from the Tutsi dominated Burundi government.

After difficult peace talks mediated by Nelson Mandela, with behind the scenes support from peacemakers like former US Congressman Howard Wolpe, the situation was somewhat stabilized when elections were organized in 2005. The main Hutu former rebel group FDD won and Pierre Nkurunziza became president. In May 2008, the government and the last active rebel group FNL signed a ceasefire.

However, no one was ever prosecuted for the murders of the past fifty years. Tensions have increased due to this ongoing impunity since the country’s 2010 general elections. In a 2012 report, Human Rights Watch reported that reciprocal killings by members of the ruling National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (CNDD-FDD) and the former rebel group the National Liberation Forces (FNL) have increased. The largest recent massacre took place September 19, 2011 when nearly 40 people were killed in a bar in Gatumba, close to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo, the same place that over 160 Banyamulenge (Congolese Tutsi) refugees were murdered by Hutu militias in 2003.

In December 2010, Amnesty International reported that there has never been justice for Burundi massacre victims. The organization said the government should hold those accountable for massacres and other serious human rights violations during the civil wars. In July 2011, president Pierre Nkurunziza finally announced that a Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be established in 2012. After that commission was to have completed its investigations, a special tribunal was to be formed.No commission or tribunal was formed.

Recently, political tensions have erupted in Burundi after Hutu President Pierre Nkurunziza fired his Tutsi vice president, resulting in three Uprona (Tutsi) party ministers quitting the administration’s coalition. The president has also proposed multiple constitutional amendments to allow him to run for a third term and to abolish the guaranteed 40% of government and parliamentary positions allotted to Tutsis. This threatens the delicate power sharing deal put in place in 2005. Human rights groups have reported political killings, intimidation of the opposition, and a crackdown on media freedoms since Nkurunziza’s re-election. Uprona accuses the government of attempting to dismantle their organization to avoid a united Tutsi party in the 2015 elections, as exemplified in the 2014 Uprona rally that was broken up by riot police and ended in the party’s leaders being arrested.

In April 2014, a leaked cable from the UN mission in Burundi reported that the ruling Hutu party (CNDD-FDD) is arming its youth arm with AK-47s and releasing propaganda over the radio “to be ready.” It is estimated that 100,000 Hutu militiamen are armed and training. Because of the leaked cable, the president kicked the UN security chief out of Burundi. The situation is eerily reminiscent of Rwanda in 1993-1994 before Rwanda’s genocide.

Political tensions have flared into violence with clashes between police and demonstrators in the capital that left 20 activists and 5 police officers injured. Subsequently 71 MSD activists were arrested for rebellion and armed insurrection, with 21 receiving life sentences. In April, rebel National Liberation Forces (FNL) killed 12 soldiers during an attack on two army bases north of Bujumbura.

Burundi is a volatile and fragile country. The 2015 presidential elections are inciting political instability, and have the potential to incite genocidal violence along ethnic lines.

Genocide Watch considers Burundi to be at Stage 6: Preparation, as a result of the political tensions rising between the two main ethnic groups, attempts by the Hutu president to amend the constitution and power sharing agreement, and the arming of Hutu youth militias, confirmed by a leaked UN cable.

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