IX. The Reaction of Authorities

Reaction to Abuses Attributed to State Agents and CNDD-FDD Members

Abuses committed by state agents and their proxies have generally met with impunity. Police and judicial officials often fail to investigate crimes, and when they do, case files are often eventually closed with no arrests or prosecutions. Government officials have also interfered with judicial investigations. Human Rights Watch has received consistent reports that some police and SNR officials have been complicit in crimes. In response to reports of abuses by both police officers and démobilisés, police officials have taken some action to limit such abuses, but have not initiated criminal investigations into the alleged perpetrators.

No one has yet been arrested for the 12 murders of alleged FNL and FRODEBU members that Human Rights Watch has documented since January 2008 (see Annex 1). The SNR has categorically denied involvement.[240]

Even where judicial officials have showed some initiative to investigate politically-motivated crimes, action has generally been limited. In June 2008 prosecutors in Karusi province and Gitega province interrogated the communal administrator of Nyabikere commune about his alleged role in the death of Libère Ntawukirumwansi, but then closed the file, claiming not to have sufficient evidence to pursue prosecution.[241] More positively, in Makamba province, judicial authorities showed some willingness to pursue complaints concerning the assault of detainees in Kayogoro commune in December 2008. As of this writing, a Makamba prosecutor has opened investigations into the role of a prominent CNDD-FDD activist in the beatings, though no arrests have yet been made. On the other hand, in Ngozi province, authorities made no effort to pursue those responsible for beating suspected FNL members in Nyamurenza in December 2008.

Neither the SNR nor the police have been willing to officially acknowledge collaboration with démobilisés in several urban neighborhoods, most notably Kinama, who carried out the beatings and illegal arrests of alleged FNL members documented in this report (particularly in May and June of 2008). However in June 2008, LK, a police official speaking to Human Rights Watch on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that some former combatants in Kinama commune, Bujumbura, were known to make illegal arrests and to beat their victims before turning them over to the police or the SNR. He said a senior official at the SNR, Colonel Agricole Ntirampeba, was in contact with these individuals to coordinate the arrest of suspects and their transfer to the SNR, as were several police officers. When asked why LK did not himself arrest the former combatants for illegal arms possession and assault, he said that it was out of his hands because high-ranking authorities were involved. “This comes from my superiors and is beyond my power to stop,” he said.[242] Colonel Ntirampeba himself denied having any contact with démobilisés in Kinama.[243]

After incidents involving the démobilisés in Kinama were raised repeatedly by human rights observers, the police carried out one search at the home of the group, but they only seized weapons and did not made any arrests.[244] The detachment that actually conducted the search was composed of GMIR police from Camp Socarti, among those known to collaborate closely with the démobilisé group.[245]

The number of human rights violations committed by the SNR appeared to reduce in the second half of 2008, though SNR agents played a role in some arrests of opposition members. However, other police violations of the rights of both alleged FNL members and opposition members continued to occur. Police sometimes appeared to act on their own initiative, but sometimes committed abuses at the behest of administrative authorities, as in Nyabikere, where FNL members said police beat them on the orders of the Governor of Karusi.

As of this writing, at least two police officials with a long record of abuses–Fidèle Nsengiyumva, the former Provincial Commissioner of Mwaro, and Désiré Uwamahoro, the former commander of Camp Socarti in Bujumbura—had been removed from their posts and redeployed at headquarters, apparently in response to pressure from human rights groups.[246] But they did not receive disciplinary sanctions. Uwamahoro and two other police officers, officially charged by the Muramvya prosecutor in November 2007 of torturing and beating detainees, have not yet been tried. No investigations took place into the August 2008 police killing of FNL member Daneck Koriciza.

Although the military has rarely been implicated in abuses of a political nature, soldiers implicated in the arrest and beatings of alleged FNL members in Isale and Bujumbura in May 2008 have not been identified or charged.

Police and judicial authorities, as well as CNDD-FDD officials, have been generally unwilling to acknowledge that the arrest of opposition members and other attempts to silence dissent are politically motivated. Police usually argue that arrests are legally correct and justified. For instance, they have argued that various opposition parties’ activities–ranging from holding meetings to passing around articles published by opposition figures–are of a seditious nature (see Annex 2).[247] In one exception, CNDD-FDD spokesperson Onésime Nduwimana acknowledged that the expulsion of the 22 opposition parliamentarians was a political choice.[248]

Furthermore, government officials have actively interfered with the independence of the judicial system. BINUB reported that an assistant prosecutor in Kayanza province freed a number of alleged FNL members in November 2008 after finding no evidence that they had committed any crime. The assistant prosecutor was subsequently threatened by then-Governor of Kayanza Edouard Nduwimana, a CNDD-FDD member, and fled the province.[249]

Rather than taking clear steps to address human rights violations, in general government officials and CNDD-FDD members play down the threat that abuses such as those documented in this report might pose for the electoral process in 2010. For example, CNDD-FDD spokesperson Nduwimana reacted angrily to an International Crisis Group report published in August 2008 forewarning possible election violence; he told Human Rights Watch, “The risk is overstated.... Elections have always been peaceful in Burundi.”[250] In Ngozi, where CNDD-FDD representative Anthère Ntarundenga was killed in January 2009, the governor’s senior advisor (a CNDD-FDD member) told Human Rights Watch, “I don’t anticipate problems in the elections. No political party encourages violence; people don’t want to kill each other for political causes anymore.”[251] In fact, while voting itself proceeded smoothly in both elections in recent Burundian history—in 1993  and 2005—killings and acts of intimidation by armed partisans of various parties marked the 2005 election campaign, as well as the post-election period in both cases.[252]

In November 2008 Burundi’s National Assembly passed a new criminal code which criminalizes torture, improving the opportunity for victims of abuse to secure redress. This positive development was somewhat watered down, however, by the failure to incorporate a provision that existed in the previous criminal code penalizing public officials who knowingly participated in illegal deprivation of liberty. However, senators responded to concern at the loss of this provision,[253] and on February 17, 2009, passed a revised version of the code that reincorporates it. Human Rights Watch is not aware, however, of any case in which the law has led to prosecutions.

Reaction to Abuses Committed By FNL Members and Dissidents

The government has adopted a contradictory stance with regard to abuses committed by the FNL. Despite the high number of arbitrary arrests of alleged FNL sympathizers, FNL members have rarely been arrested for actual crimes, leaving some victims with the sense that police are afraid to extend the rule of law to the movement.[254]

Police officials said their lack of capacity to pursue members of an armed group has prevented them from bringing crimes to justice. One police official complained in April 2008 that despite compelling evidence linking the FNL to killings, “We couldn’t arrest the perpetrators. It’s an armed movement that we can’t penetrate.”[255] Even in March 2009 as the FNL began its transformation into a political party and prepared to disarm, police found it too dangerous to enter the FNL camp in Rukoko in order to arrest suspects.[256]

Confusion around the immunity accorded to the FNL has also contributed to impunity. For example, some Burundians appear to believe that the FNL has immunity from prosecution for all crimes. In one example told directly to Human Rights Watch, FS, a witness to the killing by the FNL of Freddy Nkunzwenimana, the police informant shot in March 2008, said there was no point in filing a complaint because the FNL had “provisional immunity.”[257] In fact, as described above, immunity only applies to crimes related to the armed conflict and committed before the ceasefire in September 2006.[258] Some police seemed to share this misperception.[259]

The FNL, for its part, has defended some crimes and refused to accept responsibility for others. The crimes they have claimed are those of a political nature, such as the attacks on dissidents at Buterere, Rugazi, and Kabezi. The FNL leadership has not acknowledged any contradiction between its willingness to suppress dissent through force and its intention to participate in democratic elections in 2010.[260]

After returning to negotiations, FNL representatives to the peace process expressed willingness to turn over members suspected of committing crimes, as in Nyamurenza commune in January 2009. Agathon Rwasa, speaking in a debate organized by Radio Isanganiro in August, said, “Palipehutu-FNL members who commit crimes should be brought to justice.”[261] However, no members suspected of the crimes documented in this report, including those who killed JPH member Abraham Ngendakumana in February 2009, had been turned over at the time of this writing.

The alleged FNL dissidents, though they initially seemed to have a free rein to loot from surrounding populations[262], came under greater scrutiny as accusations against them mounted. Beginning in February 2008, officials have reported the arrest of dozens of FNL dissidents in Bubanza province for crimes including murder, rape, and theft. Bubanza judicial officials did not keep records on the number of dissidents charged with or convicted of crimes, but unlike the state agents, government proxies, and mainstream FNL combatants who committed crimes documented in this report, the dissidents did not appear to benefit from impunity.