Burundi's government, which was installed last year after the first post-transition general election, has begun the new year by releasing 673 prisoners accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Some of the prisoners have been awaiting trial for more than a decade, while others have been sentenced and are serving their terms. The government characterizes the releases as a means of easing overcrowding in Burundi's prisons as well as promoting national reconciliation:
[Justice Minister Clotilde] Niragira said the first group of 673 parolees includes former soldiers convicted in the 1993 assasination of Melchior Ndadaye, a Hutu and Burundi's first democratically elected president, whose murder sparked the civil war between the Hutu majority and Tutsi minority that has claimed some 300 000 lives. They also include death row convicts convicted of murder during the conflict, she said.
The total number of Burundi's 8 000 inmates to benefit from the reconciliation scheme, announced by new President Pierre Nkurunziza last year in a bid to heal rifts stemming from the war, is not yet known as they must first pass through a vetting process. About half the detainees are Hutus and nearly 600 of them have been sentenced to death, according to human rights groups that say about 4 000 inmates are considered political prisoners who could be eligible for the programme.
The government has made clear, however, that the prisoner releases remain conditional. The release is a parole rather than an amnesty, and the prisoners will be required to appear before a soon-to-be-created truth commission. The commission will determine whether to grant unconditional pardon or refer them for further prosecution by a hybrid court to be established under UN auspices. In some cases, the release may thus be temporary, and the program might be more of a triaging process than a final resolution of Burundi's accountability issues.
Jonathan, I've just re-read this excellent and helpful post in light of the info that I posted here yesterday about Burundi's "twin" there in Central Africa-- Rwanda. So in Burundi, popn 7.0 million, they've had 8,000 atrocities-related detainees-- and have started to release a significant number of them on parole. In Rwanda, popn 8.8 million, (not much bigger), at one point they had more than 135,000 atrocities-related detainees... and now, it looks as though they may still have 50,000 "Category 1" suspects to deal with. A horrendous challenge.
At the political level, meanwhile, I was really interested to read-- in that Swisspeace FAST assessment that I linked to there (also here)-- that their analyst, René Lamarchand, wrote,
The emergence in Bujumbura (Burundi) of a consociational multiparty democracy, based on the explicit recognition of ethnic identities could conceivably serve as a model for Rwanda's [current political] opponents to emulate. Admittedly, more is needed to undermine Kagame's hold on power, but the "Burundi effect" -- the realization that Hutu and Tutsi can indeed coexist peacefully through a sharing of power-- will not go unheeded at home [in Rwanda] or abroad.
I thought you'd like to read that, since you are in general such a strong fan of consociational democracy! Certainly, I'm hoping strongly that it can work well in Burundi. Also, I think the Burundians are quite right not to seek-- as Kagame has-- to suppress absolutely all public mention of the Hutu/Tutsi issue, but instead to recognize that it exists but to seek to transcend it quite explicitly in the greater national interest.
Posted by: Helena Cobban at January 23, 2006 08:57 PMSo in Burundi, popn 7.0 million, they've had 8,000 atrocities-related detainees-- and have started to release a significant number of them on parole. In Rwanda, popn 8.8 million, (not much bigger), at one point they had more than 135,000 atrocities-related detainees...
Of course, part of this difference may be due to the nature of the atrocities at issue. What set Rwanda apart was that it was a participatory genocide, with entire communities recruited (or forced) to kill their neighbors. In Burundi, the atrocities were much more (albeit not entirely) the affair of the security forces. So: fewer suspects in Burundi, despite the
I thought you'd like to read that, since you are in general such a strong fan of consociational democracy!
Welll... not always. I think it can be a good idea in developing democracies where there is no well-established sense of national identity. On the other hand, it only works if (1) the constituent groups agree on it themselves, and (2) they abide by it in good faith. The sort of consociationalism that exists in Sudan, which masks single-party dominance, isn't likely to work, nor is the sort of imposed consociationalism that exists in Fiji.
I think it has a decent chance in Burundi, as long as the CNDD-FDD respects the rights of the other constituencies. It certainly seems like a better alternative than the repressive Kemalism that Kagame has imposed in Rwanda.
Sorry:
So: fewer suspects in Burundi, despite the
near parity in population.
Posted by: Jonathan Edelstein at January 23, 2006 11:39 PM
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