Amnesty International Report 2002 - Burundi
- Document source:
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Date:
28 May 2002
Covering events from January-December 2001
Republic of Burundi
Head of state and government: Pierre Buyoya
Capital: Bujumbura
Population: 6.5 million
Official languages: Kirundi, French
Death penalty: retentionist
2001 treaty ratifications/signatures: Optional Protocol to the UN Women's Convention; Optional Protocol to the UN Children's Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict
War continued to ravage the country throughout the year despite a peace agreement signed in August 2000. Hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed by government soldiers and members of armed opposition groups, and hundreds of thousands of people remained internally displaced. People continued to flee the country in their thousands. Scores of detainees were arrested and held incommunicado in unauthorized detention centres. Many people were tortured. Others were feared to have "disappeared". Thousands of people, including children, remained in detention without trial from previous years, some since 1994. Most perpetrators of human rights abuses continued to benefit from impunity. At least 40 death sentences were passed; no executions were reported. The activities of human rights groups and humanitarian organizations were hindered by the conflict and by government and military authorities and armed opposition groups.
Background
Conflict continued throughout the year between the two main armed political movements not party to the August 2000 peace agreement, and government forces. In February, the armed opposition group the Forces nationales de libération (FNL), National Liberation Forces, attacked and occupied parts of Bujumbura for nearly two weeks. Armed opposition and government forces continued to be involved in the war in neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). There were repeated allegations that the Rwandese army was operating in Burundi and of links between Rwandese and Burundian Hutu-dominated armed opposition groups. The report of the UN Panel of Experts on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and Other Forms of Wealth of the DRC, submitted to the UN Security Council in April, accused Burundi of involvement in illegal exploitation, as well as transport and exportation of minerals and other natural resources from the DRC. The government denied the allegations.
In the first half of the year, implementation of the peace agreement continued to stagnate. Attempted coups took place in April and July, apparently led by junior officers opposed to the peace agreement. After months of diplomatic activity it was announced in July that the first period of a transitional government to be set up under the terms of the peace agreement would commence on 1 November. It was to be led by the incumbent President, assisted by a vice-president nominated from the main Hutu-dominated opposition party, the Front pour la démocratie au Burundi (FRODEBU), Front for Democracy in Burundi. The announcement led to an increase in political tension, including a second attempted coup, and further fighting. Major issues left outstanding from the peace negotiations were not resolved by the end of the year. These included involving both main armed opposition groups in peace talks, negotiating a cease-fire and reform of the army. In September, foreign military observers arrived in the country to review the situation in advance of a proposed international peace-keeping force and to act as a special protection unit for returning political leaders from exile.
The transitional government came to power in November.
Abuses in conflict areas
Both the armed forces and armed opposition groups continued to show complete disregard for human rights and to act with apparent impunity. The use of unpaid but armed Gardiens de la Paix (government militias) increased. Human rights violations, including torture, were attributed to them.
Government forces and militias
Government forces were responsible for indiscriminate violations against the Hutu civilian population. They carried out hundreds of extrajudicial executions, including of children, and deliberately destroyed and looted property. The attacks were often in reprisal for activities of the armed opposition, but also indicated that the Hutu population in general continued to be regarded by government forces as both hostile and complicit with the armed opposition. There was a marked increase in the unlawful and indiscriminate killing of unarmed civilians by the armed forces around the inauguration of the transitional government.
- Between 30 October and 4 November, at least 93 civilians, including Stanislas Manirakiza, Marc Ndarubayemwo, Cécile Minani, and Madame Moshi and her four children, are reported to have been massacred by government forces at Maramvya, Mutimbuzi commune in Rural-Bujumbura province. The killings were apparently in reprisal for an incident the previous day in which combatants, believed to belong to the FNL, fired at a government army vehicle and attacked a military post in Maramvya. Soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on people as they worked in the fields, before bayoneting to death others who had taken refuge in their homes.
The main armed opposition groups, the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD), National Council for the Defence of Democracy-Forces for the Defence of Democracy, and the FNL, were not bound by the peace agreement. Initiatives aimed at negotiating a cease-fire or entering into peace talks were unsuccessful. Members of both groups deliberately and unlawfully killed and abducted scores of people whom they suspected of collaborating with the government administration or armed forces. Ambushes were conducted by armed opposition groups in which scores of civilians were killed, often caught in the cross-fire. Armed opposition groups repeatedly robbed, raped and intimidated local civilian populations and forced people to carry looted possessions or ammunition. Hundreds of children were abducted in Burundi and forcibly recruited by the CNDD-FDD in November; hundreds of others were recruited throughout the year from refugee camps in Tanzania. Humanitarian aid workers were also targeted.
- Eight civilians were killed by the FNL between 20 and 28 July. All were peasant farmers from Masama, Kabezi commune, Rural-Bujumbura province, and two belonged to the Gardiens de la Paix. The men were reportedly accused by the FNL of collaboration with government forces.
- On 6 November, 18 civilians, including eight children, were killed by the CNDD-FDD at Munini, Bururi province, southern Burundi, apparently in reprisal following CNDD-FDD clashes with the armed forces.
Despite the introduction in January 2000 of a revised Code of Criminal Procedure, suspects continued to suffer arbitrary detention, often in poor conditions, as well as torture and "disappearance". Those arrested on suspicion of links with the armed opposition, including children, were often held incommunicado by the military in unauthorized places of detention.
- Salvator Ndagijimana, aged 14, was arrested with two others by soldiers in Bujumbura on 15 June on suspicion of collaboration with an armed opposition group and involvement in the murder of a local government official. On 20 June his older brother, Juvénal Ndayisenga, was arrested while trying to take food to Salvator and subsequently detained at the Groupement d'intervention, Intervention Squad, a paramilitary unit in Bujumbura frequently accused of torturing detainees. He was reportedly tortured before being released without charge after several days of incommunicado detention. His family were initially denied information about his whereabouts. Salvator Ndagijimana and his two co-defendants were beaten, stabbed and whipped in military custody. They remain in Mpimba central prison awaiting trial.
Torture and ill-treatment were routine immediately after arrest, sometimes resulting in death. Torture methods included having their arms tied tightly behind their backs for long periods and being bayoneted and whipped. Several prisoners died as a result. According to a report published in August by the Burundian Association for the Defence of Prisoners' Rights, of a total prison population of around 8,500, approximately 4,500 detainees were tortured or ill-treated at the time of their arrest. Cases were rarely investigated.
- On 12 June, a man called Birahwe was arrested for fighting by the Gardiens de la Paix, apparently on the orders of a government official in Minago, Bururi province, who allegedly ordered the Gardiens to "administer a correction". He was reportedly taken to an unofficial lock-up in Minago and beaten with gun butts. He was released three days later but died at home from his injuries shortly afterwards.
Major trials remained in progress during the year. New political cases were investigated but trials had not started, including the following:
- At least 11 people were arrested in January in connection with a machine-gun attack on a civilian aircraft landing at Bujumbura airport in December 2000. The plane landed safely. Four men remained in detention in Mpimba central prison awaiting trial at the end of the year. Three of the 11, who were provisionally released or remained at liberty, were also awaiting trial on related charges. Two others were released unconditionally and one man, Safari, reportedly "disappeared" after being questioned at the Groupement d'intervention and later died. The group were held, mostly incommunicado, in various gendarmerie and police stations in Bujumbura while the case was investigated by a government Commission of Inquiry, and two brothers, Bernard and Barnabé Barayegeranije, were tortured at the Groupement d'intervention. The government blamed the attack on the FNL, which denied responsibility.
- A Commission of Inquiry into the attempted coup of 18 April submitted its report to the Minister of Justice in May. A total of 54 people charged in connection with the attempt were awaiting trial by the Military Court of Appeal at the end of the year.
- Following a second coup attempt in July, 103 people were remanded in custody, including seven civilians. Their trial, also by the Military Court of Appeal, had not started by the end of the year.During the investigations into both coup attempts, detainees were held in incommunicado detention for several weeks. Some could face the death penalty if convicted.
Political trials relating to 1993 crisis
Trials continued of people charged in connection with the massacres of Tutsi civilians in October and November 1993, following the assassination of the then President, Melchior Ndadaye. Concern remained that trials, before civilian courts, fell far short of international standards for fair trial, in particular due to the denial of the right to appeal and the use of statements extracted under duress or torture. Thousands of Hutu, many of them supporters of FRODEBU, remained in detention awaiting trial. However, few, if any, members of the security forces or Tutsi civilians were arrested and prosecuted by the Tutsi-dominated judiciary for their part in the reprisal killings of thousands of Hutu civilians.
- In November 2000, the African Commission on Human and People's Rights requested the reopening of the case against Gaëtan Bwampamye, convicted of participation in the 1993 massacres and sentenced to death after an unfair trial in 1997, on the grounds that his rights to legal assistance and equality before the law had been violated. However, at the end of 2001, no action appeared to have been taken. He is currently held in harsh conditions in Bururi prison.
Journalists were arrested in what appeared to be an increasing pattern of harassment. In March, the government issued a press statement in which it called on private and state media to "respect the code of conduct, morality and the law" and warned that failure to do so would be severely punished. President Buyoya reportedly warned journalists against "playing the enemy's game". Following these statements, several journalists were harassed, ill-treated and arrested.
- Gabriel Nikundana and Abbas Mbanzumutima, both journalists from the independent radio station Bonesha FM+, were arrested and briefly detained in Bujumbura in March by members of the Documentation nationale, National Intelligence Agency. The arrests followed the broadcast of an interview with the spokesperson for the FNL, which was then occupying parts of Bujumbura.
Demonstrations against the peace process were organized by a number of groups, including the Tutsi self-defence association PA Amasekanya and the Parti pour le redressement national (PARENA), National Recovery Party, the party of former President Jean-Baptiste Bagaza and other Tutsi-dominated political parties. The authorities prevented some demonstrations from taking place, and scores of PARENA members were detained for short periods. Diomède Rutamucero, president of PA Amasekanya, was briefly detained on several occasions.
Impunity
The authorities failed to bring to justice members of the security forces suspected of serious human rights violations. In September a military court sentenced a soldier convicted of grievous bodily harm to 18 months' imprisonment for killing a Hutu member of the National Assembly in December 1999. He was also fined 1,000 Burundian francs (approximately US$1). The killing appeared to have been an extrajudicial execution.
Death penalty
At least 40 people were sentenced to death during 2001, all by civilian courts and mostly after conviction for offences relating to the 1993 crisis. Civilians sentenced to death by civilian courts do not have the right to a full appeal. No death sentences were reported to have been passed by military courts. Over 440 people remained under sentence of death. No executions were reported.
Refugees
Over 12,000 Burundians fled to neighbouring Tanzania which already hosted nearly 400,000 Burundian refugees in camps close to the border. Several thousand refugees returned to Burundi from Tanzania. Hundreds of thousands of people remained displaced within the country. A tripartite voluntary repatriation agreement between Burundi, Tanzania and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was signed in September, although the UNHCR cautioned that the situation was still not conducive to mass repatriation.
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