Amnesty International Report 1997 - Burundi

Tens of thousands of people were victims of political killings by government forces and by Hutu and Tutsi armed groups. More than 6,500 people, virtually all Hutu, were held in detention without trial. About 150 people were convicted after trials which did not conform to international fair trial standards, and more than 80 were sentenced to death. Torture was reported to be systematic. At least 24 detainees were summarily executed. Hundreds of people "disappeared" and were feared killed. Among them were Burundi refugees forcibly returned from eastern Zaire. Burundi forcibly returned refugees to Rwanda. The civil war escalated between the Tutsi-dominated security forces and armed opposition groups led by members of the majority Hutu ethnic group. The largest armed Hutu group was the Forces pour la défense de la démocratie, Forces for the Defence of Democracy, the armed wing of the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie, National Council for the Defence of Democracy. Hundreds of thousands of people were forced to leave their homes in search of safety, either in camps and rural settlements within Burundi, or in Zaire and Tanzania as refugees. By June, the escalating violence prompted the Heads of State of Tanzania, Rwanda, Zaire, Uganda and Ethiopia to propose sending a combined force of troops from various African countries to help restore security. This decision aroused considerable opposition within Burundi, and on 24 July, President Sylvestre Ntibantunganya was ousted in a military coup. He had led a transitional government in which the Hutu-dominated Front pour la démocratie au Burundi, Front for Democracy in Burundi, which won elections in 1993, shared power with Tutsi-dominated opposition parties. A former President, Major Pierre Buyoya, was declared President. He suspended the National Assembly and all political parties. The new government was not recognized by the international community, and the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and neighbouring countries reacted by imposing trade sanctions. In September, the government reinstated the National Assembly and political parties, but the sanctions remained in place and Burundi was excluded from regional discussions on the crisis which erupted in eastern Zaire that month. Thousands of refugees fled to Rwanda, Zaire and Tanzania in the first eight months of the year. Tanzania, which had closed its border with Burundi in 1995 (see Amnesty International Report 1996), allowed some further refugees to enter. When fighting broke out in eastern Zaire in September, more than 140,000 Burundi refugees found themselves trapped between armed conflict and starvation. At least 100,000 fled from refugee camps in eastern Zaire, many of them forced back by Tutsi-led armed groups to Burundi (see below). An unknown number died; some refugees were targeted by Tutsi groups in Zaire, some were caught in the cross-fire and others succumbed to disease, hunger and thirst. A UN commission of inquiry into the October 1993 coup attempt and subsequent massacres published its report in July, after many delays (see Amnesty International Report 1996). The commission had earlier expressed concern about lack of security for its personnel and about inadequate resources. The report was criticized for confining itself to a narrow mandate and failing to address issues of impunity. Tens of thousands of people were killed during the year by the security forces, by Tutsi groups acting in collusion with government forces, and by armed Hutu opposition groups. Often it was difficult to establish who had carried out particular killings. As well as the many people massacred solely because of their ethnic origin, the victims included prominent members of the majority Hutu community, church leaders, teachers and students, journalists, foreign aid workers, Rwandese refugees in Burundi and Burundi refugees returned from Zaire. The civil war entered a new phase in March, when armed groups extended their attacks from the northern provinces and around Bujumbura, the capital, to the southern provinces. The number of unarmed civilians who died continued to rise. Nearly 500 people were killed in the first two weeks of April by government forces or armed groups. In May, there were reports of massacres in which at least 1,200 people lost their lives, and by June more than 1,000 people were dying each week. After the 24 July coup, the killings escalated even further. More than 6,000 people were reported to have been killed in various parts of Burundi in the three weeks after the coup. The return of exiled Hutu fighters who had been based in and around refugee camps in eastern Zaire led to a further upsurge of violence in Burundi towards the end of the year. Massacres by government soldiers and armed Tutsi civilians were reported throughout the year. Most of the victims were Hutu. In one incident on 3 May, at least 300 people were killed by soldiers in Kivyuka market. On 25 July, Tutsi students killed 30 Hutu fellow students at an agricultural college while the security forces surrounded the building. Some students were burned to death. Those killed included Fabien Buyana and Valérie Nimbesha. Ten other students "disappeared". On 29 July, soldiers killed around a hundred people, including women and children, in Giheta, Gitega province. Those too weak to run away were drowned in the nearby Ruvyironza river. Among the dead were Veronica Cishikaye and her three children. Between 27 July and 10 August, at least 4,050 unarmed civilians were extrajudicially executed by government forces in Gitega province. Most were shot dead after being rounded up by soldiers who came to their villages, ostensibly to obtain information about rebel movements. Thousands of refugees were forcibly returned to Burundi by Tutsi-led Zairian rebels in November and December. Hundreds of the returned refugees were massacred by Burundi government forces. In one incident on 22 October, at least 400 returnees from Zaire were rounded up by soldiers at Muramba Seventh Day Adventist Church, Cibitoke province. The adult males were then shot dead or bayoneted to death. Also killed were Juliette, a former headmistress of Rukana primary school, and her son, Abasi; Hosana Gushima, a former teacher at the Munyika primary school; and Annika, a teacher at Rugombo secondary school. Hutu armed groups also deliberately and arbitrarily killed unarmed civilians. For example, 16 civilians were killed on 23 February when armed Hutu attacked the town of Buganda in Cibitoke province. A further 30 people were killed three days later when a Hutu group using automatic weapons attacked a camp for displaced people. In another incident on 3 May, an armed group killed four patients and a guard during an attack on a hospital in Bujumbura. Fifty-one people were reportedly killed by Hutu rebels at Butezi displaced people's camp in May. More than 6,500 people, almost all Hutu, were held in a number of detention centres around the country. At least 2,600 of them were accused of involvement in massacres, or of belonging to Hutu armed groups. Most were held without charge or trial. Among them was a group of about 16 people arrested on 18 February after a shoot-out near Gasenyi, where there is a camp for displaced Hutu. When the local people heard shots being fired, they followed instructions to go to a position held by government soldiers. There, about 60 men of fighting age were arrested and accused of being members of armed groups. They were taken to the headquarters of the Brigade spéciale de recherche (BSR), Special Investigation Brigade, where 15 continued to be held at the end of the year. A military court ruled in March that soldiers charged in connection with the October 1993 murder of President Melchior Ndadaye had no case to answer and should be released (see previous Amnesty International Reports). A series of unfair political trials was held from February onwards. At least 150 people, all Hutu, were tried in connection with killings of members of the Tutsi ethnic group. None had legal representation: virtually all Burundi's lawyers are Tutsi and they refused to represent the defendants. The accused had no opportunity to call witnesses in their defence or to cross-examine prosecution witnesses. Over 80 people were sentenced to death, including Firmat Niyonkenguruka, a former secondary-school director. There were demands, mainly from Tutsi government employees, for the death penalty to be imposed and, although the Supreme Court had not yet responded to the defendants' appeals, a government minister agreed to consider this punishment. On 9 August, Firmat Niyonkenguruka and five others were moved to a special isolation cell, prompting fears that they would be tortured or executed. Information received by Amnesty International gave grounds for fears that Michel Nziguheba, a journalist arrested in March and still held on unknown charges at the end of the year, might not receive a fair trial. Torture in custody was reported to be systematic, and the Tutsi-dominated judiciary failed to investigate detainees' torture allegations. Almost all suspects held at the BSR were subjected to torture or ill-treatment, including beatings and enforced kneeling on sharp objects. At least 24 detainees were summarily executed during the year. Three were shot dead in Mpimba prison in Bujumbura in December. Hundreds of people "disappeared" during the year, including Gerols Mupenda Watu, an engineer in Bujumbura, who was abducted from a government building on 7 August, apparently by a militia acting with the collusion of the security forces. On 27 July, at least seven people "disappeared" after reportedly being abducted by security forces in Kanyosha, near Bujumbura. They were said to have been on a list of people sought by the security forces. Tens of thousands of refugees returned to Burundi from Zaire after war broke out in late September. A number of them were summarily executed by Burundian security forces. At least 50 men of fighting age who had returned from Zaire were reported killed in Bujumbura on 8 November. Hundreds more "disappeared" from Gatumba transit camp near the border, and were feared killed. In July, Burundi forcibly expelled 15,000 Rwandese refugees from northern Burundi to Rwanda. At the end of August, Burundi repatriated about 80,000 Rwandese refugees who had been living in camps in the north of the country. The return was officially described as voluntary, although heavy pressure was applied and at least three refugees were killed, apparently by government troops, before the others agreed to go. Amnesty International repeatedly appealed to all political and military leaders in Burundi to respect human rights. It called on them to publicly instruct those under their command to stop killing unarmed civilians and to disarm and bring to justice anyone accused of such killings. The organization also called on the government to stop forced repatriation of Rwandese refugees. In February, Amnesty International published a report, Rwanda and Burundi: The return home – rumours and realities, which described the situation of more than a million refugees from Rwanda and Burundi and the risks facing them if they were to return home. In June, the organization published Burundi: Armed groups kill without mercy, which highlighted killings by armed groups, and in August a further report, Burundi: Leaders are changing, but human rights abuses continue unabated, documented continuing government massacres. Amnesty International issued an appeal to the OAU on 26 July, in the aftermath of the coup, calling on it to mobilize the international community to prevent further massacres of defenceless civilians in Burundi. After the outbreak of war in eastern Zaire, Amnesty International drew attention to the fate of over 100,000 refugees from Burundi in its appeals to the parties to the conflict and to the international community (see Zaire entry). In November, it published Burundi: Refugees returned to danger, which described continuing killings of civilians and massacres of returned refugees.