I. Summary
Agreement in April 2009 by the armed opposition National Liberation Forces (Forces Nationales de la Libération, FNL) to disarm and demobilize and the government’s registration of the FNL as a political party represent significant developments in Burundi’s path out of armed conflict towards peace and democracy. The developments may pave the way towards both a final peace agreement and Burundi’s first general elections since the end of military government in 2001 in which all significant political forces compete within the democratic process.
Progress towards peace between the National Council for the Defense of Democracy-Forces for the Defense of Democracy (Conseil National pour la Défense de la Démocratie-Forces pour la Défense de la Démocratie, CNDD-FDD) dominated government and the FNL has been bumpy, with the FNL periodically withdrawing from negotiations. Furthermore, as this report describes, both the CNDD-FDD and the FNL have also deployed political violence and intimidation against opponents and dissenting voices, even while in talks. By and large these abuses have been committed with impunity, revealing a political culture in which violence and repression is deeply rooted.
Particularly in the case of the CNDD-FDD, democratic opponents from across the political spectrum have also been targets of abuse. With the CNDD-FDD and the FNL, both predominantly Hutu, now competing alongside other parties for the electoral support of Burundi’s majority Hutu population, progress in the peace process may alter some of the parameters of one context for human rights abuse—CNDD-FDD/FNL competition—but is not a safeguard against continuing violence, intimidation, and repression.
Over recent years, including in the first few months of 2009, state agents and unofficial proxies acting with the complicity of administrative officials and security forces have carried out killings, beatings, arrests, and other acts of intimidation, and have enforced further limits on the freedom of association. The majority of incidents have been taking place either in the poor outskirts of the capital or in rural areas and small towns. Government officials have done little to investigate incidents or bring perpetrators to justice.
These abuses appear to have largely been beneath the radar of international friends of Burundi’s transition to democratic governance, as they have rarely involved senior political figures (although some have). This lack of attention has been decried by various analysts and Burundian democratic opposition members, for it is in these locations and through these kinds of incidents that fundamental challenges to democracy, rule of law, and respect for human rights are being played out.
As Burundi moves closer to elections, firm action is needed from the government to put a stop to political violence and to end impunity, as well as to create the conditions in which the people of the country are able to freely exercise their civil and political rights by voting for the candidates of their choice.
Competition between CNDD-FDD and the FNL is a key dynamic in which violence and abuse have been used. Much of the violence has directly pitted local government officials and supporters of the CNDD-FDD against FNL combatants and supporters. State agents affiliated with CNDD-FDD, including local administrative officials and police officers, have in some cases been directly implicated in human rights abuses against FNL members. In other cases they have tacitly taken the ruling party’s side by failing to investigate abuses against FNL members. For their part, FNL members have engaged in criminal acts including killings and abductions—some sanctioned by FNL leadership—against state agents, CNDD-FDD members, and dissidents within the FNL.
The most recent wave of violence took place between December 2008 and February 2009. In early December, unidentified assailants burnt down five CNDD-FDD meeting places in Kayogoro, Makamba province, heralding a series of tit-for tat politically-motivated incidents. By the end of February over 50 CNDD-FDD meeting places in at least 10 provinces had been destroyed by arson.
In Kayogoro and Nyamurenza, Ngozi province, in December 2008 FNL activists were arbitrarily detained and beaten by local government officials and CNDD-FDD members, with police complicity. Then in January 2009, a CNDD-FDD activist, who had been a ringleader in the beatings of FNL members in Nyamurenza, was shot and killed; two FNL members have been arrested and charged.
Also, in January 2009, grenades were thrown at the homes of two FNL members in Nyabikere, Karusi province. The next day a CNDD-FDD communal administrator in Nyabikere was attacked and wounded at his home. The administrator had been identified by police in 2008 as a main suspect in the killing of a member of the FNL youth league, but had not been charged or tried.
Meanwhile, in Kayogoro and Busoni, Kirundo province, members of the CNDD-FDD youth league have engaged in what they describe as night-time “sports”—parading through the streets wielding sticks and clubs, threatening members of other political groups, including the FNL, and arresting political opponents.
This cycle of partisan violence harks back to early 2008, when civilians associated with the FNL, the ruling CNDD-FDD, and the intelligence service (Service National du Renseignement, SNR) were victims of targeted assassinations in and around Bujumbura. Killings were traced to demobilized FDD combatants (“démobilisés”) working for the police and the intelligence service, on the one hand, and to FNL members, on the other.
The FNL also has a history of addressing political challenges through violence. In 2007 the FNL—then known as the Party for the Liberation of the Hutu People-National Liberation Forces (Parti pour la Libération du Peuple Hutu-Forces Nationales de Libération, Palipehutu-FNL)—carried out a series of attacks on a group generally known in Burundi as “the alleged FNL dissidents.” These served no legitimate military end but were designed to send a message about what happens to FNL defectors. More recently, in January 2009, high-ranking FNL combatants abducted and abused a civilian FNL supporter who had expressed dissenting views and another FNL dissenter was killed in February 2009.
The widow of one victim who abandoned the FNL to become a police informant and was subsequently killed by FNL members described her husband’s dilemma: “As an FNL member, the CNDD-FDD comes after you. As a CNDD-FDD member, the FNL comes after you.” In all the incidents that took place in early 2008, victims were unable to secure access to justice. The crimes against them were either inadequately investigated or no investigation at all took place. There have been no prosecutions of the perpetrators.
During the violence in early 2008, the FNL was boycotting peace talks with the government and was carrying out sporadic armed attacks. Meanwhile, police and demobilisés regularly arrested and beat alleged FNL members.
The renewed cycle of abuses beginning in December 2008 took place precisely when peace negotiations in Bujumbura were finally moving forward. Furthermore, the ruling CNDD-FDD has a history of targeting democratic opponents as well as those in armed opposition groups. This suggests that a formal peace will not, without further action in support of the rule of law, address local-level, politically-motivated human rights abuses.
Among the serious abuses committed against democratic political opponents in early 2009 was the killing of at least three members of the Democratic Front in Burundi (Front pour la Démocratie au Burundi), FRODEBU, the largest opposition party, in the Kamenge and Kinama neighborhoods of Bujumbura. According to witnesses, CNDD-FDD members and SNR agents were responsible. Another FRODEBU member was killed in Kamenge in similar circumstances around the same time, although in this case the perpetrators have yet to be identified.
These killings followed other attacks on members of FRODEBU and other opposition parties in mid-2007 and early 2008. In addition, in the second half of 2008, the CNDD-FDD-dominated government began to deploy other forms of repression against political opponents. The government expelled 22 opposition members from parliament; illegally shut down opposition parties’ meetings and press conferences; and arrested at least 120 opposition party activists between July 2008 and April 2009, particularly targeting the Movement for Solidarity and Democracy (MSD) and the Union for Peace and Development (UPD-Zigamibanga).
Government and CNDD-FDD officials, as well as FNL leaders, have consistently denied responsibility for acts of violence. Human Rights Watch investigations have found that some incidents were coordinated through established hierarchies, while other abuses were carried out by local activists without consulting their superiors. Neither group’s leaders have condemned abuses by their own members nor have they taken sufficient measures to ensure that they are abiding by the law. There were some limited exceptions: in late 2008, two police officers responsible for abuses were removed from their positions, although they were transferred to headquarters and received no disciplinary sanctions. And in March 2009, the FNL collaborated for the first time with a police investigation into crimes committed by members, resulting in several arrests, although many other crimes attributed to FNL members have gone unsolved.
Local CNDD-FDD officials have said they suspect members of mainstream democratic political parties of being behind some of the recent arson incidents. Human Rights Watch did not find conclusive evidence linking parties other than the FNL and CNDD-FDD to abuses. But opposition parties’ rhetoric has become increasingly vitriolic, which underlines the risk that violence by CNDD-FDD and FNL poses to the wider democratic process. A senior member of one party told Human Rights Watch, “CNDD-FDD took up arms [in the 1990s] because of an absence of democracy. They don’t realize that others can take up arms too. All of the parties have youth that we can mobilize.”
Overall, police officers have failed to enforce laws effectively to prevent and punish human rights abuses. When alleged perpetrators have been arrested, the arrests have often been accompanied by ill-treatment, and have rarely been followed by thorough investigations and prosecutions. Judicial authorities, working within a judicial system plagued by inadequate resources and interference from the executive, have been equally ineffective in enforcing the law.
The continued use of what one citizen described to Human Rights Watch as “the logic of the gun” by CNDD-FDD and the FNL, as well as the government’s failure to move purposefully towards the rule of law in the three years since it took power, raises fear that human rights abuses will escalate with the approach of elections in 2010. CNDD-FDD and the FNL have proved all too ready to commit abuses in efforts to dominate the political landscape, eliminate competitors, and assert power.
International actors have focused on establishing a formal peace and are not paying adequate attention to current human rights violations and accountability for past abuses. European and US diplomats responded strongly to the arrest of a prominent opposition leader in November 2008, but have shown much less public concern about human rights violations affecting ordinary Burundians in rural and marginal urban areas—the most numerous victims of abuse. Neither have diplomats defended the rights of political figures who were “unpopular” in the diplomatic community. The protection of the human rights of all Burundians is fundamental to peace, the transition to democracy, and successful elections.
The Burundian government and all political organizations should end violence against civilians, illegal arrests, and repressive measures orchestrated to intimidate political opponents. Impunity and lack of judicial independence are underlying concerns which clearly need addressing to prevent human rights abuses during the pre-election period. Government officials should investigate and hold accountable persons on all sides who are responsible for abuses. Additionally, Human Rights Watch calls on international partners, particularly those involved in facilitating the peace process and donors to the security sector, to pay particular attention to violence and political repression in rural Burundi, and take measures to assist in ending it.
Meanwhile, early preparations need to be made to ensure that the Independent National Electoral Commission (Commission Electorale Nationale Indépendante), established in early 2009, is well-equipped and has a strong mandate to carry out the timely investigation of election related violence, allegations of irregularities in voter registration, illegal restriction on political campaigning and media bias prior to voting. The CENI should be able to refer cases to the judiciary where necessary.