TRC to be set up in Burundi

2003-04-17 14:26

Bujumbura - A truth and reconciliation committee is to be set up next month in war-ravaged Burundi and will look into crimes committed since independence in 1962, parliament decided almost unanimously late on Wednesday.

Like its neighbour Rwanda, Burundi has long been torn apart by ethnic conflict which has seen hundreds of thousands killed in sporadic massacres.

In 1993, armed groups drawn from the Hutu majority rose up against the Tutsi-dominated government and army.

A decade later, the war smoulders on and more than 300 000 have been killed.

Of the 141 members present in the legislature on Wednesday, 140 voted in favour of setting up the commission, whose mandate will be to "find the truth behind crimes committed from the independence in July 1962 until (the commission's) promulgation, in order to create a climate of reconciliation in Burundi."

Plans for the commission were set out in a peace accord signed in 2000 in Arusha, Tanzania, by Burundi's main political - but not rebel - actors.

The commission will have "far-reaching powers, and will conduct investigations based on which it will be possible to launch legal proceedings," one of the commission's architects, former minister Eugene Nindorera, said.

"Those who refuse to appear before it when summoned will be punishable under law," he said.

Lone naysayer Leon Manwangari said it was the very extent of the commission's powers that led him to vote against it.

"It will be able to investigate, enter premises, take part in a trial and halt it so as to question the accused," he said.

On Tuesday, the transitional national parliament passed a bill that put genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes onto Burundi's criminal statutes.

The truth and reconciliation commission is due to come into effect on May 1, the day, as per the Arusha accord, that President Pierre Buyoya, a Tutsi, is due to cede the presidency to current Vice President Domitien Ndayizeye, a Hutu.

Explaining the institution's importance, Tutsi lawmaker Bernard Rukingamubiri said: "The Hutus accuse the Tutsis of having committed several genocides against them. The Tutsis make the same accusation. Finally we will know."

A German colony until World War I, after which the central African country became a Belgian protectorate, Burundi's post-independence history has been marred by recurrent inter-ethnic violence, including the massacre in 1972 of about 200 000 Hutus and bloodletting in 1988 which claimed up to 50 000 lives.

Civil war broke out in 1993, following the assassination of Melchior Ndadaye, the first elected Hutu president in the small but densely populated country, during a failed uprising organised by Tutsi military officers.

His successor, Cyprien Ntaryamira - another Hutu - was killed in April 1994 at the same time as Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana, when the latter's plane was shot down over Kigali, which sparked the genocide in the neighbouring country.

- AFX