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Role of the International Community

Officers of ONUB and other U.N. agencies working in Burundi, leaders from South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda and other regional states, and diplomats of donor countries from the United States, Belgium, and France all cooperated in helping to move Burundi through a complex transition process to the much desired achievement of installing a democratically elected government. Peacekeeping troops under the aegis of the African Union also served an important role in the early stages of the transition before the ONUB was established. Donor governments and multilateral organizations have promised and begun delivering much needed assistance.

Not surprisingly, international actors, like Burundians themselves, want to focus on positive expectations for the new government. Officers of the ONUB human rights division, however, have rightly recognized the importance of reacting promptly to recent information about abuses by soldiers and other agents of the new government, and have sought to remind authorities of their newly acknowledged responsibilities to protect human rights.