BURUNDI
World Report
2001 Entry
World
Report 2000 Entry
World
Report 1999 Entry
World
Report 1998 Entry
Emptying the Hills:
Regroupment Camps in Burundi
Although the government of Burundi has promised Nelson Mandela that
it will close its squalid "regroupment" camps, that promise has not yet
been fulfilled, Human Rights Watch charged in this report. The former South
African president is leading a new round of the Burundi peace talks, opening
tomorrow. Burundian rebel groups, who are of critical importance to any
efforts to end the six-year civil war, have said they will attend
the talks only if the regroupment camps are closed. The 35-page report,
"Emptying the Hills," says that the Burundian government forced as many
as 350,000 civilians into the camps. Although Burundi president Pierre
Buyoya promised Mandela to close the camps by July 31, some tens of thousands
of people are still living in them. The report also details abuses
of the National Liberation Forces (Forces Nationales pour la Libération,
FNL), a rebel group fighting the Burundian government.
(A1204), 7/00, 38pp, $5.00
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Burundi:
Neglecting Justice in Making Peace
Continuing abuses of civilians by all
parties, the growing regionalization of the Central African conflict, and
the threat of increased violence from extremist organizations underscore
the urgency of ending the war in Burundi. But a peace without accountability
for past crimes offers little hope for future stability within Burundi
or the larger region. More than one hundred thousand civilians have been
slain in Burundi, both by Hutu and by Tutsi. Many of these killings are
crimes against humanity and some have been described as genocide by a U.N.
commission of inquiry. They must be prosecuted promptly and effectively
by an international tribunal as well as by Burundian courts. Some Burundians
and foreign observers now propose yet another international investigation
as well as a Burundian Truth and Reconciliation commission. Such commissions
may add greater detail to what is already known of this tragic past, but
they serve a different purpose from that of prosecutions and must not become
a pretext for delaying them.
(A1202), 4/00, 18pp, $3.00
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online
Proxy Targets:
Civilians in the War in Burundi
The civilian population of Burundi feels
trapped between the two sides in the civil war, as both the armed forces
and the rebels have used civilians as proxy targets. The civil war raging
in Burundi since October 1993 has above all been a war against civilians.
When Major Pierre Buyoya took power in a July 1996 coup, he claimed that
he was intervening to prevent an expansion of ethnic violence. Since then,
however, the armed forces of Burundi have engaged in massive violations
of human rights. They have driven the rural Hutu population in large areas
of the country into regroupment camps by indiscriminately attacking civilians,
burning their homes, and engaging in extensive rape and torture. Large
numbers of civilians were killed during the formation of the camps, and
many more have died from malnutrition and disease because of deplorable
conditions in the camps. In other areas, armed forces have sought to subdue
the Hutu civilian population through arbitrary arrest, rape,torture, looting,
summary execution, and indiscriminate attack. If the armed forces have
succeeded in bringing a semblance of order to parts of the country, they
have done so at an unconscionably high cost to life and liberty which has
been extracted overwhelmingly from the majority Hutu population. For their
part, the Hutu rebel groups, such as the Forces for the Defense of Democracy,
have also targeted civilians. They have engage in both indiscriminate attacks
on civilians and summary executions, targeting in particular Tutsi and
Hutu whom they consider collaborators. The rebel groups have looted extensively,
contributing to famine and poverty in the country.
(1797) 3/98, 136 pp.,
ISBN 1-56432-179-7, $10.00
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