The current climate in Burundi is one of fear and suspicion. Human rights abuses continue across the country, but many are not publicly exposed. The government’s crackdown on civil society and the media, including closing or freezing the bank accounts of 14 civil society organizations, has made it extremely difficult for local human rights groups to monitor or expose abuses.
We cannot agree with the falsely positive depiction presented by the Burundian Minister of Human Rights, and we strongly feel it would have been more appropriate for Burundi to respond from the floor as a State concerned, rather than present from the podium.
Victims and other sources have described to Human Rights Watch an increase in brutality by state security forces and the youth wing of the ruling party, the Imbonerakure. Perpetrators have crushed victims’ bones with metal rods, slit their throats, and beaten them in the face with gun butts or hit them with rocks.
Armed opponents of the government also have carried out attacks in which ruling party members have been killed.
December 11, 2015, was one of the deadliest days since the crisis started in April 2015. After armed opponents of the government used violence against military installations, police and soldiers – accompanied by Imbonerakure – clashed with members of the opposition in Nyakabiga and Musaga neighborhoods. Following the violence, the security forces and the Imbonerakure killed scores of peoples suspected of being opponents. Others were killed in house-to-house searches. The next day, police and the Imbonerakure, accompanied by local government officials, removed some of the bodies and buried them in mass graves. In recent months, several mass graves have been discovered.
Burundi’s prosecutor general, in a press conference in March about the findings of a government commission of inquiry into the events, said that due to hygiene concerns, officials buried those who could not be identified. Local residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch dispute this version of events and said the authorities made no efforts to identify the bodies.
In recent months patterns of human rights abuses have shifted. Whereas dead bodies on the streets of Bujumbura were a daily occurrence in the second half of 2015, many abuses are now taking place under the radar. Many people have told Human Rights Watch that security forces secretly take people away and refuse to account for them. Many of those arrested are presumed dead.
We welcomed the Human Rights Council’s Special Session on Burundi in December, but the Council needs to keep the deteriorating human rights situation in Burundi at the top of its agenda. It should urge the Burundian government to consent to the deployment of a substantial international police component to be based in neighborhoods most affected by the violence to deter abuses on both sides and strengthen human rights safeguards. The Council should also hold Burundi to its obligations as a member to uphold the highest standards of human rights, and stand ready to take appropriate action if the situation does not urgently improve.
