Burundi (Continuación)

A man listens to the news on the radio in Bujumbura. The media landscape has changed dramatically, with journalists fleeing and foreign reporters staying away. Photograph: Phil Moore/AFP/Getty Images

Burundi’s year-long crisis has not gone away. It started with President Pierre Nkurunziza’s determination to claim a third term, trampling over the constitutional arrangements that ended a decade-long civil war.

Press freedom is a major casualty of the new strife; but the turmoil has also transformed the way in which Burundians get information. For better or worse, social media has filled the vacuum left by the shutting down of the most popular radio stations and forcing out of many of the country’s professional journalists.

With 90% of the population relying on radio as their main source of information, traditional media has been in the eye of Burundi’s gathering storm since at least 2010.…  Seguir leyendo »

« Du haut d’une camionnette, micro à la main, sous très haute protection de l’armée et de la police », rapporte l’AFP, le président burundais a ordonné aux insurgés de cette commune du Sud du pays de déposer les armes dans les quinze jours : « Téléphonez à vos frères qui ont pris les armes, dites-leur que nous leur donnons quinze jours pour qu’ils y renoncent […] Quinze jours, pas plus. Dites-leur cela ». Hasard ou préméditation, la fin de cet ultimatum devrait coïncider avec la reprise prévue des discussions à Arusha, en Tanzanie, entre le gouvernement et l’opposition.

La crise politique, déclenchée en avril 2015 par l’annonce de la candidature du président Nkurunziza à un troisième mandat, n’en finit pas de s’approfondir depuis sa réélection en juillet 2015.…  Seguir leyendo »

Reunir una lista de las guerras a las que más atención y apoyo debe prestar la comunidad internacional en 2016 es difícil, y no por buenos motivos. Tras el fin de la guerra fría, durante veinte años, el número de conflictos mortales disminuyó. Había menos guerras y mataban a menos gente. Sin embargo, hace cinco años, esa tendencia positiva se invirtió, y desde entonces cada año hay más conflictos, más víctimas y más personas desplazadas. No parece que en 2016 vaya a mejorar la situación de 2015: lo que está en alza no es la paz, sino la guerra.

Dicho esto, hay algunos conflictos cuya urgencia y cuya importancia son mayores que las de otros.…  Seguir leyendo »

U.S. Army soldier provides security for infantry patrolling through Dandarh village, Afghanistan.

Pulling together a list of the wars most in need of international attention and support in 2016 is challenging for all the wrong reasons. For 20 years after the end of the Cold War, deadly conflict was in decline. Fewer wars were killing fewer people the world over. Five years ago, however, that positive trend went into reverse, and each year since has seen more conflict, more victims, and more people displaced. 2016 is unlikely to bring an improvement from the woes of 2015: It is war — not peace — that has momentum.

That said, there are conflicts whose urgency and importance rise above.…  Seguir leyendo »

Burundian security forces stand guard following the discovery of several bodies resulting from the country's renewed violence. Bjumubura, Burundi, October 4, 2015. October 4, 2015. (Yvan Rukundo/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

Burundi is back in the spotlight of the world’s media and the agenda of the United Nations Security Council. As recently as two years ago, the country was considered a success story in peacebuilding circles, but now the news is firmly of a negative variety. The UN is trying to prevent a new civil war in a region still haunted by the Rwandan genocide. How did success so quickly turn to failure?

Following the re-election of President Nkurunziza for a contentious third term in July this year, the Burundian crisis has itself entered a third phase. The first was the 2014 dispute around electoral preparations.…  Seguir leyendo »

The deteriorating situation in Burundi is a perfect storm of much that undermines stability in Africa today — presidents seeking impunity and power through dubious new terms, authoritarian regimes muzzling opposition and independent media, regional rivalries stalemating efforts to bring peace and outside powers unwilling or unable to act.

If Africa’s problems need African solutions, as we truly believe, this is the time for the African Union to step up and prove its worth.

We welcome the AU’s strong statements so far on Burundi, but it needs to go much further, by insisting its observers deploy throughout the country and preparing for a robust peace implementation mission that can forestall atrocities, incipient civil war and a possible intervention from neighbouring Rwanda.…  Seguir leyendo »

In July, Burundi, a speck on the Continent’s map, has become the focus of attention on the international stage thanks to a familiar story, “Democratizing Africa”. Burundi’s Nkurunziza has stepped into the famous role of the immovable African President. Like 007, this is a role that overshadows the actors that step up to play it; and we know that every time they do, politics–the metaphorical Martini–is going to get seriously shaken.

However, we must to look through the disguise: this isn’t a one-size-fits all get-up, and however tempting it may be to roll our eyes at Nkurunziza and start muttering about Mugabe, Kabila or Museveni, we must resist, for a very simple reason.…  Seguir leyendo »

Le 20 août, Pierre Nkurunziza a été investi pour la troisième fois. Son investiture, annoncée le matin même, a eu lieu presque en catimini et les ambassadeurs européens et américains accrédités à Bujumbura étaient visiblement absents tout comme l’Union africaine. La multiplication des assassinats en août a conduit la présidence à organiser l’investiture à la sauvette.

La crise a débuté en avril avec la candidature du président burundais à un troisième mandat alors que l’accord d’Arusha signé en 2000 et qui a mis fin à la guerre civile n’en prévoit que deux. Comme au Burkina Faso, société civile et opposition ont manifesté d’avril à juin dans les rues de la capitale et la communauté internationale s’est mobilisée pour le faire renoncer à son projet.…  Seguir leyendo »

En dépit de l’accord de paix d’Arusha d’août 2000 et de la Constitution qui en est issue, interdisant un troisième mandat, le président du Burundi, Pierre Nkurunziza, vient de fixer, au 21 juillet, le scrutin qui doit lui permettre de rester en place. Cette date, annoncée le 11 juillet, ne tient pas compte de la médiation en cours des Etats de l’Est africain qui avait demandé au moins un report à la fin de ce mois. Déjà le 29 juin des élections législatives et communales, que boycottées par l’opposition et les observateurs internationaux, ont donné, comme prévu par le pouvoir, 60 % des sièges de députés au parti du Conseil national pour la défense de la démocratie-Forces de défense de la démocratie (CNDD-FDD).…  Seguir leyendo »

The average monthly pay of Burundian soldiers serving as peacekeepers in Somalia soared from about $20 to $750. Credit Abdi Dakan/AU-UN IST, via Agence France-Presse

As I thought about the recent violence in the Central African nation of Burundi, I recalled a trip I made there three years ago. I realized that something I’d seen in 2012 was a key to why the coup attempt in May by a group of army officers had failed.

The capital city, Bujumbura, is bordered by hills that roll down toward Lake Tanganyika. At first sight, the lake, which is estimated to be the second largest freshwater body in the world, is stunningly beautiful. But the illusion of a paradise soon ended when I visited the beaches. They were littered with garbage, the shoreline so polluted that fishermen had to venture far from shore to catch fish.…  Seguir leyendo »

La tragédie de 1994 est dans tous les esprits. Pourtant, malgré la similitude des langues et la présence du clivage hutu-tutsi dans les deux sociétés, le Burundi n’est pas un jumeau du Rwanda. A l’Indépendance, en 1962, la question appelée «ethnique» depuis les années 70 ne s’y posait pas. Face à la lecture raciste opposant «Bantous» (Hutus) et «Hamites» (Tutsis), chère aux colonisateurs, les Burundais des collines sont restés de «mauvais élèves», attachés aux valeurs de leur propre culture. Néanmoins les violences qui ont frappé le Rwanda voisin depuis 1959 et l’impact des vagues de réfugiés ont entraîné à partir de 1965 une contagion nourrie de peurs et d’ambitions.…  Seguir leyendo »

Africa’s most volatile regions. Even though the coup appears to have failed, political and ethnic tensions are running high. Burundi’s history of genocide, civil war and refugee exodus are a grim reminder of what might follow.

The attempted ouster of Burundi’s president, Pierre Nkurunziza, followed days of violent protests against his decision to run for a third term. Confrontations between the police and protesters have left at least 15 dead, including two police officers.

Some protesters have been involved in the stoning and burning of suspected Nkurunziza sympathizers. With the president seemingly determined to hold on to power, the country is dangerously divided.…  Seguir leyendo »

On May 13, following over two weeks of widespread demonstrations in Burundi against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to run for a third term in office, Major General Godefroid Niyombare announced in a radio broadcast that he had removed Nkurunziza from office.

The attempted putsch occurred within hours of the president's departure for Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where he was scheduled to attend the East African Community summit on the Burundi crisis. Niyombare promptly ordered associates to shut down the airport and all borders to prevent Nkurunziza from re-entering the country. As protesters celebrated in jubilation in the center of Bujumbura, what appeared to be the end of the political crisis quickly unraveled.…  Seguir leyendo »

Après l’échec (provisoire ?) du coup d’Etat du général Godefroid Niyombare, chacun comprend que le Burundi s’enfonce dans des violences politiques pouvant conduire à un chaos régional. À l’origine de la crise qui a jeté des milliers de manifestants dans les rues de Bujumbura, la capitale, puis le putsch tenté par l’ancien chef d’état-major, on trouve l’obstination du président Pierre Nkurunziza à briguer un troisième mandat le 26 juin prochain, en violation des accords d’Arusha d’août 2000, fondement du consensus politique de ces dernières années.

Il avait fallu l’obstination et parfois les menaces des anciens présidents Nelson Mandela, Julius Nyerere et Jimmy Carter pour faire s’asseoir à une même table de négociations les chefs des différentes factions qui entretenaient depuis vingt ans la guerre civile et auraient préféré continuer à en découdre.…  Seguir leyendo »

The police firing water cannons and tear gas at protesters in Bujumbura on Sunday. Credit Thomas Mukoya/Reuters

When Faustin Kobagaya fled his northern Burundi home in March, sneaking through the night to the Rwandan border, he was running from what could soon become another violent chapter in his country’s fratricidal history.

As a 10-year-old in 1993, Mr. Kobagaya, a member of Burundi’s Tutsi minority, lost most of his extended family in a wave of ethnic violence that followed the assassination of the country’s first democratically elected president, Melchior Ndadaye. The murder of Ndadaye, a Hutu, unleashed a 12-year civil war in which an estimated 300,000 Burundians were killed. It also helped embolden anti-Tutsi extremists in Rwanda, who, only six months later, would begin to carry out Rwanda’s genocide in 1994.…  Seguir leyendo »

A young man named Claude Niyokindi was shot to death the other day, on the morning of July 13, on the outskirts of a rural village in the east-central African nation of Burundi. It is a country so little known in the West that an immigration agent at Kennedy Airport recently admitted that she’d never heard of it. (“Are you sure it isn’t Burma?” she asked.) Why should Americans take notice of one killing more or less, in a faraway country in a world full of murder and mayhem? Maybe it ought to be enough to paraphrase John Donne and say that any death diminishes all of us.…  Seguir leyendo »

Sin duda, todos y todas hemos leído en los últimos meses acerca del espectacular aumento del precio de los alimentos. Todo el mundo sufre las consecuencias pero ¿cuál es el significado real de esta situación para un país como Burundi, donde 8 de sus 9 millones de habitantes viven con menos de 1 euro y medio al día?

En Burundi, más del 90% de la población vive de la agricultura y la ganadería, pero ya no hay más tierras. Sólo queda un 5,9% de superficie forestal y la producción agrícola por habitante ha caído en los últimos diez años un 23%.…  Seguir leyendo »