(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
In Burundi, ethnic contradictions are used to build up during a conflict that only serves the leaders – who want to retain power. However, it appears that large sections of the Burundian population, Hutus as well as Tutsis, will not participate in ethnic violence. Many of them report the abuses to the outside world. Then it is important that the world listens.
As in so many other conflicts, the press and opposition are the first to be hit by the violence. Several pressmen have been killed and human rights defenders are attacked. Just over 300 000 people have fled the country since April last year. The EU and the US have withdrawn personnel from the country, warning their citizens not to travel to Burundi.
Rough Cut – Teaser from Integrity Film on Vimeo.
Citizens take mobile pictures. With the complete absence of independent press, it is the population that sends out images of the violence through mobile phone cameras. For example, the police attack neighborhoods in Bujumbura every night. Many disappear without a trace. Every morning there are usually between five and ten bodies in the streets. The locals experience it as a tactic to scare people from participating in the uprising. On the morning of December 12, 21 people were found dead, many of them tied with their hands on their backs and shot through their heads. Army spokesman Colonel Gaspard Baratuza claims the slain are rebels who attacked military bases on December 11. The night between December 11 and 12, 87 people were killed – the largest number since April. In total, hundreds of people have been killed since August. The images that the "citizen journalists" send out show the bodies of violated women and mutilated bodies. The photos are so cruel that the world press is reluctant to print them. Among the images that have come out of Burundi, a family member of people living in Norway has been identified. The person belonged to the Tutsi minority.
The photos are so cruel that the world press is reluctant to print them.
In September, at the same time as the violence in Burundi was getting worse, Norwegian police on behalf of UNE brought several Burundians to the Burundian embassy to collect information about where their relatives were. The refugees in question are Tutsis, who found it very daunting to be sent to the embassy. Norway signed an extradition agreement with Burundi in 2009, and four Burundians have been dispatched since the conflict started in April 2015. Several Burundi refugees have experienced that relatives have been killed, while Norway signed the extradition agreement. The fact that the conflict is being ethnicised makes them even more afraid (see case study).
Does not serve the population. In April, young, educated Burundians took to the streets to protest that Burundi President Piere Nkurunziza had set aside the Constitution to stand as president for a third term. Before this, Nkurunziza has tried – unsuccessfully – to abolish the power-sharing laws that were introduced after the Civil War (1993-2005). These laws guarantee a minimum representation of the Tutsi minority at all levels of society.
In response to the protests, Nkurunziza chose to attack his own population, and the violence that police and military account for took an increasingly ethnic turn. Several UN agencies fear that Nkurunziza will launch a genocide on the Tutsi population. On November 9, Adam Dieng, the UN Secretary-General's Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, stated in a UN press release that the conflict was at a "turning point". Foreign Minister Børge Brende has also expressed concern about the situation.
Civil War? US Special Envoy in Central Africa, Thomas Perriello, fears that the situation will develop into a civil war. Rwanda President Paul Kagame claims that the FDLR – the militia formed on the remnants of the groupings that carried out the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda – has left Congo to Burundi. There are fears that other militias based in Southeast Congo will come to Burundi, and that conflicts based on countries around them will also be fought in Burundi. This does not make the basis for a genocide any smaller, but it does change the conditions for how the situation develops. Perriello also emphasizes that the possibility of genocide is equally present even if the situation develops into a civil war.
A rhetoric that echoes from the hate radio RTLM.
According to the 1948 Genocide Conventions, genocide is a series of abuses intended to exterminate a group, either partially or entirely. The safest sign is the systematic killing of children. In Rwanda, the most extreme Hutu Power groups used machete to rape Tutsi women and totally castrate Tutsi men. The most comprehensive estimates count 1,2 million killed Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 100 days. The Tutsis genocide was carefully planned and was carried out on the basis of lists of who was to be killed and where they lived.
What constitutes the preconditions for a genocide to develop is something we want to explore in our film Rough Cut - a documentary that is not on the side of the executioners, which is in production. In the film, we will talk about survivors, those who protected their fellow humans, as well as abusers who take responsibility and regret what they have done.
Similar rhetoric. In Burundi today, violence – which the UN reports has taken an ethnic turn – is dominated by rhetoric in which the areas must cleaned, and the protesters are described as rebels and a threat to democracy. There is no direct reference to Tutsis being killed, but a rhetoric is used that echoes from the hate radio RTLM, which was a key part of the 1994 Rwanda genocide. those in power. These are words that point back to RTLM's words for Tutsis, "cockroaches".
In our movie Rough Cut we have an extensive interview with Valérie Bemeriki. She was one of the main voices in the radio RTLM. In this interview, Bemeriki explains how the radio worked, where it received its financial support, and how it helped make the genocide possible by broadcasting messages about where Tutsis in the country were hiding. After the genocide, Bemeriki has gone on her own, condemning the genocide she herself made possible. She was sentenced by the Gacaca court to life in prison in 2009 for contributing to the planning and conduct of genocide, as well as having participated in several murders. Bemeriki pleaded guilty to the lawsuit. The Gacaca courts are the locally rooted courts that are held at the site of the crime, and are tasked with being a commission of truth to create reconciliation after the genocide.
In the interview, Bemeriki names former partners who are in Norway, and points out that it is necessary that they be extradited to Rwanda, so that they can be sentenced there.
The ethnic divides are Europe's responsibility. The distinction drawn between Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda prior to the genocide and in Burundi was based on the colonial power of Belgium's strategy to racialize the Burundian and Rwandan population by society and way of life – a racial understanding in which skull shape and nose length were measured for the local population.
Many Rwandans are aware that the Belgians introduced the race concepts. In the movie Rough Cut we have done an interview with an old hut lady and Islam convert named Zurra. She draws on the rich narrative tradition in the region, and poetically tells how we as human beings come from the same starting point – about how "you whites" come from "us" Africans. She continues: "But when Mosungone (the whites) returned to the country, they were not kind."
In both Rwanda and Burundi, group affiliation is determined by which group one's father belongs to. Until the Belgians introduced ID cards in the Burundi-Rwanda colony, rituals and social institutions existed so that individuals could switch groups. The notion that they belong to different ethnic communities is, if not completely fabricated, at least greatly exaggerated by the colonial rulers. The groups have the same culture and the same language, and there is little difference between them except that Tutsis have traditionally operated cattle farming, while Hutus have been farmers.
Ethnic contradictions must be transcended. The main difference between the peace process in Burundi after the civil war and the legal process after the Rwanda genocide is that in Rwanda, the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis was eroded, while in Burundi the ethnic divide was rooted in all institutions. In Burundi, proper washing will probably mean that many leading people, both Hutus and Tutsis, have to be responsible for having participated in horrific abuses from decolonization to the present day.
After the Rwanda genocide, racial understanding was to be liquidated once and for all. Today it is not allowed to form political parties in Rwanda based on ethnicity. However, exile groups opposed to this are dominated by individuals suspected of participating in the genocide.
An illustrative example from our film refers to a school massacre in 1997 at a school at Rwanda's border with Congo. The massacres were carried out by some from the FDLR, those who carried out the Rwanda genocide. The militia, dressed as Rwandan military, went into a classroom and demanded that the students split into Hutus and Tutsis. When the students refused and replied, "We are all Rwandans," the soldiers opened fire on the students. The soldiers then went from classroom to classroom. No students would divide. The soldiers continued to execute the students. Many of them were hutus and would not have been attacked if they had been divided, but they refused – because, as one of the students said, "I know where this racism is headed."
Se also spring own Thing om transmission av Burundians.
To learn more about the legal process in Rwanda, see Duhoznye by Karoline Frogner by following the link and using the Rwanda password.
DOHU SUB IN 1080p from Integrity Film on Vimeo.
