Wayzata World Factbook 1996/The World Factbook - 1996 Edition - Wayzata Technology (3079) (1996).iso/pc/text/humanrts/burundi.txt

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TITLE: BURUNDI HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES, 1994
AUTHOR: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DATE: FEBRUARY 1995

                            BURUNDI


Burundi's first democratically elected Government retained
power following an October 1993 coup attempt and the
assassination of President Melchior Ndadaye, an ethnic Hutu.
Effective authority was limited, however, since government
confidence in the loyalty of the armed forces remained tenuous
and officials hesitated to resume full duties, fearing for
their personal safety, thus leaving their ministries to
management by incumbent civil servants of the opposition
parties.  Several ministers received anonymous death threats.

The assassinations of President Ndadaye, the President and Vice
President of the National Assembly, and of other officials
exhausted constitutional provisions for Presidential
succession.  In January a coalition consisting of the majority
(predominantly Hutu) FRODEBU Party, the elected opposition
(predominantly Tutsi) UPRONA Party, smaller political parties,
religious, business, labor, human rights, and other civic
leaders negotiated an agreement which installed majority party
leader Cyprien Ntaryamira as President.  The coalition's
selection of Ntaryamira involved the grant of a number of
power-sharing concessions to the opposition parties.  The
National Assembly passed a constitutional amendment allowing
the Assembly to fill the presidential vacancy.

On April 6, President Ntaryamira and Rwandan President Juvenal
Habyarimana were killed in a suspicious crash of Habyarimana's
airplane, which remains under investigation.  Renewed
presidential succession negotiations eventually concluded in
October with the installation of Acting President Sylvestre
Ntibantunganya to serve out the remainder of the presidential
term running to 1998.  These negotiations required further
power-sharing concessions to the political opposition.

Security forces consist of the army and gendarmerie under the
Ministry of Defense, the judicial police under the Ministry of
Justice, and the public security and documentation police
forces under the Ministry of Interior.  The high command of the
Tutsi-dominated military professed loyalty to the elected
Government and neutrality in political negotiations.  However,
in Bujumbura, it was not until August that the military acted
quickly and professionally to end civil disturbances involving
citizens of their own ethnicity.  On several other occasions,
military forces used excessive violence in government-
sanctioned operations to disarm civilians, fired on unarmed
civilians, including women and children, and engaged in burning
abuses were isolated, uncondoned breaches of discipline and and
looting of homes.  Military authorities insisted these were
corrected internally.  Neither the armed forces nor the
Government provided a public accounting of measures taken to
punish those responsible for these excesses.  However, at
year's end, according to military sources, 100 military
personnel were in prison facing general court martial for
excesses against civilians, looting, involvement in the 1993
coup attempt, or other acts of indiscipline.

Burundi is extremely poor and densely populated, with over
four-fifths of the population engaged in subsistence
agriculture.  The small monetary economy is based largely on
the export of coffee and tea.  The severe disruptions and
dislocations stemming from the October 1993 coup attempt
increased the economic misery, as large numbers of internally
displaced families were unable to produce their own food crops
and had to depend largely on international humanitarian
assistance.  The Government made little progress in its efforts
to privatize parastatal enterprises.

The Burundi security forces and armed civilian groups committed
serious human rights abuses, which the Government was largely
unable to prevent.  Perpetrators generally went unpunished.
The most serious abuses involved actions by the armed forces,
carried out in a climate of ethnic conflict.  Serious incidents
of ethnically motivated killing and destruction occurred in the
Bujumbura region, where armed troops brutally killed armed and
unarmed ethnic rivals, including women and the elderly.  Both
Hutu and Tutsi civilians in paramilitary, displaced, or
vigilante youth groups also committed extrajudicial killings.
The authorities made little or no progress in the
investigations of extrajudicial killings and have neither tried
nor punished any of the perpetrators.

Government efforts to restore security were inadequate and
mistrusted by Tutsis, particularly those gathered in displaced
persons camps.  Hutus often justifiably perceived the military
to be the principal threat to their security, rather than its
guarantor.

Members of the armed forces and vigilante groups committed
serious human rights violations with impunity.  The lack of
accountability for those responsible for the coup attempt,
assassinations, and ethnic violence was universally recognized
as a primary cause of public insecurity.  The dysfunctional
justice system could not satisfactorily address this problem
due to its own inefficiency, administrative disruption, and
public perception of its partiality.  Legal and societal
discrimination against women continues to be a serious problem.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Section 1  Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including
           Freedom from:

     a.  Political and Other Extrajudicial Killing

In addition to extrajudicial killings by the armed forces,
armed groups perpetrated unlawful, politically and ethnically
motivated killings of that group's ethnic counterpart or
political opponent.  The armed forces frequently committed
abuses in government-approved operations to disarm civilians.

On March 1 soldiers attacked and killed 25 civilians, including
women and the elderly, in the Kanyosha quarter south of the
capital, according to resident witnesses who fled the attack.
Soldiers also brutally killed 13 people taken into custody
after they responded to military appeals for noncombatants to
depart Kamenge.  Their bodies were discovered discarded on the
outskirts of Bujumbura, bearing bayonet wounds.  Some had
crushed skulls.

On May 9 troops in pursuit of armed civilians killed 52 unarmed
civilian residents in the nearby Gashorora region of rural
Bujumbura province.  Military authorities said they did not
condone these abuses and therefore punished the perpetrators,
but specific information about those arrested was not
available.  At the end of the year, no trials had begun.

In July, military forces removed approximately 30 male refugees
from a U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) transit
point in Kabarore, Ngozi province, without prior notification
to UNHCR.  The group never returned and a mass grave for a
similar number of persons was found across the provincial
border.

Also in July, men in military uniforms gathered approximately
45 refugees, mostly women and children, into a deserted church
in Cendajeru, Ngozi, threw a grenade into the church and fired
on those who survived the blast.  The identity of the attackers
is not known.  These incidents received considerable
international media attention.

Hutu and Tutsi paramilitary and vigilante youth groups, in
territorial conflict, stoned, beat, and stabbed to death
members of the opposing ethnic group in Bujumbura.  Gangs also
waylaid buses, removing and killing passengers of opposite
ethnicity.  Buses later restricted their routes to communities
of the driver's ethnicity.  This reduced, but did not entirely
eliminate, the attacks.  In March a group of armed civilians in
Kamenge abducted and killed an army officer.  During August 7
and 8, an extremist Tutsi political leader incited Tutsi youth
to create civil violence which included the murder of 11
people.  Authorities failed to identify and prosecute the
perpetrators.

In June, according to UNHCR reports, civilians--with some
degree of complicity by unidentified military forces--separated
about 100 Rwandan Hutu refugees from their families near Kiri,
in Kirundo province, removed them to another location, and
killed them.  Local military authorities obstructed
investigation of a mass grave of approximately 100 bodies which
was subsequently discovered near the site of the killings.  One
civilian was arrested; his case is currently under
investigation.  Three other suspects fled to Rwanda before
being arrested.

In two incidents during August and September, assailants threw
grenades into the Bujumbura central market, killing and
injuring several people.  Police made arrests in both incidents
but later released the suspects due to a lack of witnesses who
were willing to testify.  It was not clear whether the attacks
were politically, personally, or criminally motivated.
Increasingly in Bujumbura, all three elements, in varying
degrees, motivated individual incidents of violence.

In August gunmen attacked the Catholic Bishop of Muyinga at the
altar while celebrating mass.  When members of the congregation
and clergy fled the church to the market, attackers armed with
machetes killed 123; the Bishop escaped.  One soldier was
arrested and his case remains under investigation.

A Hutu National Assembly member was shot in Bujumbura.  Both
Hutus and Tutsis have been accused of his murder, although an
investigation in progress at the end of the year has yielded no
suspects.  Eight communal administrators, most of whom were
Hutus, were killed in 1994.  All eight murders were presumed to
be politically motivated and investigations were pending.
Police have made arrests in some but not all of these cases.
Hutu governors in Bubanza and Kirundo were killed in political
or ethnic attacks.  Police killed one attacker in Kirundo.  No
arrest has been made in the Bubanza investigation.
Investigations are also pending in the politically or
ethnically motivated cases of an expatriate UNHCR field officer
killed in an apparent attack on another Hutu communal
administrator, attacks on a Hutu (wounded) and a Tutsi
(unharmed) National Assembly member, and attacks on two more
governors and several communal administrators, some of whom
were wounded but who survived their attacks.

     b.  Disappearance

During separate incidents in August and September, six Tutsis,
on legitimate business in the Kamenge quarter, disappeared and
are presumed dead.  Government investigations failed to
identify the perpetrators of the violence since most witnesses
either sympathize with the abductors or fear reprisals.

     c.  Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
         Treatment or Punishment

The Constitution prohibits these abuses but they occur in
practice.  Perpetrators of ethnic violence severely wounded
women and children, using spears and machetes.  Allegations of
torture in prison made in May and June by international human
rights organizations on behalf of several individuals charged
with participation in ethnic violence were not substantiated.
These charges were not made by the prisoners, some of whom did,
however, report brutal mistreatment by civilian arresting
forces before reaching the prison.  While the Government claims
that it does not condone such treatment, the authorities made
no serious effort to address the problem.

Prison conditions were life-threatening and characterized by
severe overcrowding and inadequate hygiene, clothing, medical
care, food, and water.  Four or even five persons were forced
to share a poorly ventilated cell 2 meters square.  Prisoners
had to rely on family members to ensure an adequate diet, and
officials acknowledged that digestive illness was a major
problem among the prisoners.  Women were held separately from
men.  At least one prison death occurred, due to poor health
conditions.

     d.  Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, or Exile

Presiding magistrates are authorized to issue arrest warrants.
Regular police and gendarmes can make arrests without a warrant
but must submit a written report to a magistrate within 48
hours of the detention.  The magistrate can order the suspect
released or confirm the charges and continue detention,
initially for 15 days, then subsequently for periods of 30 days
as necessary to prepare the case for trial.  The law allows
unlimited pretrial detention; 6 to 12 months is a typical
period, although less complex cases are dispatched more
quickly.  The police are obligated to follow the same laws but
have detained people for many months without having their cases
certified and forwarded to the Ministry of Justice as
required.  Bail is permitted in some cases.  Incommunicado
detention reportedly exists, although the law prohibits it.

Authorities generally followed legal procedures in criminal
cases, although they often exceeded the time limits prescribed
by law.  The lack of a well-trained and adequately supported
judiciary constrains expeditious proceedings.  The disruption
of the political process and the general level of insecurity
within the country have severely impeded the judicial process,
delaying a majority of criminal trials.

A National Inquiry Commission with arrest authority was
established to investigate responsibility for the October 1993
coup attempt and subsequent violence.  In May it began to make
arrests.  At year's end, the Ministry of Justice reported over
800 persons (including military personnel) were in custody for
crimes related to the coup attempt and assassinations or the
ensuing violence and reprisals.  (Military authorities confirm
14 military personnel in prison facing court martial charges
related to the coup attempt.)  Those arrested could not be
tried and remain in custody since a fully empowered President,
authorized to panel a criminal grand jury, was not installed
until October and had not yet addressed judicial questions at
year's end.  Police hold all detainees on criminal charges,
though several arrested in connection with ethnic violence
claimed they were being held for their political convictions
rather than involvement in violent acts.  Pretrial detainees
constitute about 75 percent of the prison population of
approximately 3,500 inmates.

The Constitution prohibits political exile and the Government
did not use forced exile as a means of political control.

     e.  Denial of Fair Public Trial

The judicial system was severely disrupted as a result of the
October 1993 coup attempt and the repeated presidential
succession negotiations throughout 1994.  When operating
normally, the judicial system is divided into civil and
criminal courts, with the Supreme Court at the apex.  Military
courts have jurisdiction over crimes committed by members of
the military or those involving actions against the military.
The Constitution provides for a High Court to try the
President, Prime Minister, or the President of the National
Assembly, and a Constitutional Court to review all new laws
(including decree-laws) and constitutional issues.

Citizens do not have regular access to civilian and military
court proceedings, although trials are ostensibly public.
Although defendants have a right to counsel and to defend
themselves, few have legal representation in practice.

The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but in
practice, it is dominated by the Tutsi ethnic group.  The
President's authority to appoint judges and to pardon or reduce
sentences was limited by constitutional amendment in September
during presidential succession negotiations.  Most Burundians
assume the courts still promote the interests of the dominant
Tutsi minority.

Besides the frequent lack of counsel for the accused, other
major shortcomings in the legal system include:  the lack of
adequate resources, trained personnel, and an outmoded Legal
Code.  Legal Code revisions begun in 1993 continued at a slowed
pace and had not yet been submitted for approval at year's end.

Since President Ndadaye's 1993 amnesty decree, there have been
no clearly identifiable political prisoners in Burundi.
However, police bring charges of involvement in violent crimes
or disturbance of the peace against detainees in connection
with political issues.

     f.  Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or
         Correspondence

The Constitution provides for the right to privacy and the
authorities generally respect the law requiring search
warrants.  Security forces can monitor telephones and are
commonly assumed to do so.

     g.  Use of Excessive Force and Violations of Humanitarian
         Law in Internal Conflicts

Burundi's ethnic conflict did not erupt into civil war, but
incidents of ethnic violence continued to plague the country.
Ethnic violence resulted in 7 out of Bujumbura's 11 residential
districts being largely segregated along ethnic lines between
January and May.  Tutsis burned and looted Hutu homes in the
Ngagara, Nyakabiga, Musaga, and Cibitoke quarters.  Hutus
responded in kind in Kamenge, Kinama and Kanyosha.  In both
cases, fleeing individuals were often killed.

Credible witnesses alleged that troops pursuing armed Hutu
militants killed unarmed civilians, including women and
children, in rural Bujumbura, Muramvya, Gitega and Kayanza
provinces.  In two major operations in the Kamenge suburb of
Bujumbura in March and September, soldiers in each foray shot
and bayoneted more than 200 unarmed civilians, including women
and children.

Elements within the civilian intelligence organization provided
arms and encouragement to armed Hutu militants attacking
military patrols and stationary outposts in the interior and in
Bujumbura.  Hutus in the interior frequently attacked small
numbers of displaced Tutsis as they attempted to return to
their homes.  Military troops on legitimate disarmament
operations frequently targeted noncombatants or destroyed homes
or markets without authorization or provocation.  Displaced
Tutsis, often with the help of members of the military or armed
Tutsis from the capital, attacked Hutus and burned homes in
turn, maintaining a cycle of retribution.  Witnesses report
over 800 deaths from ethnic violence in Muyinga province alone.

Section 2  Respect for Civil Liberties, Including:

     a.  Freedom of Speech and Press

The Constitution provides for the right to free opinion and
expression so long as these rights are expressed "in a manner
consistent with the public law and order."  In practice, these
rights are circumscribed by the Government's unrestrained
exercise of this proviso.  The 1992 Press Law, not enforced
until December 1993, restricts criticism of government
policies, the person of the President, and statements which the
authorities, at their discretion, could construe as contrary to
national unity or injurious to the national economy.  The law
also provides for government review and possible censorship of
all media prior to distribution.  In practice, private
newspapers were published without prior government review and
no cases of seizure were recorded.

Twenty-five newspapers appear regularly, in addition to the
government-owned French-language daily Le Renouveau.  There are
13 weekly and 3 monthly French-language newspapers; the
remainder are Kirundi-language publications, but journalistic
standards are low and most papers were simply political party
newsletters.  Others were consistent and energetic organs of
ethnic hatred.  No newspaper was banned or suppressed.

In August an undetermined source threatened and harassed three
senior editors of La Semaine, the most independent of the
French-language newspapers, as they were researching a report
on the military.  They fled the country.

Most citizens relied on the government-controlled radio
programming in French, Kirundi, and Swahili for information.
Newspaper readership, however, remained limited.  Burundi's two
government-owned radio stations (one broadcasting in Kirundi,
the other in French, Swahili, and English) allowed political
parties equal broadcasting opportunities in rotation.  Some
opposition parties complained that this arrangement provided
insufficient access.  In 1994, clandestine radio messages,
originating from unknown sources, were used to incite ethnic
hatred.

Academic freedom has not been tested.  The Civil Code does not
address academic freedom.

     b.  Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and Association

A 1991 decree-law established guidelines for granting permits
for public meetings or parades.  The Government granted
opposition parties permits for several public rallies and
demonstrations, but it occasionally denied this permission when
it alleged that the lead time was insufficient to arrange
adequate security; most meetings were subsequently
rescheduled.  Since the June 1993 elections, there have been no
reports of government harassment or bureaucratic obstacles to
the formation of associations in rural areas.  However, rural
residents other than those gathered in displaced camps were not
inclined to form associations for reasons of general security.

     c.  Freedom of Religion

There is no state religion and the Government made no attempt
to restrict freedom of worship by adherents of any religion.
However, ethnic alignments by religious affiliation led to
polarization, violence, and to mutual attacks on one another's
churches by representatives of the Catholic majority and of
various Protestant denominations.

     d.  Freedom of Movement within the Country, Foreign
         Travel, Immigration, and Repatriation

In general, the Government made no attempt to restrict
citizens' travel for political reasons, either internally or
abroad.  However, in one incident, officials of the
Tutsi-dominated Burundi immigration office denied exit to 23
Hutu students traveling on government scholarships to Bangui,
on the grounds that the majority FRODEBU Party was sending the
youths for paramilitary training.  The immigration office
presented no evidence for the claim but nonetheless prevented
the students from leaving the country.

Burundi now faces repatriation of several hundred thousand
indigent Hutu refugees who fled after the presidential
assassination and 1993 coup attempt, as well as the continued
repatriation of refugees from 1972 and 1991.  In addition,
nearly 600,000 internally displaced persons remain in camps or
dispersed in the hills.  In April and May approximately 90,000
Tutsi refugees entered freely from Rwanda.  In June violence in
Rwanda drove Hutu refugees into Burundi and the UNHCR reported
several incidents of Tutsi attacks on Hutu refugees.  The
Government made tentative efforts to resettle repatriating
refugees on a voluntary basis.

By October most Tutsi refugees had returned to Rwanda, while
approximately 216,000 Rwandan Hutu refugees remained in Burundi
at year's end.

Section 3  Respect for Political Rights:  The Right of Citizens
           to Change Their Government

The Constitution provides for free, multiparty elections by
secret ballot, with a 5-year term of office for both the
President and members of the National Assembly.  The October
1993 assassination of the elected President, National Assembly
President, and National Assembly Vice President exhausted
constitutional provisions for presidential succession.  Since
security conditions precluded new elections, negotiations,
which included a broad spectrum of political parties and other
civic organizations, were held, resulting in the formation of a
coalition Government.

There are no legal restrictions on the participation of women
or indigenous peoples in elections or politics, although in
practice, both groups are underrepresented.  Women currently
hold 2 of 22 Cabinet ministries and 9 of 81 National Assembly
seats.  Though the Twa (approximately 1 percent of the
population) voted in the 1993 elections, none ran for office
nor participated actively in the political process.

Section 4  Governmental Attitude Regarding International and
           Nongovernmental Investigations of Alleged Violations
           of Human Rights

Private citizens harassed and threatened members of one
independent human rights group, Iteka, who left the country
after receiving threats on their lives.  Local human rights
groups received varying degrees of cooperation from government
ministries.

At the Government's request, a group of international human
rights organizations conducted an inquiry in January into
responsibility for the October 1993 coup attempt and subsequent
massacres.  The report, published in July, indicated extensive
military and civilian complicity in the coup attempt and
excessive and unnecessary use of force by the army and police.
The report also concluded that some local FRODEBU government
administrators participated in or incited the ensuing violence
against Tutsis and UPRONA Hutus in the provinces, but found no
evidence of an organized FRODEBU plan of massacre at a national
level.  The military and the political opposition immediately
dismissed the report as biased, inaccurate, and incomplete.

Other human rights groups including Amnesty International sent
delegations as well.  Physicians for Human Rights reported
resistance from local military authorities when visiting the
site of a mass grave suspected to be that of the refugees
murdered June 11 in Kirundo province.  Local military officers
prevented Physicians for Human Rights and other observers from
examining the grave site and discouraged local residents from
speaking with the group.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported good
cooperation from government authorities in its prison visits.