UN points fingers at Burundi
2004-10-26 10:23
United Nations - A Burundian Hutu rebel group probably took part in the August massacre at a United Nations refugee camp in Burundi, possibly with one or more armed groups from Congo, UN investigators reported on Monday.
Investigators urged prosecution of the perpetrators by the Burundi government and the International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal.
The massacre at the Gatumba camp near the Congolese border, which lasted between 60 and 90 minutes, killed 152 refugees, wounded 106, and left eight missing, the investigators said.
The overwhelming majority of the victims were Congolese Tutsis, known as the Banyamylenge, who had fled fighting in their troubled country and "appeared to be targeted because of their ethnicity," the investigators said in a report to the UN Security Council transmitted by Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
Rebels did not act alone
The Burundian rebel Palipehutu-National Liberation Force known as the FNL, the only group to claim responsibility for the attack, "probably participated in the massacre" but was "unlikely to have done so on its own," the report said.
The UN investigators said they were not able to determine which other groups took part because the massacre site was contaminated before UN investigators arrived, the corpses of the victims were buried without any forensic investigation and the testimony of survivors varied widely.
The report accused the Burundian government of failing to provide information to explain "the apparent lack of response of the military and civilian authorities."
It noted that 100 Burundian soldiers and 30 gendarmes stationed less than one kilometre north-east of Gatumba never came to the defence of the camp, even though the soldiers alerted their headquarters at the beginning of the August 13 attack.
Military did not help
The investigators said "the military was unable to offer any substantial physical evidence to indicate that its Gatumba post was attacked - or provide evidence to support the claims of Burundian government officials that Congolese groups were behind the killings."
While the United Nations team said it could conclusively determine the identity of the assailants, the report stressed that "credible, though not verified, information suggesting the potential involvement of one or more actors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo warrants a continuation of the investigation."
The investigators urged the Security Council to strongly encourage the government of Burundi to seek international assistance "to carry out a full police and judicial investigation leading to the identification and prosecution of those responsible."
- AP