Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, I want to thank the members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights for inviting me to appear before them. I also want to thank you for taking the time to focus on the human rights situation in Burundi. I think the initiative is very worthwhile and it may help resolve the current crisis in Burundi.
First, the human rights situation in Burundi is a major concern. Nevertheless, before I start speaking at length about the current situation, I think it's very important—in order to give the committee an in-depth understanding of the situation and information to make it easier to read—to provide context.
Since becoming independent in 1962, Burundi has faced cyclical crises that have resulted in widespread and systematic human rights violations. This was the case in 1965, 1969, 1972, 1988, 1993 and during the years that followed. Some of these episodes were characterized by crimes so serious that certain authorities described them as crimes against humanity, genocide or war crimes. The negotiators of the Arusha peace accords reached that conclusion, and I had the honour of being one of the negotiators at the time.
All these episodes resulted in victims from both major segments of the Burundi population, the Hutus and the Tutsis. However, it's widely accepted that most victims of the various atrocities, which reached a climax in 1972, were Hutus. Despite the extensive human rights violations in Burundi during the various episodes listed earlier, it should be noted that the crimes remain completely unpunished. The victims have never received justice, and their resentment, grief and frustration have never been appeased. The reason is that, essentially, the institutions responsible for protecting human rights abandoned their mission and were exploited by those in power.
It's important to note that, up until today, this impunity for past crimes has become an incentive to commit crimes. The perpetrators know they won't need to worry about facing justice. It's therefore very important to keep the impunity phenomenon in perspective. I think it constitutes a major determining factor that justifies what is happening right now, despite, of course, the reporting and condemnation of the crimes being committed.
In August 2000, the political protagonists adopted the Arusha Peace and Reconciliation Agreement for Burundi. The agreement served to establish shared power between the major segments of the population, the Hutus and the Tutsis. However, it should also be noted that the agreement established the principle of inclusion for groups that had been marginalized, namely, women and the Batwa community. In addition, the agreement set the stage for transitional injustice that would have enabled those responsible for past crimes to be held accountable. Unfortunately, it's apparent that the transitional justice system is broken and is moving slowly.
As a result of the agreement and other agreements subsequently signed with the armed groups, elections were organized in 2005 and again in 2010. In addition, the security organs have been reformed and restructured based on the terms of the Arusha agreement, and each ethnic group is represented equally. Also, balance has been established at the administration level. Hutus hold 60% of positions, and Tutsis hold 40% of positions. That balance is being mostly maintained today, although the current government wants to challenge the Arusha agreement as it stands. So, what is the current situation?
As I said, it is very worrisome. Several corroborating sources, including Amnesty International, other intergovernmental organizations such as the African Union, particularly the African Commission on Human Rights and Peoples, and the United Nations, conducted investigations that have led to the same conclusion. Serious and systematic violations of human rights are happening today. People are summarily executed without any semblance of justice. They are tortured—Ms. Nivyabandi has already talked about this at great length. People are abducted and disappear.
At the same time, we must go beyond the issue of civil and political rights to also look at the issue of socio-economic rights. Socio-economic rights are non-existent. For example, recently, almost 80,000 schoolchildren were expelled from the education system because they failed the test to move up to the next level of basic education. They don’t have the opportunity to repeat the year. This is a significant violation of those children’s right to education.
It is important to note that the current human rights situation is actually the result of people challenging the third term of the President of the Republic, Pierre Nkurunziza. As soon as his candidacy was announced in April 2015, people, mainly in Bujumbura, the capital, took to the streets to protest against that decision. In response to this sudden and certainly unusual uprising regarding democratic learning in Burundi, the police sometimes used excessive force against the protesters. Some of the protesters’ actions and blunders can also be denounced.
Furthermore, things basically got complicated on May 13, 2015, with the attempted coup that failed. From then on, the government took a tougher stand and began to suppress all those involved in some way in the protests. It conflated the failed coup with the protests that had taken place before. The government cleverly tried to demonstrate that there was actually a connection between the protests and the failed coup, but the connection has not been established, in my opinion.
The government's approach—as in the case of most governments acting in that way—is to use the paradigm of law and order to go after the protesters. They were treated like insurgents or terrorists. This is very important because the government provided a sort of legal justification to take action against those people. Sometimes, the government does not hesitate to give the example of what happens elsewhere, saying that even elsewhere, extreme measures against terrorists are justified.
However, on closer examination, the manhunt was essentially targeting political opponents and members of civil society, who were openly opposed to the third term plan.