Burundi's human rights crisis: a call for action

WHEN the president of the National Assembly of Burundi, Gelase Daniel Ndabirabe informed the country’s newly spouted human rights commission that their mission is to “fight and bring down” Fortune Gaetan Zongo who is the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Burundi, it was way more than a rhetorical misstep.

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It was a statement of war. Not a war against justice or a war against misinformation, but a war against scrutiny, truth and accountability.

This hostile rhetoric reveals a very deep rot within the state apparatus of Burundi: the criminalisation of dissent and the complete capture of supposedly independent institutions.

Zongo is not alone in the cross-hairs, but just the idea of impartial human rights monitoring as well. The stakes are alarmingly high.

Let’s be clear: this is not a country that is simply just defending itself from external intrusion, it is a regime that is systematically erasing the channels that could hold it accountable.

The recent reshuffling of the National Independent Human Rights Commission (CNIDH) shows this. After the exile of its former presi-

dent, Sixte Vigny Nimuraba, who had intended to publicise a report that details hundreds of violations, the parliament replaced the entire commission with people who are known to be close to the ruling CNDD-FDD party.

The new head, Bishop Martin Blaise Nyaboho, has a history of vehemently criticising the opposition and suggest-

ing that being objective is the last item on his agenda.