Burundi on knife edge as Nkuruziza declared candidate for a third term

Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza was Saturday declared as candidate for a controversial third term in office, his ruling party announced, despite mounting protests over a move that the opposition says is unconstitutional.

“We wish to announce to the national and international community that the member who has been selected to represent us in the elections is Pierre Nkurunziza,” the head of the ruling CNDD-FDD party, Pascal Nyabenda, announced after a party meeting.

He said Nkurunziza “has the right to be elected.”

The opposition has vowed to take to the streets to challenge Nkurunziza’s candidacy for the June 26 presidential elections.

At a press conference in Bujumbura on Thursday, representatives of civil society organisations called for mass demonstrations today if President Nkurunziza gets the nod to run for a third term.

 Civil society activists and opposition party officials say a third term for Mr Nkurunziza would violate the Constitution and the Arusha peace deal that ended a decade of fighting in the small central African country.

Supporters say Mr Nkurunziza’s first five-year term, from 2005, does not count, as he was elected by legislators and not by universal adult suffrage.

Tensions have escalated in recent months in urban areas where opposition supporters have been holding protests, and in rural areas where an estimated 8,000 people have forced to flee their homes into Rwanda by youth militia associated with the ruling party.

In July 2014, Amnesty International warned that the ruling party was “perpetrating a relentless campaign of intimidation against government critics”.

It noted: “The youth wing of the CNDD-FDD, the Imbonerakure, have been responsible for intimidation, harassment and violence, attacking and even killing members of the political opposition with impunity.”

DREW PARALLELS

The warning drew chilling parallels with the Interahamwe militia in neighbouring Rwanda that participated in the 1994 genocide.

In January, the BBC reported that government soldiers had executed 17 rebels after they surrendered, and added that it had discovered their bodies in a mass grave in the north-west of the country. The government denied responsibility but launched an investigation.

 In a separate incident in the same month, gunmen in military fatigues dragged three CNDD-FDD supporters out of a bar in eastern Burundi, tied them up, and shot them dead. They later raided the party branch office in the area and burnt a party flag.

 There are fears that tensions could escalate into widespread violence following Mr Nkurunziza endorsement.

 On Monday, Defence Minister Maj-Gen Pontien Gaciyubwenge said the army was ready to “assist the other security actors in resisting the detractors of peace” if demonstrations broke out.

 He was speaking after a weekend in which police fired tear gas and used water cannons to disperse more than a thousand opposition supporters who were demonstrating against President Nkurunziza’s third term.

 Several parts of the capital were put on lock-down for hours and more than a hundred demonstrators were arrested, many of whom face up to 10 years in jail for “taking part in an insurrectional movement”.

Although President Nkurunziza, 51, has been circumspect about his third term ambitions, he is unlikely to find resistance within his party.

“I am quite sure that he is going to be anointed unopposed as the candidate,” a member of the party, who asked not to be named because they aren’t authorised to speak on its behalf, said before yesterday’s endorsement. “Even if there is a vote, he is likely to be win easily because CNDD-FDD has not prepared any other candidate. There is no plan-B.”

 Resistance has come from other sections of society, including the influential Catholic Church, with the powerful Archbishop of Gitega, Monsignor Simon Ntamwana, openly critical of the third-term campaign.

Nkurunziza’s supporters say the church is not happy that the President, who, like the majority of people in Burundi, was raised in the Catholic faith, converted to the ‘born-again’ Pentecoastal church. However, diplomats say Monsignor Ntamwana and other religious leaders are genuinely fearful that the third-term effort could lead to violence and political instability.

 Some government officials hold similar views, including members of the intelligence and security agencies.

A leaked February report from Burundi’s intelligence service warned that in case spontaneous demonstrations broke out, it would be difficult for the security forces to contain the situation without loss of human life.

“Even if the security forces manage to quell the situation there is the risk of using excessive force and those in power may one day find themselves in front of the International Criminal Court for excessive force against demonstrators,” the report says.

 The same report warned that there was a risk of security forces breaking down in the face of “spontaneous demonstrations” along ethnic-military lines.

We could not independently confirm widely-held views that the intelligence report, which recommended the CNDD-FDD to pick a new candidate, was the reason behind President Nkurunziza’s decision to fire the head of the intelligence service, Major-General Godefroid Niyombare in February, after only three months on the job.

Rights groups say space for political dissent and expression of critical and alternative views has been narrowing ahead of the elections.

In March the mayor of Bujumbura issued guidelines, in conjunction with the Interior Ministry, which only allowed demonstrations by CNDD-FDD while those of civil society groups and opposition parties face restrictions.

“As elections approach, the alarming crackdown on dissenting voices has intensified,” Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn of Africa and the Great Lakes, said. “The authorities need to ensure all Burundians can peacefully express their views.”

The tensions in Burundi have caught the attention of countries in the region and the international community. Earlier this month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein warned that the country was at a crossroads, caught between free and fair elections on the one hand and “violence and intimidation aimed at subverting democracy for the sake of gaining or maintaining political power” on the other.

After a visit to the country last year, Samantha Power, the United States ambassador to the UN, warned of “worrying developments” in Burundi, including the arming of militia allied to the ruling party.

However, a source familiar with the matter at the UN said some permanent members of the Security Council were reluctant to endorse a very strong position, arguing that the third-term debate was an internal matter.

RIGHTS VIOLATION

As a result, a statement by the Security Council in February made no reference to the third-term debate but only called for A peaceful process and investigation of human rights violations.

“They can’t influence him not to run again, so the option at the moment is to avoid violence,” the diplomatic source said. “It appears like there will be some violence. If it is low-key and limited, they will look the other way but if it becomes widespread then there will be pressure for a more vocal response and that message is clear to Nkurunziza.”

 The position of the Security Council and geo-political considerations appear to have set the tone for the African Union, which had a pre-election mission to the country last month, the East African Community, and other countries in the region including Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania.

President Paul Kagame of Rwanda hosted President Nkurunziza earlier this month to discuss the situation in Burundi and the growing refugee and insecurity crisis but was careful not to be drawn into the internal political contest in the country.

“I believe Burundi has the capacity to resolve its own issues,” he told journalists after the meeting, “but we are here to assist”.

Uganda, whose President Yoweri Museveni was one of the co-signatories of the Arusha peace deal and controversially engineered his own amendment to the constitution to remain in office, has been quiet on the matter.

Tanzania’s President Jakaya Kikwete, who is seen to wield influence in the neighbouring country but whose term ends in six months, addressed a meeting in Burundi earlier this year in his capacity as chairperson of the East African Community and noted that it was up to the people of Burundi to interpret the law and the legality of Mr Nkurunziza’s candidature.

President Nkurunziza is widely believed to enjoy popular support especially in the rural areas.

With only two months to polling day, the opposition’s best chance of defeating him appeared to be stopping him from getting back into the race.

Many will be hoping that ballots, rather than bullets, will eventually settle the contest.