The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Burundi crisis

  • AU abandons Burundi peacekeeper plan

    The African Union has abandoned its plan to send 5,000 peacekeepers to help restore stability to troubled Burundi.

    Officials said they would instead encourage political dialogue between Burundi’s opposing sides, the BBC reports.

    Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza had fiercely opposed the AU plan’s to send peacekeepers.

    His decision last April to seek a third term in office has led to ongoing violence and fears that Burundi is sliding into ethnic conflict.

    At least 439 people have died and 240,000 have fled abroad since last April, the United Nations said.

    The AU could have deployed troops without Burundi’s consent – a clause in its charter allows it to intervene in a member state because of grave circumstances, which include war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity – but it would have been the first time it had done so.

    Top AU diplomat, Ibrahima Fall, said such a move would have been “unimaginable.”

    AU Peace and Security Council chief, Smail Chergui said, after the bloc’s meeting in Ethiopia: “We want dialogue with the government, and the summit decided to dispatch a high-level delegation.”

    Earlier this week, human rights group Amnesty International published satellite images it said were believed to be five mass graves near Burundi’s capital, where security forces were accused of killing scores of people in December.

  • AU seeks 5,000 peacekeepers for Burundi

    The African Union’s Peace and Security Council has proposed sending 5,000 peacekeepers to Burundi, invoking for the first time a rule which allows it to deploy a force without a country’s consent, a diplomat said.

    Burundi, which United Nations officials said is on the brink of civil war, has said there was no need for a peacekeeping mission, Reuters reported.

    Asked about the latest proposal, one minister said he understood it was still a draft and so would not comment at this stage.

    The AU decision, drawn up late on Thursday, needs approval from the UN Security Council, which has been considering options to resolve the crisis including sending peacekeepers.

    “We have authorised the deployment of a 5,000-man force for Burundi whose mandate includes the protection of civilians,” a diplomat from a member country of the council told Reuters.

    UN officials and Western envoys have expressed alarm at the escalating violence in Burundi, which only emerged from an ethnically charged civil war in 2005 after 12 years of fighting.

     

  • Gunfire, explosions kill five in Burundi

    At least five people were killed in overnight clashes in Burundi, police said on Sunday, and residents reported a battle at the president’s office in the capital Bujumbura which has been plagued by violence since a disputed presidential election.

    Burundi has been in crisis since President Pierre Nkurunziza announced in April he planned to run for a third term – a move opponents said violated the constitution and a peace treaty that ended a 12-year civil war in 2005, Reuters reported.

    Hundreds have been killed in related violence since April and 217,000 people have fled to surrounding countries, raising fears of a slide into ethnic conflict in a region where memories of the 1994 genocide in neighbour Rwanda are still raw.

    Nkurunziza said a court ruling allowed his bid and went on to win a disputed election in July.

    Residents in Bujumbura’s Rohero neighbourhood, close to the president’s office, said they heard shooting and explosions overnight.

    “We heard lot of shootings, explosions and shelling. And it was a kind of exchange of fire between soldiers at the presidency and attackers. Mortars were also fired,” a night watchman near the president’s office said.

    Officials and police could not be reached for comment and state media television and radio have not reported any violence at the presidency.

    However, Bujumbura Mayor Freddy Mbonimpa said four people had been killed across the capital, two policemen wounded and 28 people arrested.

  • UN, AU, EU raise alarm on Burundi crisis

    The United Nations, African Union and European Union warned on Thursday that political division in Burundi threatened to create a deep and violent regional crisis and called on both sides to meet for mediated talks.

    “Alarmed by the widening divisions, the threat for many more lives and a deep regional crisis, we pledged to work closely together and to mobilise all our means and instruments to prevent a further deterioration of the situation,” Reuters quoted senior officials of the three bodies as saying in a joint statement.

    UN Deputy Secretary-General, Jan Eliasson, who met EU foreign policy, chief Federica Mogherini and African Union Commission chair, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, at an EU-Africa summit on Malta, told Reuters that the institutions were not setting deadlines for talks but wanted to “raise the level of concern.”

    In their statement, they spoke of the “urgency” of a meeting between President Pierre Nkurunziza’s government and the opposition, either in Addis Ababa, where the AU is based, or in the Ugandan capital Kampala, where President Yoweri Museveni would chair talks. “No effort can be spared to achieve an end to the violence and to foster a political solution.”

    The statement was released four hours before the UN Security Council was due to vote on a French-drafted resolution that would ask UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, to report back on options for boosting the UN presence in Burundi.

  • Gunmen attack police station in Burundi

    Unidentified gunmen raided a police station in the Burundian capital, police said on Friday, the latest round of violence in a country that has been convulsed by a political turmoil since April.

    There have been sporadic attacks in the East African nation, some targeting high-ranking military officers and politicians, since President Pierre Nkurunziza decided in April to seek a third term, Reuters reported.

    His decision sparked violent protests from opponents who said he is constitutionally barred from another term.

    “A police station in the Cibitoke neighbourhood was attacked by unknown gunmen last night. One of the attackers was killed,” Pierre Nkurikiye, a deputy police spokesman, told Reuters. He said there were no other casualties.

    Residents of the area said they started hearing heavy gunfire at about 9:00pm local time on Thursday night. As with most previous attacks, no one has claimed responsibility for the raid.

    Nkurunziza was sworn in on August 20 for another five-year term. His party won a sweeping victory in a parliamentary election that the European Union and the United States said was not free or fair.

     

  • EU warns of sanctions over Burundi crisis

    The European Union warned Burundi on Monday it might impose sanctions on those responsible for violence and consider other steps against the aid-reliant nation, plunged into turmoil by the president’s plan to run for a third term.

    A grenade attack killed four people on Sunday. President Pierre Nkurunziza’s opponents said his bid for another five years in office is unconstitutional, while he cites a court ruling that found he could run.

    Reuters says it is the worst political crisis since Burundi emerged from ethnically fuelled civil war in 2005.

    The unrest has worried a region with a history of ethnic conflict, particularly next door Rwanda, where there was genocide in 1994.

    “The EU is determined to adopt, if necessary, targeted restrictive measures against those whose actions might have led or might lead to acts of violence and repression and serious human rights violations,” EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg said in a statement.

    The body funds about half the annual budget of Burundi, one of the world’s poorest nations, and diplomats have said in the past donors would seek targeted sanctions rather than broad steps that could harm the population.

    But EU ministers warned that the situation could push them to consider reviewing broader relations between Burundi and the EU, comments suggesting some aid could be suspended.

    The EU, Belgium and the Netherlands have already cut some aid flows, mainly related to supporting the elections.

  • East African leaders urge Burundi to delay elections

    East African leaders have urged Burundi’s president to postpone elections due in June.

    They have also called for an end to the violence sparked by President Pierre Nkurunziza’s decision to stand for a third term, the BBC reports.

    Their statement was made after a summit of the East African Community in the Tanzanian city of Dar es Salaam.

    A coup attempt against Mr. Nkurunziza failed earlier in May and some 90,000 Burundians have fled the unrest.

    “The summit, concerned at the impasse in Burundi, strongly calls for a long postponement of the elections not less than a month and a half,” said the statement on Sunday.

    The leaders also called for the “disarmament of all armed youth groups” and for the “creation of conditions for the return of refugees.”

    Burundi government spokesman, Philippe Nzobonariba, told AFP news agency that the government welcomed the statement and was open to idea of delaying the elections.

    But he said that the issue of whether the president should stand for a third term had not been discussed at the conference and that the Burundian government therefore considered the matter to be “closed.”

    Opponents to Mr. Nkurunziza have called for people to return to the streets.

    Protest leader Pacifique Nininahazwe, as quoted by AFP, said on Sunday: “We are disappointed because the summit said nothing on the question that we are concerned about.”

    “We are going to stage even bigger demonstrations than we have done so far in order to get Nkurunziza to leave office,” he added.