AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1995
(this report covers the period 1.1.94-31.12.94)
BURUNDI
Thousands of people were killed in politically motivated massacres committed by the security forces and civilian gangs. Many of the victims were killed solely because of their ethnic origin. The authorities did little or nothing to investigate the killings or bring those responsible to account. Several hundred people were arbitrarily detained, many of whom alleged that they were tortured, and dozens of people ''disappeared''.
In January the National Assembly appointed Cyprien Ntaryamira to replace the country's first democratically elected President, who had been killed by soldiers in an unsuccessful coup attempt in October 1993 (see Amnesty International Report 1994). Both were members of the Front pour la démocratie au Burundi (frodebu), Front for Democracy in Burundi, which won the elections in June 1993.
On 6 April President Ntaryamira was killed along with President Juvénal Habyarimana of Rwanda when their plane was brought down by a missile in Rwanda. The frodebu interim President of the National Assembly, Sylvestre Ntibantunganya, became interim President and power-sharing negotiations began between frodebu and opposition political parties. An agreement reached in September included the election of President Ntibantunganya to a four-year term by the National Assembly and the appointment of 45 per cent of government ministers from opposition political parties.
Tension between Tutsi, who dominated the government until July 1993 and continued to control the armed forces, and Hutu remained high. Politically motivated killings – both massacres and sporadic political assassinations, mostly of prominent Hutu – were reported virtually daily across the country. By mid-1994 the two communities were for the most part living in mutually hostile areas, both in towns and in the countryside, although they had formerly lived alongside each other.
There was an almost complete breakdown of law and order resulting from the government's failure to control the armed forces or to prevent Hutu and Tutsi extremists from arming themselves. Responsibility for individual killings was difficult to ascertain. There were numerous claims that members of the security forces assisted groups of armed Tutsi and that leading members of frodebu supported armed Hutu, but the government took no action to establish the facts or to bring those encouraging political violence to justice.
Opposition leader Mathias Hitimana of the Parti pour la réconciliation du peuple (prp), Party for the People's Reconciliation, was held for 10 days in August in connection with violent demonstrations which had resulted in about 15 deaths.
On rare occasions when perpetrators were arrested, they were released without charge within hours or days. In April the interim President, in collaboration with the armed forces, launched a ''disarmament campaign'' calling on citizens to surrender their arms. The armed forces apparently regarded this as a licence to use unrestrained lethal force and killed hundreds of people, including unarmed civilians. The army used helicopters and grenades against unarmed civilians, destroying parts of the capital, Bujumbura, and villages in several provinces. Thousands of people were displaced.
A commission of inquiry announced by the government in December 1993 to investigate human rights abuses and other crimes related to the October 1993 coup attempt – after which some 50,000 people were killed – failed to get under way (see Amnesty International Report 1994). However, both the army's own Procuracy and the ordinary Procuracy carried out investigations. The army's inquiry resulted in the detention of 18 soldiers suspected of complicity in former President Melchior Ndadaye's murder. None had been brought to trial by the end of the year. Criminal investigations by the ordinary Procuracy started in April and were conducted by teams of magistrates at provincial level. Several hundred people, virtually all of them Hutu, were arrested as a result and were still held untried at the end of the year (see below). The official investigations were condemned as biased by many Hutu political leaders. In November President Ntibantunganya called for an international commission of inquiry into the October 1993 killings as required by the September power-sharing agreement, but no steps were taken to set it up.
In mid-March 1994 the un Secretary-General sent a fact-finding mission to investigate the 1993 coup attempt and subsequent massacres, but its findings, which were submitted to the Burundi Government in December, were not made public. The un Secretary-General's representative mediated in talks between frodebu and opposition political parties. In March the un Commission on Human Rights condemned and demanded an end to human rights abuses in Burundi. However, the Commission did not recommend any specific measures by the un to help end the abuses. In May the un Centre for Human Rights set up a human rights education program for judicial and law enforcement officials. In October the un General Assembly authorized the deployment of human rights monitors, but none was sent.
An Organization of African Unity (oau) monitoring mission was deployed, but it did not report publicly on its activities.
Army operations resulting in extrajudicial executions were reported from March onwards, initially in the northern suburbs of Bujumbura and later in other parts of the country. On 6 March soldiers massacred more than 200 unarmed Hutu – women, men and children – during a night raid on the Kamenge zone of Bujumbura. The army denied responsibility but witnesses pointed to the use of bayonets and the swiftness of the killings as evidence of military involvement. An army officer's identity card was reportedly found at the site. Army commanders had ignored calls made by the government the previous day for the security forces to leave the area and stop attacks on civilians.
On 21 March the security forces again entered Kamenge, and its neighbouring suburbs of Cibitoke and Kinama, to disarm Hutu gangs. Soldiers sealed off the area and there were widespread reports that several hundred unarmed victims, including children, were extrajudicially executed by the army.
In September the security forces again rounded up several hundred civilians in Kamenge for ''screening'' to identify those suspected of involvement in armed opposition. The bodies of 13 of those rounded up, including Alexis Bandyatuyaga, a journalist, and Dr Innocent Sindayihebura were later found near Bujumbura airport. Witnesses said the bodies had been dumped by soldiers driving gendarmerie vehicles. The bodies showed signs of torture: several had had their skulls crushed.
The security forces carried out further killings outside Bujumbura. For example, on 4 October, 20 civilians were reportedly rounded up in Cibitoke province and herded into houses which were set ablaze. This followed a rebel attack in which nine soldiers were wounded. In Muramvya province, Kivoga commune, at least 17 civilians, including children, were reportedly executed by soldiers on 26 October.
Tutsi civilians killed more than 50 Hutu in Bujumbura between 31 January and 5 February. Members of the armed forces were deployed but failed to stop the violence. Further killings by armed Tutsi followed throughout the year. For example, Tutsi students at a school in Matana commune, Bururi province, attacked a group of Hutu farmers on 7 May, killing at least four. Soldiers reportedly stood by and watched. Similar incidents were reported between April and October from other provinces, including Ngozi, Muramvya and Kayanza.
There were also killings of Tutsi by Hutu civilian gangs. At least 30 Tutsi villagers were reportedly killed one night in March in Tangara district, Ngozi province. The authorities reported several days later that more than 30 Hutu had been arrested in connection with the killings, although it was unclear whether any were formally charged.
In another attack in October, Hutu gangs reportedly killed several hundred Tutsi in Tangara district. These killings were followed by several mutual reprisals, culminating in the destruction of Tangara trading centre by Tutsi.
Further killings occurred in December when an armed political group attacked the security forces in the northwest province of Cibitoke. Responsibility was claimed by the Forces pour la défense de la démocratie (fdd), Forces for the Defence of Democracy, the armed wing of the Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie (cndd), National Council for the Defence of Democracy, led by a former minister in the frodebu government, Leonard Nyangoma. Government forces reportedly carried out reprisal killings of unarmed Hutu civilians, forcing thousands to flee to neighbouring Zaire. fdd attacks and government force reprisals were also reported in southern Burundi.
Several hundred people, most of them Hutu, suspected on the basis of little or no evidence of supporting Hutu armed groups, were detained in the capital by the gendarmerie and were routinely held incommunicado, without being referred to the Procuracy, and tortured or beaten. Most were detained at the headquarters of the Brigade spéciale de recherche (bsr), the gendarmerie's Special Investigation Brigade in Bujumbura, before being transferred to Bujumbura's Mpimba central prison. Among those still held at the end of the year were Emile Bucumi and Sadiki Likango.
About 300 people, most of them Hutu, accused of responsibility for massacres of Tutsi civilians in late 1993, were arrested early in the year. They included Jocker Bandemibara who was held at the bsr, where he was severely ill-treated, and then transferred to Mpimba prison. Another group of Hutu composed of about 20 civil servants were detained in Gitega prison during May and reportedly tortured. Virtually no Tutsi, either soldiers or civilians, were detained on account of the killings of Hutu which also occurred in late 1993.
Dozens of people arrested by the security forces reportedly ''disappeared''. Nine people were reported to have ''disappeared'' after being arrested by the security forces on 29 April. Most were Hutu residents of Kamenge, including Denis Niragira and Pierre-Claver Ningarukye: one, Ngoyi, was a Zairian national. Five people ''disappeared'' in September after they were arrested in Bujumbura. The body of one of them, Jean-Baptiste Tugirisoni, was found a few days later.
Hundreds of thousands of refugees who had fled to Rwanda in October 1993 returned to Burundi because of the violence in Rwanda from April onwards. There was also a massive influx of refugees from Rwanda. There were reports of violence between groups of refugees, which the Burundi security forces failed to prevent. There were also reports that Burundi soldiers carried out or condoned killings of Rwandese Hutu refugees.
More than 100 Rwandese asylum-seekers, particularly men and boys, were killed on 11 June after arriving at Kiri, in the northeastern province of Kirundo. According to witnesses, the victims were forced by armed men in military uniforms to get into trucks which took them a short distance away, where they were killed by Tutsi civilians with machetes and axes. Several other incidents were reported in July in which dozens of Rwandese nationals were killed in Burundi.
Thirty-one Rwandese who had crossed into Burundi ''disappeared'' in Kayanza province on 13 July. They were reportedly taken away by Burundi soldiers and never seen again.
Throughout the year Amnesty International repeatedly appealed to the government of Burundi, political leaders and the security forces to stop perpetrating or condoning human rights violations and instead to condemn them. In a report published in May, Burundi: Time for international action to end a cycle of mass murder, Amnesty International called for an independent commission of inquiry into human rights violations and urged the international community to help Burundi implement measures to end the killings and prevent their recurrence. Amnesty International also expressed concern about arbitrary arrests and torture of detainees, and called on the authorities to make public the whereabouts of people who had ''disappeared'' and bring to justice any officials responsible for unlawful secret detentions.
Amnesty International urged the Special Session of the un Commission on Human Rights convened in May to consider the mass killings in Rwanda to also consider the situation in Burundi, but it did not do so. When a clandestine radio station began broadcasting inflammatory messages in July, Amnesty International called on the international community to take action to prevent a repetition of the human rights crisis which had occurred in Rwanda.
In July and August Amnesty International delegates visited Burundi. They found that the criminal justice system had all but collapsed and that hundreds of people were being killed in political violence each month. The delegates called for further international action immediately, including strengthening the oau monitoring mission and deploying international observers to ensure effective and impartial investigations into human rights abuses.
Amnesty International referred to Burundi in two statements to the un Commission on Human Rights in February and in its statement before the Special Session of the Commission in May.
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