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IV. Extrajudicial executions by the SNR

Intelligence agents are believed to have been involved in the killing or presumed killing of at least 38 people over the past year. There were at least three individuals killed in three separate incidents from November 2005 to March 2006, four people killed in Kinama in August 2006, and 31 people are currently missing and presumed dead in Muyinga with several bodies and body parts having been found in a local river.

The killing of Ramazani Nahimana²⁷

In early November 2005 agents of the Documentation Nationale (the SNR’s former name—see above) arrested 16-year-old Ramazani Nahimana, a resident of Buhinyuza neighborhood of Kinama, Bujumbura. He was held for several days in the jail run by the Documentation Nationale. During the time of his detention, Nahimana was severely beaten, according to one witness who was also in detention at the time.²⁸ On November 23, local residents found Nahimana’s body propped up against the outer wall of a house with several bullet wounds in the face and chest; there were at least four bullet holes in the wall of the house behind his body.²⁹ The official explanation provided by the military spokesman was that he had been shot while trying to flee, but evidence at the scene and witness testimony collected by Human Rights Watch did not fit that explanation.

Members of Nahimana’s family report being intimidated by demobilized former FDD combatants working informally for the Documentation Nationale and as a result, they have not filed a complaint against the Documentation Nationale/SNR.³⁰ The prosecutor has the legal authority to initiate an investigation, even in the absence of a complaint,³¹ but he has not done so and there have been no arrests in the case.

In response to a February 2006 Human Rights Watch report in which Nahimana’s case was included, an aide to President Nkurunziza, Philippe Nzobonariba, confirmed to the Associated Press that there had been some isolated cases of human rights violations, torture and executions, but that they had been committed by undisciplined soldiers and police elements who would be prosecuted.³² He did not mention the role of Documentation Nationale agents in human rights violations, nor did he address Nahimana’s killing.

The killing of Jean-Baptiste Ntahimpereye

On March 2, 2006, residents of Mutimbuzi commune, Bujumbura-rural province, found the naked body of Jean-Baptiste Ntahimpereye. According to witnesses, he appeared to have been strangled and there was a large head wound.³³ The day before, Ntahimpereye had been arrested by men in civilian clothes while he was transporting some materials to a school he was renovating.³⁴ According to several witnesses, he was taken to CNDD-FDD party headquarters where he was detained, in violation of the Burundian code of criminal procedure code which does not recognize political party headquarters as legitimate detention facilities.³⁵ The following day, when family members attempted to find him, the head of the local police post, known only as “Isaac,” told them that Ntahimpereye had been summoned by General Nshimirimana to the SNR the night before.³⁶ At the SNR, family members were told that Ntahimpereye was not present. Family members spent the next day searching for Ntahimpereye until learning that a body likely to be his had been found. Family members identified his body at the morgue of Roi Khaled Hospital.³⁷

The case attracted attention in part because Ntahimpereye worked as a cook for an employee of the European Commission. On March 6, the head of the European Commission delegation in Burundi wrote to the minister of foreign affairs asking for an investigation.³⁸ On March 15, Minister of National Solidarity, Human Rights and Gender Françoise Ngendahayo condemned the killing of Ntahimpereye and said that the perpetrators would be brought to justice.³⁹ The family of Ntahimpereye filed a complaint with the prosecutor of the Tribunal de Grande Instance of Bujumbura⁴⁰ on April 13. A member of the prosecutor’s staff told a Human Rights Watch researcher that police have not cooperated with the investigation: superior officers claimed not to be able to identify “Isaac” and phone numbers provided for him have failed to connect. On September 15 and 18, the prosecutor twice sent a summons addressed to this “Isaac” at the police post where Ntahimpereye has last been seen alive, but no one appeared in response.⁴¹ The SNR has denied ever having detained Ntahimpereye and none of its agents has been questioned.⁴²  There have been no arrests in the case.

The killing of Raymond Nshimirimana

Raymond Nshimirimana,⁴³ a 21-year old student at the Lycée Municipal in Buterere commune, was killed in Mubone while coming home from school on March 26, 2006.⁴⁴ Witnesses stated that a toddler wandered into the street causing a large truck to slow down near where Nshimirimana and his friends were walking. The pickup truck, carrying over 20 men in civilian clothes, stopped. Some of the men carried firearms. After a brief exchange between Nshimirimana and the man in the passenger seat, a man with an AK-47 Kalashnikov assault rifle and another with a pistol got out of the truck. Nshimirimana began running away from the scene. One witness told a Human Rights Watch researcher,

The guy with the pistol yelled “Shoot,” to the guy with the Kalash. Raymond had run [a long way] by then but when the guy with the Kalash shot, Raymond fell to the ground. The bullet hit him in the back.⁴⁵

School friends attempted to take Raymond Nshimirimana to the hospital by bicycle but he died a few minutes after the incident.⁴⁶   

Local residents said to Human Rights Watch that they recognized some of the men in the truck as employees of the SNR and informants working occasionally for the SNR.⁴⁷ Several witnesses identified one of the men as “Egide,” a former FNL and FDD member who is well known in the community for having denounced persons as FNL supporters and caused their arrest by the SNR.⁴⁸ He has been allegedly implicated in other cases of extrajudicial execution documented by Human Rights Watch, including the case of Ramazani Nahimana, above.⁴⁹ Another witness reported that they had heard people associated with the SNR bragging in a bar one evening about killing Raymond Nshimirimana.⁵⁰ One SNR agent told a Human Rights Watch researcher that another SNR agent had killed Nshimirimana. He also said that there had been no investigation of the killing by the agency.⁵¹

Raymond Nshimirimana’s family filed a complaint with the prosecutor of Bujumbura in July 2006.⁵² According to the magistrate charged with the case, he attempted to verify whether “Egide” was in custody at any jail in the Bujumbura area but as of late September had not carried out any other investigations. He said that he intended to do so.⁵³

The killing of four men in Kinama

On the morning of August 15, 2006, the bodies of Salvator Nizigiyimana, Rénovât Niyonzima, Didace Ngendandumwe, and Moise Mugenzi were found in Kinama commune, Bujumbura, shot several times. The four had been arrested on August 4 on suspicion of being FNL members by two police officers and a demobilized FDD combatant said to work for the SNR. Monitors of the Burundian nongovernmental organization (NGO) League Iteka interviewed the four men on August 9 and 10 in the Kinama commune jail.⁵⁴ On August 14, the same demobilized FDD combatant came to the Kinama jail in a taxi and was followed by a pickup truck. He took the four men away to Kanga, also in Kinama, where the local residents heard yelling and many shots were fired.⁵⁵ One resident described to Human Rights Watch researchers the scene the following morning:

I saw four bodies. They all had cuts or lines around the mouth and at the elbows, marks that they had been recently tied up and gagged. There was a lot of blood everywhere. I counted 24 spent shells around the bodies. I think that they were sprayed with bullets there by someone moving the gun around.⁵⁶

On August 29, a representative of the director general of police told a Human Rights Watch researcher that five people had been arrested in this case.⁵⁷ Our researcher obtained a copy of a document carried by one of the persons at the time of his arrest. Signed with the name of General Nshimirimana and on SNR letterhead, the document is dated May 30, 2006. It says that the bearer

has been charged by the Service National de Renseignement with identifying and arresting criminals of the FNL-PALIPEHUTU and other troublemakers who perturb the security of the country throughout the Republic of Burundi. The military and the national police are requested to render him assistance.⁵⁸

When Human Rights Watch contacted the bearer of this document in the prison after his arrest, he refused to speak, saying “each institution has its own way of functioning and if you want to know more, you must speak with my superiors.”⁵⁹

Witnesses had previously told Human Rights Watch that demobilized FDD combatants have been seen in the neighborhoods of Kinama and Kamenge in the capital, carrying pistols that they use to intimidate people and telephones that they use to communicate with the SNR.⁶⁰

Deputy Administrator of the SNR Col. Leonidas Kiziba confirmed to Human Rights Watch in April that informants are given “encouragement” to hand over information to the SNR but said that informants cannot make arrests and are not formally employed by the SNR.⁶¹ The document being carried by the informer arrested in connection with the Kinama killings would appear to contradict this. Colonel Kiziba denied to us that any informants had been given weapons.⁶²

“Disappearances” and killings in Muyinga

In late July 2006, some families from the communes of Buhinyuza, Muyinga and Giteranyi in Muyinga province began reporting to Burundian human rights organizations that family members had been arrested and could not be found.⁶³ At the same time, people living along the nearby Ruvubu river began seeing bodies and body parts in the river. Muyinga is a province that has been at peace for almost three years and is not known to face any imminent threat of attack from any rebel group.

ONUB human rights monitors dispatched to the scene found at least four bodies in the river near Nyoko, Muyinga commune, on August 25 and three more soon after.⁶⁴ Human Rights Watch researchers saw bodies in the river near Mageni, Muyinga commune, on September 1. As news of these events spread, the governor of Muyinga announced on the radio that no detainees had been killed in his province.⁶⁵

Witnesses reported that some 30 persons had been detained by soldiers, sometimes in conjunction with SNR agents and the police, between May and August 2006.⁶⁶ One woman said to Human Rights Watch that she and her husband were asleep at 3 a.m. on May 1 when 20 soldiers came to take her husband away. When she looked for him at the army’s Camp Mukoni in Muyinga, soldiers told her that he was there but did not allow her to see him. She said,

The soldiers wouldn’t let me leave food for him, only money. I got a note back from my husband saying that he was alive. I went often and brought him money but I never saw him. Then one day, weeks ago, they told me he wasn’t there anymore. They wouldn’t give me any information. I haven’t seen him since he was arrested in May.⁶⁷

A neighbor told a Human Rights Watch researcher that he had seen the body of this woman’s husband in the river.⁶⁸

When one man was taken by soldiers on July 12, a family member followed them to the office of the SNR in Muyinga and later saw the man taken from the office and driven away in a SNR vehicle.⁶⁹ When family members sought news of the detained man from the local administrator, they were told that he was alive but being held for interrogation in an unspecified location.⁷⁰  A relative said of the detained man,

I think that [he] was killed because I haven’t seen him in more than six weeks and there are bodies in the river. Recently, the administrator told me not to go to the military positions and ask about [him] anymore. He told me to farm my fields so I wouldn’t die of hunger.⁷¹

The Ruvubu river winds around the northeastern edge of Burundi traversing the National Park of the Ruvubu, a nature preserve located in Muyinga province but bordering Cankuzo province and Tanzania. In the park, there is a military position near a bridge leading over the river to Cankuzo. The park is not inhabited but tourists occasionally spend the night there, as do local residents looking for grazing animals that have gone astray. One man who spent the night in the park in July told a Human Rights Watch researcher that he saw a white truck pull up to the bridge and turn around late in the evening. He said,

I saw headlights and I heard voices. The headlights were facing me so I had to stay hidden. Then I heard screams, very loud, screams of agony. There were many voices at the same time screaming. I heard the sound of something dragging, and then more cries of agony. I heard it over and over again. It was the worst sound I had ever heard. After a while, the screams stopped and the vehicle drove back in the direction it had come from. Later, people found bodies in the river, and then I understood what I had heard.⁷²

This explanation of the “disappearances” was echoed by another witness who was detained in the same jail at Camp Mukoni and described having witnessed groups of people being taken out of the jail late at night by high-ranking military authorities and the head of the SNR in Muyinga on three different occasions. Those detainees never reappeared. He told Human Rights Watch that when he inquired as to what had happened to those removed from the jail, one soldier informed him that they had been stabbed with knives and thrown in the Ruvubu river. The witness said that he was himself tied up and driven near to the river late at night, but he managed to escape. ⁷³

ONUB human rights monitors, Burundian human rights organizations, and Human Rights Watch have compiled a list of 31 people reported disappeared by their families. However, it appears that the number of possible victims may increase as families continue to report disappearances.⁷⁴ Ascertaining the number and identity of victims found dead in the river by ONUB, Burundian and international human rights monitors and by local residents is difficult because the bodies are in an advanced state of decomposition. There are also crocodiles present in the river, which may explain why some bodies are found in pieces.

Following pressure for investigations into these incidents from Burundian and international human rights monitors, the Military Prosecutor dispatched investigators. Two military officers were arrested on September 6 and 12 and Dominique Surwavuba, head of the SNR in Muyinga province, was arrested on September 13.⁷⁵ Surwavuba is charged with kidnapping and complicity in assassination.⁷⁶

Staff of the Attorney General (Procureur General de la République), two appeals courts, and the Military Prosecutor are continuing investigations in Muyinga and have interrogated family members of the disappeared, the two military officers who have been arrested, as well as at least eight other soldiers and the commander of the 4^th Military Region.⁷⁷ Despite mounting evidence, no other arrests have been made.

The action taken with respect to Surwavuba is the first time that the current government has arrested a high-ranking SNR agent for grave violations of human rights. The arrests in Muyinga and in Bujumbura for the killings in Kinama represent a positive step towards ending impunity. Many other cases have gone without any investigation or arrest, however, and agents who are known to be human rights violators remain on active duty. General Nshimirimana has never been publicly questioned about the at least 38 killings or “disappearances” in which his agents have been implicated since he took office in September 2005.

After the arrest of Surwavuba, the prosecutor of Muyinga received threatening telephone calls, and has consequently received additional police protection.⁷⁸ Civilian and military prosecutors must have the independence to carry out impartial investigations in these cases. The protection of witnesses who come forward with relevant information is also vital to the quality and integrity of the investigations. Accountability for these crimes could have a lasting impact on the protection of human rights and the credibility of the SNR in Burundi.