Burundi - forgotten tragedy

Burundi is in the throes of an attempted military coup. Trouble started when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced he was seeking a third term. Opponents said this breached the constitution, and now rival groups of soldiers are vying for control.

While everyone has heard of the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda, in which 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis, were killed by Hutu extremists in 1994, less well known is Burundi’s civil war, which raged from 1993 to 2005, and in which up to 300,000 died.

Before the country got independence in 1962, Belgium, the colonial power, had ruled through a Tutsi elite, and after independence, a series of Tutsi military regimes held power. In 1993, the country’s first democratically elected president, a Hutu, was assassinated by Tutsi extremists.

As many as 150,000 Tutsi were killed in retribution. In 1994, another Hutu president, Cyprien Ntaryamira, died in the same plane crash that killed President Habyarimana of Rwanda, the event that triggered the genocide there.  The Burundian civil war dragged on for another decade, until a power-sharing agreement was reached in 2005 with President Nkurunziza, a Hutu, taking charge.

For Rwanda genocide, see my blogs of 29 May 2011, 31 March and 1 June 2012, 1 June 2013, and 15 March 2014.

France and Rwanda - an apology

President Sarkozy has apologised for the behaviour of France and other countries during the Rwanda genocide of 1994. It is the first official visit to the country by a French president since the killings.

France had been heavily criticised for appearing to side with the Hutu government, who were carrying out the killings, when the Rwandan Patriotic Front, led by the current president Paul Kagame, started to wrest control of the country from them.

In 2006, Rwanda and France broke off diplomatic relations when a French judge accused President Kagame of being involved in shooting down a plane carrying the Hutu president Juvenal Habyarimana – the incident that sparked off the genocide. Kagame argues that the aircraft was shot down by Hutu extremists, who had certainly been enraged at what they regarded as Habyarimana’s over-conciliatory policy to Tutsis, and extremist Hutu media had been predicting the president’s death.

The Rwandan genocide was the fastest mass murder in history, with about 800,000 people killed in just 100 days. See also my blogs of 23 Jan, 1 and 4 March, 9 April, 16 July, 23 Sept, 8 and 30 Oct, 15 Dec - all 2009.

Rwanda - active anniversary

It was 15 years ago this week that the Rwandan genocide began, during which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus would be slaughtered in just 100 days. Yesterday, a court in London refused to extradite four men to face trial in Rwanda for their alleged part in the massacres because of fears that they would not get a fair trial, though anti-genocide organisations decried the decision.

Three of the men were said to be local mayors who had organised killings, while the fourth was accused of being a militia organiser, and a close associate of the Hutu Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana. It was the death of President Habyarimana, when his aircraft was shot down on April 6, 1994, that sparked the violence.

Who targeted the Mystere Falcon – a gift from President Mitterand of France – remains a mystery. At first, extremist Hutus blamed Tusti rebels, led by Paul Kagame, and it was used as an excuse to begin the killing. Others though, including senior UN officials, believed that the culprits were more likely to be extremist Hutus who wanted to prevent President Habyarimana making a deal with the rebels, and, indeed, three days before the attack, an extremist radio station that would go on to help orchestrate the genocide, announced that “a little something” was about to happen.

Three years ago, though, a French investigative judge accused Mr Kagame, now the president of Rwanda, of being responsible. He was furious, and broke off diplomatic relations with France, and many other observers were highly sceptical about the claims, pointing out that the French were strong supporters of the old Hutu regime. President Kagame launched his own inquiry which accused 33 French military and political officials of being involved in the genocide, including President Mitterand.

See also my blogs of March 1, 4, 23 and 25.