The United Nations investigators on Wednesday warned Burundi might plunge into a new wave of atrocities as it is nearing a 2020 election with an unresolved political crisis, reported Reuters.
In a report released on Wednesday, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Burundi said the local authorities and the ruling party’s youth league, the Imbonerakure, have created a climate of fear for the people who opposed to President Pierre Nkurunziza and his ruling CNDD-FDD party. The investigators
According to the investigators, who based their findings on more than 1,200 statements from victims, witnesses, alleged perpetrators and other sources, the police, security forces, and the ruling party’s youth league were committing gross rights abuses to intimidate political opponents, activists, journalists and human rights defenders to join and support the ruling party in the run-up to 2020 elections.
Using a U.N. risk analysis for potential atrocity crimes, the U.N. investigators said all eight common risk factors were present in Burundi.
“There is no better early warning than this,” the U.N. panel’s chairman Doudou Diene said in a statement.
The report said the 2020 elections pose a major risk. It added that the Nkurunziza government was increasing control over non-governmental organizations and there was no real multi-party system since most parties had been infiltrated and divided.
The investigators found that eight common risk factors for criminal atrocities leading to a possible genocide were present in Burundi. The factors included an unstable political, economic and social environment; a climate of impunity for human rights violations; a weak judicial system; and the absence of an independent press and freedom of expression.
Burundi has been facing political instability since President Pierre Nkurunziza ran for a third term in 2015, defying critics who said he was violating constitutional term limits. More than 1,200 people were killed and over 400,000 got displaced in the violence between April 2015 and May 2017.
