Burundi Information
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GENOCIDES IN BURUNDI |
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GENOCIDE IN 1965 |
| ELECTRONIC MAIL&GUARDIAN July 18, 1997 Burundi's fenceless concentration campsBurundi's
military regime has herded hundreds of thousands of Hutu
peasants into camps to keep them from helping Hutu
rebels. There are no fences around the camps ... just the
threat of a bullet for any who dare walk away. CHRIS
MCGREAL in Nyarurama, Burundi AMELIE MUVUNI is not a prisoner in the conventional sense. There is no fence to keep her confined to the squalid, overcrowded hillside camp she was herded into by Burundi's army. But were she not to be found in her makeshift shelter at dusk, Amelie could not count on her age and infirmity to save her from a bullet. "They made us come here," she said. "They tell us it is for our own good, but they do not treat us well. They beat us and they kill people." Burundi's Tutsi-led military government has forced hundreds of thousands of Hutus into camps dotted across the country. The authorities call it "regroupment" aimed at separating the majority Hutu peasant population from rebels battling the overwhelmingly Tutsi army and targeting civilians. Critics - including the Hutu party driven from power by President Pierre Buyoya's military coup a year ago - call them concentration camps. The United States has demanded their closure. In military terms, regroupment has borne fruit. In many areas the rebels are no longer able to shelter among the population or rely on it for support. Attacks in Kayanza province, where Muvuni is one of about 100 000 people in camps, have dropped sharply. But the grandmother, aged 58, and her fellow internees are paying the price. Severely overcrowded, heavily guarded camps in four provinces have been hit by typhus and dysentery. Starvation has pushed up the death toll. Hutus in the camps accuse the army of torture, murder and rape. Others report the systematic disappearance of hundreds of young Hutu men. And with whole communities driven out, the military embarked on a scorched-earth policy, destroying homes and crops, and killing those who remained outside the camps. The government says about 300 000 people are interned. Outside agencies believe the real figure is twice as high. The military governor of Kayanza province, Colonel Daniel Nengeri, concedes that most of those in the camps went reluctantly. But he says they were also the target of attack from what the government calls "armed bands". Nengeri said: "The population didn't ask to be re-grouped. The population has been regrouped for its own security. At first they didn't like it but they came to see it was for their own good. We want to separate innocent people from the armed bands so we could deal with them militarily." Muvuni does not see internment as for her own good. "The army came to our commune and told us we had to go to the camp the next day," she said. "The soldiers said that anybody who was left in their homes was a rebel and they would kill them." In the eastern province of Karuzi, the army behaved in a particularly brutal fashion. It swept across hillsides after the deadline for people to clear out had passed, murdering those remaining. A couple working the field in front of their scorched home talked nervously. "The soldiers ruined everything," the man said. "They made us stay in the camp for weeks while they destroyed. They took all the young men from the roadside and the camp. We don't know what happened to them." In the weeks after Muvuni and her family were herded into Nyarurama, they were not allowed to leave the camp, even to harvest crops. The military government was counting on foreign aid agencies to provide food and health care, but most were reluctant to collaborate with the incarceration. Left to its own devices, and facing an international embargo, the government chose to spend its scarce resources on weapons. Malnutrition soared. With hunger came disease. "There were some deaths," said Nengeri. "I don't know how many, but not catastrophic." Health workers and camp internees say the number of people who died from disease and malnutrition runs into the thousands. In some areas the government is now moving to dismantle the camps. One large camp has been cleared in Kayanza, and Nengeri said he hopes to empty them all by the end of the year. Muvuni is not optimistic. "If they let me go, I have to build a new house. Who says the army won't come and destroy it again?" Sites: http://www.mg.co.za/mg/news/97jul2/18jul-burundi.html |
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GENOCIDE IN 1969 |
| Tuesday, 13 June, 2000, 14:42 GMT 15:42
UK ,BBC News Mandela
visits 'concentration camps'
He then travelled on to the central city of Gitega, where he was due to address a rally and stay overnight. The regroupment camps, housing hundreds of thousands of Hutu civilians, have attracted international condemnation and the former South African president has previously called them "concentration camps". Human rights groups say the conditions in the camps are deplorable. The Burundian Government, who said the camps were set up to protect the civilians from rebel attacks, has begun closing them and promised to have them all shut down by the end of July. Mr Mandela is also due to meet representatives of rebel groups, and see the Burundi army command. Civil war erupted in Burundi in 1993, with several Hutu factions campaigning against the Tutsi-dominated government and army. Detentions On the first day of his visit, Mr Mandela met political prisoners in Burundi. He also held talks with President Pierre Buyoya.
He spoke to about 60 inmates in the main prison of the capital, Bujumbura, some of whom have been detained for seven years. He told them that he had discussed the release of political prisoners with Mr Buyoya, who was in Johannesburg last week. "If we are looking for peace here in Burundi, all the political prisoners have to be released," he said. Several attempts to end the conflict since 1993 have failed. During an earlier round of talks Mr Mandela angered the Tutsi political establishment in Burundi by comparing Tutsi domination to South African apartheid. Breakthrough But in a recent breakthrough in the peace process, Burundi agreed to equal representation for Hutus and Tutsis in the armed forces, which are at present overwhelmingly Tutsi-dominated. This opened the way to the first face-to-face talks between the government and the main Hutu rebel group, which are due to take place next month. Ugandan Prime Minister Apolo Nsimbambi will also take part in the current discussions between Mr Mandela and Mr Buyoya. President Yoweri Museveni had originally been invited, but was unable to attend. An estimated 200,000 Hutus and Tutsis have been killed in the civil war. Sites: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_788000/788855.stm |
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GENOCIDE IN 1972 |
New concentration camps in the Rutana and Ruyigi provincesMISNA
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GENOCIDE IN 1988 |
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BESOINS
N.B. La plupart des regroupés ne sont pas autorisés à récupérer leur bien et bétail , même à usage courant . Ils sont sommés de se rendre au centre de regroupement endéans un temps très court ( 20minutes ). Les habitations des regroupés sont pillées quasiment
systématiquement . Les pilleurs parlent d’un
nouveau DOUBAI. PAYS: BURUNDI Sites: http://pages.infinit.net/glp/documents/frodebu_002f.html |
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GENOCIDE IN 1993 |
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Famine Threatens Controversial Burundi 'Regroupment' CampsPosted on Wed, 01 Mar 2000 12:53:39 GMT
As the February deadline for planting crops passes, thousands of subsistence farmers and peasants remain cramped in overcrowded camps in Burundi. The controversial "regroupment" camps are part of a government initiative to separate civilians from Hutu rebels, who the Tutsi-dominated army has fought since 1993. After harsh criticism from the international community, the government has begun to free some of its sufferng civilians. But humanitarian workers warn that the camps can't be closed soon enough to avoid a famine.
Those farmers who are permitted to work in their fields have abandoned beans and peas, staple crops that normally sustain Burundi throughout the year. Instead, they are planting manioc and sweet potatoes, starchy vegetables that require less tending but also lack protein. Some camps are even off limits to aid workers, leaving the residents with no means to get food, medical care or clean drinking water. Scores of people confined in the camps, mostly women and children, die each day of malnourishment, dehydration and disease, aid workers say. The Burundi government has begun to dismantle the camps by sending some 2,000 people home. President Pierre Buyoya announced on Feb. 4 that the government would allow people at 11 of the camps, a total of 52,000 civilians, to return home by the end of March. But some wonder whether or not the government's promise is merely a political ploy to quiet international pressures to close the camps. The government said it will not disband more camps until security conditions permit — claiming the camps are meant to protect villagers from the civil war between the army and various Hutu rebel groups. Critics say the camps are meant to expose rebels hiding among the civilian population and to prevent civilians from helping the rebels. The camps have drawn harsh criticism from world leaders, including former South African president Nelson Mandela. The U.N. has called on Burundi to close the squalid camps, calling them a "breach of international humanitarian law."
Aid workers say that camp residents lack food, medical care and adequate shelter. The residents, herded into the camps in September, live in shacks made of banana leaves and plastic sheeting along the hillsides that surround Bujumbura. Most of the camps are inaccessible by relief workers because they are located in areas where ambushes of outsiders has become common. Even those who are allowed to leave the camps will need assistance, aid workers say. Many of their homes and fields were destroyed or looted by rebel forces. Many of the farmers are too weak or wary to tend to their land. Almost all of them have suffered five months without adequate food or medical care, while some complain that rebels and soldiers steal from their fields. Negotiations aimed at bringing peace to Burundi are underway with Mandela serving as a mediator. But optimism that the talks could bring about an end to the conflict have been tempered by complaints by Tutsi parties who have accused Mandela of bias and threatened to pull out of the negotiations.
"People could be moved from these camps to other camps, and if they do go home, what will happen? Their villages and fields have been looted," he said. "Even if the government started today, I believe it would take a year to dismantle all the camps." Aid agencies, who have struggled to reach the sick and hungry in Burundi's camps, are gearing up to continue offering humanitarian support long after the camps are fully dismantled. "The most important thing now is for the international community to help these people as they return. It is important to encourage the government and we need assistance to do that," Deng said. Sites: http://www.disasterrelief.org/Disasters/000218Burundi/ |
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GENOCIDE IN 1996 |
| Saturday
October 9th 1999, www.africanperspective.com Burundi: Building
Concentration Camps. The military government of President Buyoya is doing something terrible to the Hutu people. It is holding them in collective farms that look more like concentration camps. It claims this is the best method of denying the Hutu rebels food supply and recruitment. The Hutu villagers are collected in groups and put in one camp. This is disrupting their livelihood and constitutes one of the biggest human rights abuses in this region. It interferes with their right to land and making a living without government harassment. So far about 260,000 Hutu civilians have been forced into these settlements by the Tutsi dominated army and government. This measure comes at the time when the civil war has intensified. Site: http://www.africanperspective.com/html36/AftW.html#atw2 |
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45,000 Burundians leave regroupmentcamps near Bujumbura |
| Source:
Agence France-Presse (AFP) Date: 9 Jun 2000 45,000 Burundians leave regroupment camps near Bujumbura
They left their camps on Thursday, a day after Nelson Mandela, chief mediator in Burundi's peace process, announced that he had made a deal with Burundian President Pierre Buyoya for all internees to be freed from Burundi's regroupment camps by July 31. Shortly after the announcement, Burundi's Interior Minister Ascension Twagiramungu said some 150,000 people living in seven regroupment sites in Kanyosha, Kabezi and Isale, in Bujumbura rural province would leave on Thursday. About 900,000 Burundians who have been displaced by the civil war in the country have been living in the notorious camps, which have been condemned by the United Nations and described by Mandela recently as "concentration camps". Mandela, the former president of South Africa, said he and Buyoya had also agreed that the Burundian army would be restructured so it is made up in equal parts of members of the country's warring Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups. ada/jlr/sw AFP |
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Burundi army rounds up civilians |
| Thursday,
September 30, 1999 Published at 02:05 GMT 03:05 UK
- BBC News World:
Africa - Burundi army rounds up
civilians The army in Burundi has forcibly moved 260,000 civilians into makeshift camps in the past fortnight to clear the way for operations against rebels, according to United Nations officials. But reports say the displaced villagers face appalling conditions and people are dying every day. One priest described the sites as ''concentration camps'' and warned people would start ''dying like flies'' unless there was immediate help. The camps are all in the farming province which surrounds the capital, Bujumbura. Many have little or no water, few if any latrines and little shelter. The army says moving people to camps will help it track down Hutu rebels who in recent months have stepped up their attacks on the city. It says it is simply trying to protect the civilians from the violence or from getting caught in crossfire. But correspondents say it is widely believed that the real motive is to prevent them from feeding or sheltering the rebels. Harvest fears The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) says it is worried by reports indicating people are being prevented from leaving the camps. It is particularly alarmed that people may be denied access to their fields during what is now planting season for the next harvest. A priest at one camp site told the French news agency AFP he had seen thousands of people arrive over the last week. "They are living in inhuman conditions, with no water or medicine and with nothing to eat. At least five people die every day," he said. Burundi's civil war, which has claimed around 150,000 lives, pits an army dominated by the Tutsi minority against several Hutu rebel movements. Most of those who have been "regrouped" are Hutus, who represent some 85% of the total population. Church massacre Details of the crisis follow reports of an attack on a church on Sunday in which 30 Catholics were said to have been massacred by uniformed men. The gunmen opened fire on worshippers in Nyambuye, 55 miles (90km) from Bujumbura, according to the Rome-based missionary news service Misna. The government of Burundi has denied that any of its troops were involved. The government blames the recent upsurge in violence on Rwandan militia groups which it says are working alongside Hutu rebel organisations. The war began after the break down of a power-sharing agreement set up following the assassination of the democratically elected Hutu president Melchior Ndadaye. |
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CHOLERA DEATHS IN BURUNDI CAMPS |
AMNESTY
INTERNATIONAL
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800 000 held in Burundian concentration camps |
| 800 000 held in
Burundian concentration camps Hutu detainees are fighting disease and hunger in concentration camps, while the Burundi army blocks attacks on the capital, writes CHRIS MCGREAL South Africa. December 17 1999 ,
The army said he must have joined the rebels who have been waging a war against the government since Tutsi soldiers assassinated Burundi's first Hutu president, Melchior Ndadaye, in 1993. Ntahuga does not believe them. "I am not the only mother who is looking for her son. Where are they? We know it is easy to say they are rebels and kill them. They say those camps are for our own protection, so where are they?" she asked. In recent weeks almost the entire Hutu population of Bujumbura Rural -- the province that surrounds Burundi's capital -- has been driven into about 50 camps spread out on hilltops. Altogether, about 800 000 Hutus -- one in 10 of Burundi's population -- are held in camps across the country. The government says its "regroupment camps" are vital to combat an upsurge in attacks on Bujumbura, by depriving Hutu rebels of food and shelter in surrounding villages. The rebels have called the sites concentration camps. The Catholic Church has gone further, saying they are death camps and calling for them to be closed down immediately. Conditions in the camps are deteriorating and there are accusations that the Burundi army is targeting young Hutu men it suspects are sympathetic to the rebel cause. "At the beginning we saw a lot of young men, particularly in the camps around the city, because they worked in Bujumbura," said an aid worker who fears to talk openly. "We have noticed that some of them are gone. I don't know what happened to them but the young men you still see are really angry. You can see they want to fight this. I've seen a lot of displaced camps. Usually people in them are resigned, but not here." Kabezi is among the largest of the camps. It holds about 35 000 people crowded on two hillsides south of Bujumbura. It is not a prison camp in the strict sense. There is no fence. But Hutus have been told that anyone caught beyond the camp's boundaries without permission will be treated as a rebel -- a fate which amounts to a death sentence. Food is scarce. Water is increasingly precious even though the rains have come. Medicines are in short supply and malnutrition is evident. Many of Kabezi's residents can see their homes from the camp but are powerless to stop soldiers looting them. Some detainees have plastic sheeting, but many rely on shelters of branches and leaves. "There was no preparation at the camps," said an aid worker. "People were just rounded up in the middle of the night. There was lots of shooting. They were herded to the camps without time to collect their things. Families were split up. It was very harsh." Cholera has struck some of the camps in recent days. About 40 people have died of the disease in Ruziba. More than 100 cases have been reported in Kabezi, but foreign aid workers have managed to keep the death toll down to just two. In about half of the camps, however, residents are struggling on without aid. Little is known about conditions in these camps, and there is no record of the numbers of dead. The army says its prisoners are allowed home to harvest their crops, but the villagers say they are only allowed to leave the camps in groups so most get back to their fields just once or twice a week. It is enough time to harvest some vegetables but not to plant new crops, so in a few months they will be hit by an additional food crisis. The government calls criticism of its "regroupment" policy "untrue and defamatory propaganda". It claims it had no other choice but to take the "extreme and painful measure" of forcing people into camps to stop the "noose" of rebellion from tightening around the capital. The camps were prompted by a growing numbers of rebel assaults on Bujumbura. On independence day, July 1, rebels sealed off the city. Then came attacks on mostly Tutsi suburbs. In early September, about 30 people were burned alive in their homes. Extremist Tutsi militias then re-emerged to take their revenge on Hutus. Many diplomats believe that Burundi's military leader and President, Pierre Buyoya, reluctantly bowed to pressure from within his own army to force the Hutu population into the camps. A similar policy proved relatively successful in separating the general population from rebels in the north and east of the country three years ago. But there was a price to pay. Thousands died from disease and hunger in the camps. No one knows the real death toll, just as the number of young Hutu men disappearing from the latest camps stays hidden. But accounts of killings are emerging. Human rights groups accuse the army of murdering about 35 people at the Kibembe camp. The army admits a soldier in Ruyaga shot 11 people in one night and says he was arrested. Some of the camps are sealed off for several days for "military operations". The camps have also come under attack by Hutu rebels. Ten people were killed during an assault on Mubimbi. The army implicitly admitted problems in some areas after shutting off Kavumu because its 16 000 detainees "do not want to listen to the authorities" amid an apparent revolt. Large parts of Bujumbura were ethnically cleansed of Hutus by the mostly Tutsi army three years ago. It has left the city's Tutsi population in a majority. One businessman, Nicodemus Kimenzi, said the city's residents lived in fear of extermination, particularly after the genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. "There is nothing wrong with the camps. It is good for Bujumbura because now the rebels cannot hide among the people in the hills and attack. It was very bad here. People were dying. The people in the camps are well looked after and being protected from the rebels. We have no choice if we are to defend ourselves," he said. The camps pose a dilemma for aid agencies, with workers risking being accused of collaborating with the detention of Hutus if they help look after the detainees. One agency, Médecins sans Frontières has pulled out, and the United Nations left after two of its foreign officials were killed, probably by rebels. Other organisations, notably Catholic Relief and various medical charities, have stayed on. The government has poured scorn on aid agencies that either hesitate to work in the camps or complain that many are inaccessible. Cabinet ministers were shown on television making the long climb to remote camps before denying that they were inaccessible. But the agencies say climbing a hill is one thing. Delivering water and food is another. -- The Mail & Guardian, December 17 1999. |
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