Burundi: We Cannot Allow Another Genocide

After more than a decade of relative stability, Burundi once again appears on a precipice with ethnic violence rampant and the real possibility of another genocide in a region plagued by chaos, war, and pestilence. The virtually identical ethnic mix prevalent within Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi has meant that the ethnic tensions and politics in the two countries are linked inextricably. There has been a pattern whereby violent events in one country are mirrored by reprisal killings in the other. A Burundi priest described the phenomenon years ago as ‘double genocide’.

The latest threat to Burundi’s relative stability was instigated by President Pierre Nkurunziza in April 2015, when he decided to seek a third term in office. This decision was in direct violation of the peace agreement signed in Arusha in 2000. The decision to manipulate and violate the 2005 constitution placed President Nkurunziza and the opposition on a collision course. The reaction to the April announcement that the President would seek a third term sparked widespread demonstrations in the capital Bujumbura. The government’s response was brutal with extreme repression leading to hundreds of deaths and thousands of people fleeing the country. At the same time, Burundi’s highest court approved President Nkurunziza’s right to run for a third term in office whilst one of the court’s judges fled the country on the grounds that he had received death threats.

As the violence spread and the repression exacerbated, a military coup was announced on May 13 while the President was in Tanzania at emergency meetings aimed at dealing with the situation in the country. However, the coup led by Major General Godefroid Niyombare was foiled and government forces took control on the following day. The foiled coup added to the already precarious state of the country and inevitably led to widespread repression with many reprissal killings. Despite advice from many quarters that the elections be postponed, the President went ahead whilst the opposition boycotted the elections especially after one of the opposition leaders was killed. There was dissent amongst the President’s own party with the second Vice-President fleeing the country on the grounds that Nkurunziza’s candidacy was unconstitutional. Other prominent politicians including the President of the National Assembly also fled citing threats to their safety.

The elections of July 21^st boycotted by the opposition were won by Nkurunziza but were immediately marked by violence that has persisted to the present day. The escalation of violence has grown since the promulgation of the President for a third term in August. What is particularly worrying is that the tensions and the violence has become increasingly polarised along ethnic lines. The killings and violence have become a focal point for the African Union (AU) which is determined that it is not seen to standby while Burundi descends into mayhem and possible genocide.

The conditions in Burundi at the moment resemble those that existed in Rwanda prior to the genocide in 1994 with hate speech entering the political lexicon. The AU appears determined but has limited resources to deal with the mounting crises. The AU has sanctioned a peacekeeping force to be deployed to Burundi. The Burundian President, however, has refused to accept a peacekeeping force and has said that his government will fight any such troops on the grounds that this violates the country’s sovereignty.

The world is deeply conscious of the propensity of ethnic violence in this region to descend into genocide. The deep scars of the Rwandan genocide evoke passion and bafflement as a new generation of Rwandese as well as scholars and international agencies come to terms with the horror that was wreaked within a very short span of time. Nevertheless, there is much that is contested about the Rwandan genocide, its causes, the role of the current government, the role of the international community and the causes of the failure of the very agencies that were charged with the responsibility that such devastation would never occur. Although Burundi has suffered a great deal since the Rwandan genocide with over 300,000 people killed, it has not received the same kind of attention. It is vital that one of the poorest countries in the world is not allowed to descend into further chaos. It is time that the international community stand up to a tin pot dictator in the interest of Burundi’s highly vulnerable population and secure Africa’s most volatile region that has been the scene of Africa’s World War (Prunier, 2009).